How is one supposed to cram 10 years worth of friendships into a week?
We’ve been traveling down the Pacific Coast for three weeks now, but no matter how long we visit with good friends from our previous life, it’s never enough time to feel like we’ve completely caught up.
Drizzly rain has followed us down the coast from Washington to Northern California. We’re cold and we want to go somewhere warm, darnit.
But during our week-long visit to Humboldt County California, we both sensed a feeling that almost made us want to stay longer, maybe even permanently return, to our old stomping grounds where the land is beautiful and the people are real.
People are so real in Humboldt, that during dinner conversations or over beers, whenever we got together with our friends, not a single one ever pulled out an iPhone or other electronic gadget.
You tell me, when was the last time you sat at a table with people who actually talked, and listened? Who made eye contact with you instead of staring into a screen?
Humboldt County is a special place like no other. We spent 10 years in this small community and although it wasn’t all good times, it was the last time we ever felt a real sense of community.
Despite the sucky weather, the poor economy and the great distance to any real city, just being there again makes us ask:
What else could you possibly need, when you’re surrounded by such good people and great beauty?
We knew we were pushing the envelope by staying here this long.
Last year at this time, we were already in Nevada, working as Satan’s Minion and far from the treacherous winter snowstorms that blanket our little piece of the Rockies.
This year, Fall really hung on, and we were happy to be able to watch the Aspens transition from day-glow fall colors to stripped down versions of their former summer glory.
Our plan was to leave this weekend, but we still have so much to do, and wanted Wyatt to get one more lesson in on Saturday morning. He can use all the help he can get. So we decided to leave on Monday or Tuesday.
But now, the newest weather forecast calls for snow showers and the heaviest snowfall of the season, with no reprieve in sight until Wednesday of next week.
Looks like our ETA for our friends in southern Colorado….Tinytown, Lake City and Pagosa Springs…won’t be until a week from today, when hopefully we can pull our trailer out of the driveway and up into the muddy, steep 6 percent grade that climbs up to our main county road.
For now, we’ll light the fireplace, bundle up and settle in.
For the last few mornings, snow has been blanketing the mountainside but melting off by noon. This is nature’s not-so-subtle warning that one day very soon, we’ll wake up with four feet of the white stuff and have to dig our way out of here. Before that happens, we’ve been making progress getting the rig loaded, checking off lists and eating through our gigantic freezer.
Recently I got into a discussion with a friend about whether or not it was cheaper to stay home or hit the road.
I believe being on the road is cheaper. How about you?
If you know what you’re doing, it’s possible to live more cheaply in an RV than a stick house (provided that you don’t have mortgage or rent to cover).
Being the meticulous bookeeper that I am, I track all of our expenses in Quickbooks. Here’s a general breakdown of what we spent four months at a time on the road, and here at Jerry’s Acres.
January 2010 to April 2010 (on the road)
Booze & Entertainment: $364
Food & Dining Out: $1798
Health & Beauty: $19
Campgrounds: $537
Pet Expenses: $624
Home Repair: $115
Truck Repair: $39
Utilities: $217
Fuel: $1090
TOTAL: $4,803 ($1,201 per month avg cost)
May 2010 to September 2010 (at Jerry’s Acres)
Booze & Entertainment: $400
Food & Dining Out: $2915
Health & Beauty: $138
Pet Expenses: $987
Home Repair $506
Truck Repair: $556
Utilities: $590
Fuel: $1563
TOTAL: $7,655 ($1,913 per month avg cost).
This excludes business expenses, one-time building upgrades, and static monthly costs like taxes, insurance and club dues. These costs are for two people and one dog.
But yes, living in a stick house is indeed more expensive! Even up here on a remote mountaintop, we find things to indulge in. We eat way more high end good eats when we have a full-sized refrigerator to stock, and a large kitchen to make a mess in. Also, driving the one hour each way to town isn’t cheap either, which is why we only do it twice a week to take Wyatt to his lessons and stock up.
My own tips for living cheaply on the road include:
Invest in a good solar setup. Doing so will save hundreds by allowing you to boondock in free places.
