Chlorpyrifos fact check

I was going through my file of screen clips that I take of articles I feel are important but I haven't had (or taken) the time to fact check.  I ran across this post.  It's really scary, IF its true. So, I decided to do some fact-checking. 

My findings are that the claim is basically absolutely true!  Scary!   The EPA had been forced by the courts to make a final decision on Chlorpyrifos before Trump took office. It decided to ban the chemical. Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate. Tabun and Sarin gases are two of the world's most notorious military nerve gases and both are organophosphates.

Yes, Scott Pruitt – known for being anti-EPA and then made the EPA director by Trump - reversed the EPA decision to ban the chemical. It was banned in Europe in 2008 Singapore in 2009, and South Africa in 2010.

 The CEO of Dow Chemical, Andrew Liveris, was appointed by Trump to a White House manufacturing working group, and his company did donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. Liveris also was scrutinized over reports that he met with Pruitt prior to his announcement reversing the ban. I can't find this either denied or confirmed.  The info is out there but I decided that I had learned what I needed.  But, yes, the fact is that this 180 degree change came at a point in time just after the Dow CEO had gained access to the President and after Dow Chemical donated $1 million.

The only things which isn't 100% accurate is the claim that it was a Nazi nerve drug, but even here it isn't far off. A German researcher, named Gerhard Schrader, discovered that organophosphates interact with cholinesterase, which is an enzyme that aids in the production of an important neurotransmitter. Schrader was trying to develop an insecticide but he found that it was exceptionally toxic and he even ended up hospitalized due to contact. That was 1930. So, whereas Chlorpyrifos wasn't developed as a nerve gas by the Nazis for the military, organophosphate compounds known as Tabun and Sarin grew out of Schrader's research and did become a military weapon.

This does confirm the complaint against the Trump Administration, and it definitely makes one wonder about the EPA under Pruitt's leadership. No one, and I mean NO one, argues that organophosphates are not extremely and dangerously toxic, yet our government is allowing it to be sprayed on your fruits and vegetables.  How comfortable is that?

The EPA now says that the previous EPA science was flawed. Are they allowed to say “science”?  The Trump EPA says that Chlorpyrifos is safe as mixed by Dow. Of course, that doesn’t instill much confidence since it is the same Trump EPA that says exposure to radiation equal to 5,000 chest x-rays is safe. 

Think about this when you bite into that apple. 

RTR Nomad Community

A "street" at RTR 2018

A young woman needs an 11/16 inch impact bit to finish fixing the suspension on her truck. It is important because her truck pulls her cargo trailer home. The word passes through the campsites until a bit is found.  A couple have a mishap with their scooter and need transportation.  A new nomad, alone and wondering about the future finds friendship, guidance, assistance and encouragement.  Two young women talk about what they see as the reality of their lives.  People sharing directions to dispersed camping they have discovered in unbelievably beautiful places that most Americans only see on Facebook or National Geographic.

A little over a week ago a great number of people – mostly nomads who generally live relatively secluded lives, traveling the country, seeking out places of great natural beauty – came together to form an instant city.  A sea of campers, vans, trailers, school buses, cargo trailers, truck campers and RVs of every sort, we come together for the purpose of sharing a short-term community. We come together to share, to learn, to grow and to celebrate life. 

The event which created this nomad city and brought this community to life is the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR) which gathers annually in the desert outside the town of Quartzsite, Arizona.  Despite our tremendous diversity we are drawn together by a sense of commonality which quickly jump starts community.  

There are several sub-groups in the RTR; e.g. the music group, the art group, etc.; just as you would find in any community.  However, there are three things which unite us all – being minimalists, which is a natural part of the nomadic life and creating comfortable living facilities that are very mobile and capable of staying off-the-grid for extended periods.  “Off-the-grid” means living in places like the desert or a forest where there are no utilities or services.  We must be able to be totally self-contained and self-sufficient.

Our living units must be quite mobile and enable this self-contained and self-sufficient life. This draws us together.  Nothing brings nomads together in friendship like talking about meeting these challenges. Nothing binds us together like supporting, encouraging and helping each other. We study each other’s rigs and pick each other’s brains for ideas.  When we discover or learn something we share it with the community. You never watch your neighbor struggle.

