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| Angel Valley Rd. near Cottonwood, AZ |
Wanderlust is defined as “a strong desire to travel,” but it is really so much more. It is a drive to fill or renew the senses
with those experiences, sights, sounds and feelings that seem to be forever
lost in modern western culture and society.
Now everything seems to revolve around giant plasma televisions,
computers that talk back and phones that manage your life.
To those of us who call ourselves nomads or wanderers, this
is not living. It is being controlled or
fit into a ready-made, societal determined, and often gender based niche
which really doesn’t fit. Like other
people, nomads come in every shape and size, with personalities and desires as
diverse and numerous as any other group.
A high percentage of us are conservationists and environmentalists. A
high percentage are spiritual, leaning toward Buddhism. Many prefer and look for natural or what is
sometimes called alternative medicine (preventative instead of reactive,
natural or herbal instead of chemical), and believe that our life-style itself
is preventative medicine, if not the cure.
Some of us are searching.
There are those who are trying to find themselves or Shangri-La. Probably a majority of us have no idea where
we’re going and love it that way. If you
have no idea where you’re going or where you’ll end up, every day is an
adventure. That, in itself, is invigorating and healthy. Researchers learned
long ago that activity goes a long way in helping you stay young.
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| Canyonland Nat'l Park |
Pamela and I love wilderness of any type. Our favorites seem to be the extremes – the rain forest
Cedar and Hemlock mountains of northwestern Montana and the desert. We can
handle large towns or groups for a relatively short time and then we have to
find a spot like where we are now. We’re at the south end of Mittry Lake, just
north of Yuma, Arizona. We are about
twenty miles into the desert near the Colorado River. The last 5-6 miles was
down a dusty, bumpy dirt road. I can look
out the window next to me at a channel where Egrets, Coots and Loons (or maybe
a Grebe) fish not ten yards from our
twenty foot camper-trailer home. Coyotes
can be heard howling in the early evening and the sound of water passing over a
small spillway lulls us to sleep at night. The date palm near us isn’t indigenous but we
enjoy it. Most of the indigenous plants are reeds and other water plants surrounded
by low barren, volcanic mountains.
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| The mountain stream near our place at Glacier |
The other day Pamela excitedly showed me our calendar. Yes,
we do have one even though we often have no idea of the time, day or date. January
was dotted with notes like see so-and-so, go to dentist, etc. The date was highlighted and there was
nothing showing after that. That was
what was exciting her.
Don’t get me wrong. We love our family and friends very much
and really enjoy being with them, but we also love the solitude of being
totally off the grid where it takes GPS to find us and the only thing which
makes us go to town is running out of water.
You’re always welcome to join us.
Our home is always with us, the length of our big Dodge Ram
1500 half-ton heavy, as we drive down the road. Many of us travel
short distances at a time yet our RV s may cover 15,000 miles a year or more.
Many of the Bureau of Land Management and other free camping areas have a 14
day stay limit. Our water and holding tanks allow us to stay in the wilderness
for twelve to fourteen days. Besides, Pamela and I are fine with the limit
since we’re usually ready to move on by then.
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| Mt Canon which greets us every morning at Glacier NP. |
Over our time on the road we log 12-15,000 miles a year and
have gone from central Florida to northwestern Montana twice. Our only extended stay is when we’re
volunteering as campground hosts in Glacier National Park, northwestern
Montana, from the first of May to the end of September. There we’re 16 miles
out into the park. Sixteen miles to a
phone signal and 40 miles to get internet. From there we wander eastward to the Midwest and
South to see our children and some old friends, returning to our beloved desert
by New Year. We stay in the desert until the heat drives us northward and we
start the cycle again. In seven months
of 2017, we stayed in sixty-five different places in sixteen different states.
Wildlife, trees, plants and rocks are our thing. Wildlife management – a euphemism for keeping
dumb people away from the animals – became my avocation after retirement, while
Pamela, a retired biology professor, has taken up geology. This drives our movement and triggers our
urge to move on. There is so much to
see. So many places to stop and appreciate before our ravenous society destroys
and devours them.
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| Mittry Lake, north of Yuma, AZ |
One of the things which prompted me to write this blog was
sitting here enjoying our surroundings and watching our neighbor fishing in the
quiet waters of the channel. It made me think of an old scout camp song
entitled “Happy Wanderer”.
I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.
Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.
I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun,
So joyously it calls to me,
"Come! Join my happy song!"
Chorus:
I wave my hat to all I meet,
And they wave back to me,
And blackbirds call so loud and sweet
From ev'ry green wood tree.
Chorus:
High overhead, the skylarks wing,
They never rest at home
But just like me, they love to sing,
As o'er the world we roam.
Chorus:
Oh, may I go a-wandering
Until the day I die!
Oh, may I always laugh and sing,
Beneath <the> clear blue sky!
Chorus:
P.S. Here's a YouTube link so you can sing along. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GgJHe0bC34
wonderful!
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