Never pay full price for a campground.Passport America and Escapees are the only two discount camping clubs worth the cost. Passport’s 50 percent discount will pay for itself the first time you use it and Escapees 10 percent savings will pay for itself after a few nights. If you’re too cheap to do that, good sites like FreeCampgrounds.com, RVParking.com and FreeCampsites.net are good sites to search.
Diesel rigs are the way to go. While diesel may not always be the cheapest fuel, the mileage you get out of a tank will be better than with a gas engine. And their power kicks butt on the highway!
Stay away from popular places and touristy areas. You’ll pay three times what you would normally pay for a comparable campground outside the entertainment zone. There’s so much more to see outside of these crowded areas.
Eat in! It’s tempting to try every new eatery in every town you go through, but save those for special occasions.
We’ll have more tips for you as we head out for our fourth winter on the road. Until then, stay warm and be sure to point your rig west…we’ll see you in the desert!
What a thrill to see that Casiokids are Amazon’s “Free Download of the Day.”
Who are Casiokids you ask? Only one of the best bands we saw last year at South By Southwest in Austin! What a thrill to know that we saw this quirky, 80′s-style Norwegian techno group when they were unknowns here in the U.S., playing in a parking lot where they had to throw free beer into the audience to get people to show up.
Ok, gotta admit, the free beer is why we stayed to check ‘em out. But it worked! They left an impression on us, and we’re so glad to see they’re about to make it big here in the states.
Download their free MP3 and you’ll see why we loved them. Buy their vinyl album (or MP3s or CDs). Tell a friend. And remember, we saw them when they were nobody!
As a vegetarian since 1989, I’ve never liked rodeos.
The whole idea of tying up an animal or wrestling him to the ground for sport always just seemed appalling to me.
I had never actually seen a rodeo in person before, but all these years took PETA on its word that “rodeos are nothing more than manipulative displays of human domination over animals, thinly disguised as entertainment.”
Skill or Stupidity? You Decide.
When we were in Sweetwater, we happened to camp out at the fairgrounds the same weekend the West Texas Rodeo Association was in town. For just the price of our campsite, we had the option of checking out two days worth of events, free. Jim assumed I would want to leave, or at least organize a protest. But something compelled me to check it out. Being a cheapskate I figured I had nothing to lose if I found it as horrible as I always heard it would be. At least I would know PETA wasn’t exaggerating. After all these years, this veggie-burger eatin’, sprout growin’ hippie was going to judge rodeos for herself, I thought.
We watched all sorts of amateur rodeo competitions, like chute dogging, where a contestant (always male, wonder why?) jumps into the steer’s chute and when the gates are opened, hangs on by the horns while the steer runs down the field and then the guy attempts to wrestle the animal to the ground within 30 seconds.
There was also goat tying, where brawny farm girls wearing feed caps ride into the stadium on a horse, dismount, then try to throw down and tie up a tethered goat as fast as possible.
Now, call me crazy, but I think it’s pretty unfair to prod a steer to run down a field, then twist his head nearly 360 degrees around until it falls down and call it sport. Or run after a terrified baby goat that’s screaming to get away, because he knows exactly what’s coming.
On the other hand, I also learned that other competitions like barrel racing or team roping were far more reflective of true skill. Team roping is when two contestants ride alongside a steer and one tries to throw a lasso around a horn while the other goes after the steer’s rear leg with a lasso. You try throwing a lasso at a moving target and see how easy it is. I know I can’t.
Respect All Life, Silly Cowpokes!
Clearly, in the bygone days of the Old West, many of these exercises were of a way of life for cowpokes on the ranch. These competitions weren’t just games, they were a necessary part of making a living. Seeing amateur rodeo gave me a tiny glimpse into that world, and for that reason I was glad I went.
Still, so much of what I saw billed as “competition” was just mean, violent and unfair to the animals. I can only hope that in a world where many of us recognize the value in making cats and dogs part of our families, more people will adopt these same compassionate attitudes toward all creatures great and small, not just the ones we consider “pets.”
Judging by the few spectators at the Sweetwater rodeo, this might actually be happening. One can always hope, anyways.
We’ve been traveling down the Pacific Coast for three weeks now, but no matter how long we visit with good friends from our previous life, it’s never enough time to feel like we’ve completely caught up.
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