The rain was a
gentle patter inside Nitsitapiisinni (nicknamed "Sinni"),
our twenty-foot camper trailer home. Rain is normally a very pleasant
experience inside a camper and, for us, is rather like putting an
old-fashioned clock in with a puppy to help it sleep. This would have
been true on this particular night had we not been camped on a narrow
peninsula in the desert created by two dry gulches. Long before I
ever camped on the desert I had learned that you don't camp in dry
gulches no matter how inviting they may be. We weren't in the gulches
and I figured that both were sufficiently deep to handle the 1.5 to
3 inches of annual rainfall in the Sonoran Desert. Nevertheless this
was our first time this far off the grid. Little did we know that
the Sonoran Desert was about to receive one-half of its annual
rainfall in one night. Thankfully we didn't learn this fact until
later.
We are, what I
call "Nomads". I started using the term "nomads"
in February of 2017. For some reason it seems to make more sense
than "full-timers" when describing the distinct group of
full-timers into which we fall. A lot of full-timers, and probably
the original full-timers, give up sticks-n-bricks (a house) in favor
of an RV or trailer which they take to a gated community with full
hookups (water, electric & sewage), swimming pool, community hall
and activities, etc., in a state like Florida or Arizona where they
stay from September or October to April or May. Some live at the
same place almost year around. The group I call "nomads"
have likewise given up sticks-n-bricks but we move around and rarely,
if ever, stay in a gated RV community. There are three main reasons
that we move - (i) there is a stay limit where we are camped, (ii)
the weather, and (iii) we just feel like moving on. We generally stay
in no-cost or low-cost dispersed camping areas. In the west there are
lots of areas where one can camp for 14-16 days at no cost. There are
some areas where you can stay an unlimited time because it is just
too remote to be checked often. If we hear of a really bad storm,
extreme cold or other less than pleasant conditions, we will
determine whether or not our location is a good place to ride out bad
weather. If it isn't, we go in search for the best place to hunker
down. Wanderlust vies with stay limits for primary cause. We will
read or hear of some place that we'd really like to visit. Off we go.
We may also get a call or text from one of our nomadic friends to
meet them somewhere for a few days.
When we do hit
the road we rarely know where we're going to stop for the night.
Sometimes we have a fair idea of the general area we're seeking.
There may be a park or some feature that we want to see and we will
head toward it and find dispersed camping nearby. We have also been
known to see a local park of interest and just pull in.
When our 2016
season at Glacier National Park ended on September 29th 2016 we made
our way back to visit family and friends in the midwest and south.
After a granddaughter's wedding we started west. Little by little we
found ourselves being drawn more and more off the grid. It didn't
take us long to realize that the off-the-grid nomad was our
life-style.
We had been
staying at Corp of Engineers (COE) campgrounds and a couple of state
parks as we moved westward toward Quartzsite, AZ. We had been in
free dispersed camping about five or six miles southwest of
Quartzsite, AZ for two weeks. Even though the masses of campers that
converge on Quartzsite every January were gone, we still had a number
of campers around us. There were also a number of prospectors, camped
along dry gulches, digging holes in the side of the gulch looking for
gold. There were a number of hand-dug and timbered deep shaft gold
mines that had been blocked off by the government. Prospecting is
legal but deep shaft mines are unsafe. The prospectors around us were
understandably suspicious of anyone getting near their digs. We
didn't realize that we were camped on almost the exact spot where
gold was first discovered in Arizona.
After two weeks
outside Quartzsite we decided to move south and east near the KOFA
Wildlife Refuge. We had been told that an area of free dispersed
camping along the Palm Canyon Road was outstanding. We found a
marvelous place where we had Sinni's big back window facing the
mountains of KOFA refuge. At this time we had only our two 80 watt
portable solar panels, but they provided quite adequate power to
charge our two new 6 volt, 224 amp hour batteries connected in series
to give us 12 volts with 224 amp hours. We were a good hundred yards
or so from the dirt road that led into the refuge about a mile
further east. There was a meditation circle someone had made about
fifty yards from us. That was the only sign of human existence. The
nearest town was 25 miles away and we knew that there we two other
campers some miles into the refuge on the Queen Canyon Road, which is
definitely a four-wheel drive only road. We had traveled the Queen
Canyon Road that day. Some of the drops were so bad that I had to
stop and remove our big Blue Ox receiver because it would bottom out.