An RTR group activity 

During the day we have activities at RTR.  There are morning meditation and yoga groups.  There’s an art center and music group. There is plenty to do but the majority do what most of us came to do; viz. make new friends, greet old friends, and sit and talk. 

I think Americans have forgotten about talking and visiting.  Some of us are old enough to remember how people would sit on porches and talk and visit on a warm summer’s evening. It was something that happened in large cities as well as small towns. Now people sit inside and watch television.  It is sad how the very design of new homes on large lots isolates people from a community.  Each evening the desert here is dotted with campfires surrounded by people – friends - talking about the day, sharing stories about their adventures since last year, admiring the magnificent night sky, swapping information about and directions to new and exciting places to visit, and learning more about their new friends.

Free stuff. 

As a group we don’t have a lot of money and we are, by nature, extremely frugal.  Because we don’t have a lot of money we may be more inclined to share.  At the center of our RTR camp there are four large tarps with everything from clothing to books to tools and food. It is all free, and it is all put there by members of the community.  I saw a man putting a very nice pair of auto jacks in the tool pile. He could have posted them on Craig’s List or other sale forum but he elected to put them out to share with someone who needed them and might not have the money to buy a pair.  We have learned, through our very life-style, that you don’t waste anything and you don’t buy what you don’t need.  I guess you’d call us frugal minimalists.

Thanksgiving 2017 near Cottonwood, AZ

I can’t help but digress here and share an example from Thanksgiving 2017.  This community - this sharing - isn’t limited to our time at RTR. It takes place wherever nomads come together.  At Thanksgiving we were on a beautiful ridge just north of Cottonwood, Arizona.  There were a number of us camped there, and about half were looking for work and experiencing hard times. As a community we decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner.  There were two or three who just didn’t have anything to share but we were able to convince them to come because we were confident there would be plenty of food. (Have you ever seen a carry-in where there was a shortage of food?)  One of our nomad friends had a forty foot Class-A.  We met at his place because he had an outside television.  He had never used it, but he figured it out.  Twenty of us had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner in the desert and watched football on Robert’s television.  That is sharing. That is community.

There is also a great deal of sharing of information at RTR. It is meant to be a time and place for new nomads to come and gather information, knowledge, experience and encouragement from those of us who have some experience under our belts.  There are classes in everything from solar energy to solar baking, sharing new gadgets to outfitting a Prius for full-timing. Even outside the classes experienced nomads help and encourage the new comers. A friend of ours who spent years in a Prius came to RTR this year in a pop-up truck camper.  He is an engineer and has tremendous outside-the-box ideas, and he really enjoys sharing his ideas.

Nomads tend to be loners or stay in small groups.  RTR is our exception for the sole purpose of coming together to share, to learn, to grow and to celebrate our way of life.  I believe that it is a great success.  

"We know we belong to the land ...."

Our trailer, Nitsitapiisinni, at sunset during the Rubber Tramp
Rendevous.  

“We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand . . . .”  (the musical Oklahoma)

When you are in the desert with a group of over 3,500 registered units – meaning more than 3,500 people and as many as >7,000 – you expect to see almost everything.  For the most part, that’s true. We just saw a moving van that had been transformed into a marvelous motorhome complete with a fold-down deck, wood sash windows and exterior lighting.  The lady across from us, who is the founder of Boondockers United, is in a Fleetwood Wilderness just like our Willy, which was 35 years old.  There are  a number of cargo vans,  cargo trailers, Transits, truck-camper popups and other vehicles that have been creatively transformed into nomadic homes.  Many people give Pamela and me great praise for all of the little things we’ve done to Nitsitapiisinni (our 20 ft camper trailer home) to make her more comfortable, but they pale at the effort, energy and creativity that has gone into many of these nomadic dwellings.*

The RTR at sunset from our back window. 

We all share three things; we love living off-the-grid, we are all stricken with an incurable case of wanderlust, and we have a common aversion to cities.  This large RV city in the desert, which our rendezvous has created, is short lived and only annual. You do find almost everything here.  There are many of us who have adequate retirement plans and have elected this life style.  There are younger people who decided not to wait until retirement and work as needed and wherever to finance their nomadic urges. Then there are those who are out of work and/or down on their luck who elected to live the nomadic life and live in the desert rather than reside in the squalor and crime of a city while they look for employment.  Some of them find work among the nomads by installing solar panels and doing odd jobs.  It is a growing community of people.  The growth is partially due to people realizing how much more fun, healthy, and stress-free this life-style is as well as people being forced by our society to make a choice. I think they “choose wisely.” 

