It is already after 9am. Pamela had a
meeting in Versailles, KY., a small eastern Kentucky town about 11
miles away. I stopped at a grocery store on the way home to pick up a
couple of things I need for dinner tonight. The dogs are happy to
hear me return. It is still quite chilly outside so only
Atilla-the-Honey stays out very long. In fact, she's still sitting
outside seemingly enjoying herself. Teddy, the elder of the three at
14 years old, is lying near the space heater. I had turned it on
because it was only 54 inside. It's already up to 64, probably
because I'm seasoning a new piece of cast iron cookware and the oven
is on. It stinks, but it's worth the smell as well as the effort.
Cubby, our 11 year old, has found one of the dog beds and is
sleeping. He can always find the softest available spot.
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| Camped at Camping-on-the-Kentucky, Versailles, KY A family campground right on the Kentucky River. |
A lot of people wonder about the life
of those of us who are called full-timers. Pamela and I aren't
official full-timers yet but will be in 183 days. Right now we're as
close as anyone can be without being worthy of the title. We spend
about 140 days a year living in our 16 foot, 35 year old trailer we
call “Willy”. There are actually sub-groups among the
full-timers. Most people hear the word “full-timer” and assume
that we travel from RV park to RV park which are like small trailer
cities. We are a part of the sub-set who rarely stay in RV parks and
prefer the out-of-the-way campgrounds, either in woods, desert or on
the beach, that are relatively secluded and not mini-towns. In the
past year we spent one night in an RV park when we were driven off
the roads of western Kansas by thunderstorms and tornadoes. We spent
2 nights in an RV park when we were trying to take my grandson to see
Rocky Mt National Park and all of the park campgrounds were full.
This sub-group is as likely to be boon-docking (camping where there is
no electricity or water) as they are to be in a campground (usually a
state park or privately owned) with utilities. We are a
self-sufficient group capable of stopping and camping absolutely
anywhere. When we are going a distance, such as our 2004 mile trip to
Glacier, we pull into Flying J/Pilot truck stops late at night, climb
into Willy and sleep, and get on the road early the next morning.
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| Willy at Sprague Creek where we live and work as volunteers for the National Park Service for 4-5 months a year starting in May. |
You will find that this subgroup that I
am calling “Walden Pond Full-timers” are frequently found doing
volunteer work at state and federal parks, like we do at Glacier
National Park, because we have that love of nature and a
Thoreau-Walden Pond mentality; viz simplicity and close to nature.
Some have found small private campgrounds in remote areas where they
can live in anything from woods near a town to wilderness areas,
deserts and beaches. Pamela and I are making a list of such potential
places to stay. It is great fun and an adventure in itself to seek
out and try small out of the way campgrounds. This past summer we helped a couple from Arizona who are also Walden
Ponders. As a thank you they gave us directions to their secret spot
on the rim of the Grand Canyon where you can camp with absolutely no
one around and right on the edge of the canyon!
We are currently camped at a small
family owned camp ground that will go on that list and we'll share
with others. It is right on the Kentucky River. If you visit my
FaceBook site – Old Conservationist – I've posted pictures. It is
beautiful. It is the type of place we
seek. You have to remember, such places are generally well off the
beaten path. This place – Camp-on-the-Kentucky – is at least
three miles from the nearest thru road and 11 miles south of
Versailles, KY. Camp-on-the-Kentucky, like so many of the places we
find, is down a small, narrow road which requires a good tow-vehicle
and plenty of confidence and skill. The picture of the sign showing a
steep incline for 2,000 feet doesn't tell the whole story. At the
bottom of the incline is the Kentucky River. You'd better have a plan
and some good brakes.
Pamela and I have been building up to
being full-time Walden Pond Full-timers for two years. Making sure
that you have the right trailer and the right tow-vehicle is most
important. We love vintage trailers so we opted for a 1980 Fleetwood
Wilderness that is 16 feet long. I wouldn't even look at anything
that didn't have a double axle. That is for safety and stability. It
also helps if you blow a tire when you're so far into the wilderness
that it takes a tow-truck a day to get to you. As I said, we call our
trailer “Willy”. Most Walden Ponders and full-timers name their
units. They are not only your home but your survival. Willy has a
full bathroom. That was something on which Pamela insisted. Our bed
is slightly wider than a single, but we're comfortable. We have a
dinette and my kitchen has a three-burner Magic Chef gas stove with
nice oven and double sink. I'm the cook in the family and I love my
little kitchen. I like my little Magic Chef much better than the
fancy Jen-Air we have in
Evansville. Willy is fairly well insulated.
We have been able to keep the inside temperature a comfortable 64-65
when it is snowing outside with just a space heater. We do have a
good furnace but we've only used it two or three times. Actually the
one time we used it was just because we were boon-docking and there
was no 120V for the space heater. We could probably get it warmer
inside but both of us are quite comfortable in the mid-60s. I spent
the winter months of 2014 and 2015, while Pamela had to teach,
restoring Willy. He will always be a work in progress but we have the
inside pretty much as we like. I opened up all of the seams on the
outside, removed any bad wood, and redid the entire outside. That
included removing, cleaning and refitting all the windows along with
removing and replacing all the roof vents and utility connections.We have our wilderness trailer. It is only 128 square feet, but
we're comfortable in it and we can take it almost anywhere.