On any clear
night you can see the Milky Way with amazing clarity because there is
absolutely no light polution. It was magnificent. We were happy,
content and totally at home. We had confidence in our truck ("Mighty
Moe") and Sinni. That was when we knew. We were nomads.
The furthest we
every were from so-called civilization was at a place called Hite in
southern Utah. We were sixty miles from the nearest village, gas or
phone and camped on an open area just above the Colorado River. It
happened to be a small fee area. At one time in its history it was a
bustling marina, but as the lake receded the marina was abandoned and
nomads, such as ourselves, and primitive campers took possession.
There were two other campers near us. We became friends with one
couple and shared meals and information in the evenings after we
returned from our day's adventures.
Some of our nomad
friends never leave the southwest. They move down along the Mexican
border during the coldest part of the winter and move into the
mountains in northern Arizona and New Mexico as the temperatures
climb. Because we do really love our new home; Columbia Falls, MT.;
and Glacier National Park where we volunteer as camp hosts along with
other duties, we anticipate an annual pilgrimage north and south,
driven by weather and the park season. We will undoubtedly explore
new areas and want to spend some time in New Mexico, but we have some
favorite places where we know we can spend a comfortable and
enjoyable winter.
Our twenty-foot
trailer has everything we need for comfortable living. I often joke
about the fact that we use the term "camping" but I don't
really consider what we do to be camping. The people who sleep on
the ground, cook outside and rely on a tent and -20 degree sleeping
bag to stay warm are camping. We merely take our comfortable home,
albeit quite tiny by most standards, with us. When we're on the road
we're never more than eighteen feet from home. We have electricity,
a furnace, hot and cold running water, an 8 cubic foot fridge, a
really good gas stove with oven, a walk-around bed and our bathroom
even has a bathtub. What more could you want? The biggest thing
about being a nomadic full-timer is that you must be totally
self-contained. If we had a good source of drinking water and a way
of properly disposing of our sewage, the only thing that would force
us to go to town would be propane. We can go about a month on our two
thirty pound cylinders.
Moving off the
grid is not for everyone. Some people don't like the isolation or
may fear being so far from a town. Other are very honest about being
afraid of things that go bump in the night. At this writing we have
seen fifteen bears in ten days. Many people find the idea of
depending upon PV (photovoltaic energy - the name for the new solar
technology) and not having city water, microwave, TV, etc.,
intolerable. Downsizing is a significant barrier to anyone
contemplating any sort of full-timing. My entire wardrobe, including
park uniform and coats, is contained in one 17" closet, two 11"
square designer bins, and a corner of the under-the-bed storage area.
You can pack a lot into a 40 foot motor home (Class-A) but then
you're limited to where you can go. We're only twenty feet long, so
we can go almost anywhere. We have 160 square feet in the trailer
and use our 6'6" covered truck bed for storage and to carry our
kayaks, bicycles, back-country equipment and scuba diving gear.
Living the
nomadic life is quite inexpensive. Between May 2016 and May 2017 we
spent $1,508.65 on site fees, $268.62 on propane, $5,821.99 on
gasoline (for the truck), and around $7,800 on food and incidentals.
Our basic living cost for the year was $15,399.26. BUT one should
not consider this life-style to save money. Firstly, almost half of
our year is spent volunteering for the National Park Service. For our
volunteer time we are given a camp site for Sinni. You really need
to love the parks and being a park volunteer to do this. It is work.
People who volunteer for the purpose of getting a free camp site are
terribly disappointed and don't last long. Secondly, we find our way
of life very comfortable and enjoyable, but not everyone would agree
with us, especially if they can't do without television, internet,
malls, restaurants, and all the trappings of the city.
For us being off
the grid is bliss. We travel around the country enjoying some of the
most magnificent scenery and wilderness on the planet. We spend our
lives as far away from urban congestion and suburban sprawl as
possible. We avoid all of the life-draining ugliness and chaos of
what humans call civilization. We would much rather be deep in the
forest or out in the desert than in an RV park or resort. We have
many friends who share our passion for being off the grid but we do
often spend extended periods of time in what many would call
isolation or solitude. But we don't see it that way. The mountains
give us strength. The trees and plants give us shelter and provide
unparalleled beauty. The animals are our friends. Nitsitapiisinni -
our way of life.