Volunteers get their bags and tools as they set out into
the desert to clean up. 

Yes, you find almost everything here at the Rubber Tramp Rendevous (RTR). But one thing is, to me, very conspicuously missing. Trash! The RTR camping area is unbelievably clean.  Historically the group of people called hobos and tramps were notoriously dirty. That just isn’t true here despite the name Rubber Tramp. Quite the contrary. Pamela and I have stayed in a lot of dispersed camping in the desert.  To be exact, we have stayed in 22 different dispersed camping areas in the desert since January 2017.  We have never seen a cleaner camping area, which is mind-boggling considering the tremendous number of people who suddenly converged on this small plot of desert.  As well seasoned camp-hosts it is second nature for us to pick up any trash, and we’ve been known to police (clean up) camping areas, even when they are national parks.  We have been at RTR for a week and we haven’t found one piece of trash to pick up!! 

There are multiple reasons for this. Perhaps the most significant one here is that there are a lot of veteran nomads at RTR.  We teach the newbees, and respect for the environment is at the top of the curriculum.  The vast majority of nomads have a deep and abiding love for nature and will work hard at doing no harm. 

Volunteers were from RTR. Some were also members
of Boondockers United.  

This was illustrated today by a large group of people who answered the call for help from Boondockers United, a fledgling organization dedicated not only to nomads helping nomads, but to creating a close relationship with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in order to protect and preserve the precious land upon which we live.  The founder of Boondockers United put out a call for people to help clean up an area that had been trashed by prospectors and thoughtless people attempting to permanently live in the area. We removed several trailer loads of trash, mattresses, tires and abandoned tents and clothing. The BLM Rangers insisted that only they deal with human excrement. A nasty job. Pamela and I each found a mine shaft that had been filled with trash when the prospectors didn’t strike it rich.  The BLM will have to call in a special cleanup team. It is sad that we are forced to use precious funds and resources to clean up after such people.  The RTR also has another clean-up planned for Saturday, January 20^th.  

BLM officer looking at one of the mines we found filled
with trash and garbage. He will have to call in a special
team to clean it up.

The important thing about such efforts is two-fold: (1) helping the authorities clean-up such messes not only helps them conserve funds and valuable resources, that serve to keep the lands open to public recreation, but it creates a bond of trust and partnership so that we are able to keep these marvelous public lands open for public use. If we don’t help and uncaring people trash the land, the BLM, National Forest Service, or whatever the authority, will have no other option than to close the land to public use. That would be devastating not only to nomads and other campers but the myriad of hikers, hunters, climbers and others who frequent and enjoy our public land. (2) By doing this we help the environment. By helping the environment, we help ourselves.  Everything is interdependent. That is not some sort of spiritual hokus-pokus. It can be shown logically and scientifically that every living organism carries in it a part of the beginning of the universe. We witnessed this summer how a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico can impact weather, fires and other natural phenomena a continent away. It can be demonstrated that what happens to this tiny planet in the corner of the Milky Way will impact the entire universe.  But most important to all of us is that what happens to the environment is going to mean suffering or happiness, life or death to all living organism including homo sapiens.  

A portion of the area we cleaned. 

Our public lands are one of our greatest treasures.  These public lands are not just here in the west. They are just more obvious because of their sheer size, but there is public land for you to use and enjoy in every State in the Union.  If we do not make an effort to protect them and help our government agencies given the task of caring for them, they will disappear. That would be a travesty of the greatest proportions.

To do your part, join at least two organizations – one which works on a national level, like the Sierra Club, and one which is a local hands-on organization, like Boondockers United or Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates or perhaps your local garden club.

  “We (all) belong to the land. And the land we belong to is grand . . . . “  

Gold mine entrance filled with trash.

BLM Rangers insisted that the
volunteer not risk dealing with
human excrement.

=============

*-  I want so much to share the tremendous creativity one sees here that I’m going to have to write a blog about it. 