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| My kitchen in Willy. There are overhead cabinets that didn't get in the picture. |
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| Mighty Moe and Willy at Guntersville Lake, Alabama The great thing about Willy's size is that we can put him almost anywhere. |
Our tow vehicle, which has been dubbed
'Mighty Moe', is a 2013 Ram 1500 4x4 with the large Hemi engine. It
can tow up to 11,700 pounds. Willy only weighs in at <3,000 pounds
fully loaded. Having such a powerful tow vehicle for a light trailer
proved its worth the first season we had Willy at Glacier National
Park in far northwestern Montana. We were heading back to the
mid-west and spent the night at a very primitive campground in the
Lewis and Clark National Forest in southwest Montana – e.g. Pit
toilets and hand pump your water. The undergrowth pulled one of our
brake wires. Because of the size of our tow-vehicle we crossed the
Continental Divide three times and didn't notice that we didn't have
brakes until Pamela noticed the wire dangling as we backed into a
campsite. In fact we had actually safely taken Willy into the very
remote and steep Teton National Forest area to camp without brakes
because our tow-vehicle was bigger than needed. I would never
recommend light and/or cheap for a tow-vehicle. Remember, you get
what you pay for. A hefty tow-vehicle with a big engine, good tow
package, etc., will more than pay for itself if you go full-time.
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| View from our campsite at Gros Ventre, Grand Teton National Forest. |
We had just finished our 2014 tour of
duty at Glacier National Park and were going to visit some other park
areas on the way back to Evansville. One of our destinations was the
Teton-Yellowstone parks. We knew that finding a campground was not
going to be easy and a NPS Ranger friend had told us about Gros Ventre
in the Grand Teton National Forest. As expected there were no
openings in the National Park campgrounds. We headed into the
wilderness, traveling over 20 miles on gravel roads, to the Gros
Ventre campground. It is inhabited mostly by fishermen who are there
for the lake which was created by the great Gros Ventre landslide.
When we got there it was actually full but the host said that a
manager had just quit and his site was empty. If we paid $25/night,
as opposed to the normal $5/night in a national forest, we could have
water and electricity. We took it. We sat on a small bluff just above
the main campground with a panoramic view of the lake, slide and
Grand Teton mountains about 25 miles away. If you have the Walden
Ponder personality it pays to be flexible and adventuresome.
We like living in a trailer versus
recreational vehicle. This is 100% a matter of preference. We know
full-timers who live in trailers and recreation vehicles of all
descriptions. We don't like the slide outs because they are
always a potential source of problems which you don't want if you are
in remote and primitive areas. Many of the slide outs also make it
impossible to use the trailer unless you open them. That precludes
stopping and sleeping at truck stops and national forest pull offs.
We prefer the trailer for two reasons – (1) you don't have to buy a
toad (small vehicle that you tow behind the RV) when you pull a
trailer and (2) if something happens to your tow-vehicle you're not
without a place to live. We knew full-timers whose RV engine had to
be repaired. They had to rent a place to live and a car to drive
until it was fixed.
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| Cozy Campground, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming |
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| Cozy Campground |
Being a Walden Pond Full-timer is almost a calling as well as a life-style. John Muir once said, "the mountains are calling and I must go." We also love the sea shore, rivers and desert. Nature calls Pamela and me and, as a result, we have camped from Florida to Montana. We really enjoy a concert but if we had to make a choice we'd elect to sit quietly and listen to birds, the surf, or a brook and all the sounds around us in the wilderness. We love to go to art shows but if we were forced to choose, we know that there is no greater artist than Mother Nature. (Apologies to a dear friend who is a great artist.) Great cities have so many things to do and see, but as much as we might like to see and do those things there is no doubt in our minds that living close to nature is where we want to be. We avoid interstate highways. We want to see the land. There is no right direction or right place or proper way to go. When we were talking about what we wanted to do between the time we left Glacier and had to be back for Pamela's school we came up with one plan, made five changes to that plan, and didn't follow any of them. Had we followed a plan we would have missed camping in the wild flower meadow at Cozy Campground, a lovely primitive campground along a gorgeous stream in Bridger-Teton National Forest. There was no electricity. There was a pump well a short distance from us. No security lights. When the sun went down the stars came out in all their brilliance.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Having returned to Evansville before finishing this blog, I had just backed Willy into his long-term spot. A neighbor about my age was out walking his dog. He stopped. "I was surprised to see you are still here," he said. I told him that Pamela was going to have surgery and we would probably stay in Evansville until after the first of the year. "That's a long time for you guys to stick around here." He was being sympathetic. He knows of our love of the outdoors. "You guys sure know how to live," he said almost over his shoulder as he waved and walked away. I stopped and thought about what he had said. He's right.
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