The Tribe - benefits of the small-scale community

A Greek anthropologist and FaceBook friend just introduced me to John H. Bodley's "Victims of Progress." This is the book's 6th edition.

Our nomadic village - 3 trailers, 5 tents, 2 SUV, 1 Class-C
and  1 Class A. Most are in the trees but all are in this picture. 

It all started when we were talking about another book, Jared Diamond's "Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" (1987). I had made the comment that, although not a trained anthropologist, I have long held that the real beginning of the decline of the human race was when we became farmers. The agrarian life-style required greater population, began adversely affecting the environment, turned resources into wealth, and created a work for wealth and power society where competition replaced cooperation.  

That discussion led to the introduction of John Bodley's book.  His book almost immediately points out that indigenous people; whom our urban-based, large-scale, resources-as-wealth society has systematically attempted to destroy; are, in fact, quite superior in many ways. At least I translate things like more sustainable, greater democracy and freedom, more successful, etc., as superior qualities, but that’s my world-view and prejudice. 

Br James' Class-C in the foreground and Nitsitapiisinni
(our trailer) in the distance.

Besides being more sustainable, "Small-scale societies have enormous human advantages, especially because people living in smaller, lower-density populations may be able to enjoy greater democracy, freedom, equality, and security than people living in large, dense populations, where they usually are divided sharply by differential access to vital resources, wealth and power. In small-scale societies, where all households have assured access to food and shelter and to the rewarding experiences offered by their culture, there is less cultural incentive to accumulate and concentrate wealth. Likewise, there is little incentive for population and resource consumption to expand." (John H. Bodley)  Sounds good to me.

This quote and Bodley's first few pages can ignite a host of discussions, which I'm sure I'll address at some point, but when I shared what I had read with Pamela she used our small nomadic community, sitting on a hill in the desert, as antidotal evidence. Thinking about it, she's right.  

I'm sure that our group as an example would not fare well under extreme academic scrutiny but it does a good job at making the point. Hence antidotal evidence.  I’m calling our small, very diverse collection of people a tribe because Bodley states “We may call small-scale societies and cultures produced by the humanization process tribal to emphasize the absence of political centralization.” 

We had 20 people for Thanksgiving. 

We are undoubtedly more diverse than Bodley's small tribes, but we also share a lot of characteristics. We are a small population. Low density. We are more sustainable than larger groups because we are unit or household focused. We are assured of shelter and the protection of the group. Therefore, we do experience greater democracy, freedom, equality and even security. We have limited contact with and no input from the outside world; i.e. we are left alone and ignored by the world around us. We are free to live our lives as we see fit as long as we do not harm others in the community. There is no hierarchy. Whether we live under a tarp or in a Class-A, we are all equal. Democracy for us is the ability to stand together and talk about problems or issues and arrive at an amicable solution that benefits and is acceptable to all members of the community. We have witnessed this at least twice in the past week. 

The argument that we are hunter-gatherers of a fashion could be made. We each leave the community on a routine basis and, using our skills and resources, return with food, water and other essentials. Many times we either share these resources or we help the other person get it for themselves. For example, we would have driven 9.6 miles, spending precious gasoline, to get water. A member of the community told us where there was water a little more than a mile away. We shared with those who were going to need to find a new place the location of dispersed camping we had found in our movement around the area that would be good for them.

Br. James'   He often has friends visit and they play
drums, but always respectful of others. 

Do we share our food and essentials with the others? Yes. Because we all have food and shelter, even the ones living under a tarp, and we enjoy a common culture and social connectedness, there is no incentive to try to accumulate and concentrate wealth and/or power. The person who, in the large-scale, urban society around us, would be considered the poorest, is, in our community, the one who is spearheading a Thanksgiving feast. Assisting them in this undertaking is the man who arrived in a 40 foot class-A motor home. We all did our part as best we could.

Further evidence for my position can be read in a James Suzman (The Guardian. 10/29/2017) article entitled “Why ‘Bushman banter’ was crucial to hunter-gatherers’ evolutionary success”.  Most people in the US would assume that everyone wants to live like the USA (which is definitely not true) and that hunter-gatherers are always just one step ahead of starvation. That too is quite wrong. Suzman refers to research by a Canadian anthropologist, Richard Lee, who studied the Ju/’hoansi (Kalahari Desert in Namibia and Botswana) and found that they not only make a good living as hunter-gatherers but they do it in what works out to be a 15 hr work week!  (Think about that when you drive 1-2 hours in traffic to get to work, work 8 hours and then drive 1-2 hours to get home five times a week!)  “On the strength of this, anthropologists redubbed hunter-gatherers ‘the original affluent society’ ”. (Suzman) 

I believe that Pamela is right. Our little, eclectic, off-the-grid community in the desert does reflect the truth of the superiority of the small-scale, hunter-gatherer tribe. According to Bodley things began to change about 6,000 years ago when resources became wealth and power, and we developed a society of haves and have-nots. I'm thinking that was a sad day, perhaps the worst day, in human history.

Dishpan Hands - or how I wash dishes.

For those of you who still live in sticks-n-bricks (i.e. houses) this will probably be the most useless blog you’ve ever read.  Others might find it interesting, while yet others – those new to the nomadic, off-the-grid life-style - might find it actually helpful.  I’m going to tell you how I wash dishes. Woopee!!

Washing dishes when you are ‘boondocking’ or ‘dry camping’ in the desert is all about the conservation of resources.  Pamela and I have slightly different techniques, but both are efficient.  Both of our techniques save water but neither are the very severe approaches like using a spray bottle, etc.  We live here. We’re not camping for the weekend.  Nevertheless, we still keep our wash well under a gallon of water. The picture is of our sink, with our dishpan, after I finished this morning’s dishes.  The dishpan holds just shy of a gallon, and you will notice that it isn’t full.  Granted there are just two of us, but I’ve done this after hosting a dinner party for six with the same results.

Besides saving water, my methods also reduces the amount of water going into the grey water holding tank.  That means we can stay in the desert longer without having to find a dump station. This dishpan has environmentally safe soap and no food particles, so it is as good as filtered water and, in such small amounts, could be poured on the ground away from any existing ground water. (Always protect the ground water. If you do dump in the desert or the woods, but sure to go far enough away that you don’t attract animals to where you’re staying. The water still smells.)  If you are talking quantity, you will want to further filter, just to be safe.  We use so little I could just leave it outside in the desert and the water would likely evaporate before the next wash. But all this is another blog, so back to washing dishes.

You will notice that our dishpan fits neatly into the sink.  Filled to the brim it doesn’t hold more than a gallon of water.  Some times we use a large mixing bowl, or other similar container that needs to be washed, as our dishpan. Double duty.

Some people use paper towel to wipe food scraps, residue and particles into the trash.  I don’t really like using paper towels, even recycled paper towels.  I scrape as much as I can directly into the trash. Then  I start the wash by putting a very small amount of Dawn detergent into the dishpan and adding an equally small amount of hot water.  I just need enough to keep my dish cloth wet.  I wipe all dishes and cooking utensils with the very wet rag (don’t wring it out) over the strainer in the right side of the sink.  (I’m left handed, so this is easiest.)   Since we use cast iron, I have a separate dish cloth for the cast iron. Once wiped clean of scraps and residue, the item (sans cast iron) goes into the dishpan.  Now I’ve got all of the scraps, residue and particles safely trapped in the sink strainer. Before continuing, I empty the strainer and wipe out the right side of the sink. You might be able to see in the picture that our strainer isn’t the one that comes with a normal sink. It is a special design and works great.  This step takes only about as much water as you can wring out of a dish cloth. Maybe, if you have really dirty dishes, you might use two dish cloth worth, but this is almost 100% of the water you will be adding to your grey tank if you dump the dish pan on the ground. If you dump your dishpan into the grey tank, you’ve still added less than a gallon of water.

Actually, the dishes look quite clean at this point, and, in all honesty, could probably be rinsed and dried, but I do an actual wash.  I’m still using the same dish water which has not been polluted by food residue or particles. When I rinse, I rinse over the dishpan.  This adds fresh hot water to the pan. The advantage of this is the order in which I wash.  It takes almost no water to cover a plate or flatware.  They go first.  As rinse water increases the volume of my wash water, I can now get larger and larger items under the water to wash.  Cereal bowls are next.  Cups, serving bowls, etc., are, of course, last to be washed.  To conserve space on my drying mat, I generally leave the washed flatware in the pan until everything else is done, but that’s just because I don’t have a very big drying mat. If Pamela is drying as I wash, I will rinse flatware as soon as it is washed.  

All done!  It is actually a very quick and simple method. It is going to be a bit more difficult if you don’t use cast iron for cooking.  Cast iron is soooooo easy to clean. After the dishes are done I use the dish water to clean the stove, counters and sink.  Occasionally we save some of the dish water to flush and clean the toilet. This saves on water use and gives us more time enjoying the beauty of the desert. Any remaining dish water can be poured down the drain into the grey water tank or safely disposed of on the ground. Again, disposing of water on the ground is a conservation, safety issue with which each of us must deal. The nice thing about this method is that the amount of water is very small.  

This isn’t the only way to wash dishes, but I have found it to be quick, easy and efficient.  It does reduce the amount of water we use thereby not only conserving water but giving us more time to stay out in the desert. 

Pamela and I are full-timers who spend about half our year in the wilderness of northwestern Montana (our “official” home) where we serve as camp hosts for the national park service, and the other half in the marvelous deserts of the western US.   We spend about 70-80% of our time boondocking (dry camping). 

Community

The party is beginning. The community is gathering.

For those of you who do not know Pamela and me, we are full-timers who live in our twenty foot camper trailer we call Nitsitapiisinni – Blackfeet for “our way of life”. Our home is in Montana where we volunteer as camp hosts for Glacier National Park from the first of May until the end of September. After that we visit family in the Midwest and south and wander southwestern US.  We have fallen in love with the desert and are currently staying in the desert east of Cottonwood, Arizona. We are in an area where dispersed camping is allowed on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land, perched on a ridge, 4.5 miles from Cottonwood, with a magnificent view of the mountains, and as peaceful as anywhere can be.

As we walked home from the party this evening the sky was so clear that we could see the Milky Way and the various constellations almost jumped out at us.  It was the perfect ending to a great evening.  

Earlier in the afternoon Pamela decided that she wanted to meet more of our neighbors.  Our dispersed camping area was quite full and we only had room for one or two rigs of any size. Pamela’s efforts at meeting neighbors resulted in a party with food, a grill going, and a campfire that started just after 4pm and went until 8:30pm. What fun we had. Of the eleven units in the dispersed camping area, which is clustered like a small community, only one family were not full-timers. That happened to be a firefighter and his family from Peoria, AZ a couple of hours away.  The rest of us are from all over representing California, New York, Finland, Arizona, Louisiana and Montana. (Two of the couples established Texas residence because Texas is one of the states that is good for full-timers.)   I was probably the oldest.  We are again and again amazed at the number of younger people who are full-timers and work from their RV. The youngest was a couple who were probably in their early 30s.  They had moved to San Francisco for work, decided ‘hell with it’, bought a Class A and now run their businesses from their motor-home as they travel the country.  As they said, they don’t make nearly as much as they did working in the city, but it doesn’t cost nearly as much to live comfortably, and it is a lot more fun.  One of the couples just bought a Springdale, so they had to come look through Nitsitapiisinni to see what modifications we’ve made.  The fellow next to us, who has an old diesel pusher school bus, gave me a tour.  He is a PhD candidate and the back third of his bus is his study where he works on his research and teaches on-line class for the university where he’s doing his degree.  We are a small temporary community drawn together by the desire to escape the confines of cities, towns and sticks-n-bricks as well as a love for the magnificent country in which we are camped. 

As the party was beginning to break up an old Class-A pulled in.  Our party was occupying the only open site.  I approached the driver and suggested that they come and join us for some food and socialization then we’d make sure they got a good place to stay. It was dark and getting late, so the community came together to help them back into a good spot next to the party fire.  The couple who had brought the grill saw the newcomers getting out a grill. They insisted that the newcomers use their grill which was still hot and only needed a some more briquettes. There was lots of food left from our party, which we all insisted that the new family take so they didn’t have to fix a meal so late in the evening.  I think I’m the only one who knows that the newcomers are not full-timers by choice. The sharing by our cluster of one-time strangers made a significant impact upon the lives of people who weren’t as fortunate as the rest of us.  Our little community, drawn together by a beautiful place to stay, had come together, celebrated life and started creating friendships.  The community can only exist for the 14 days stay limit, then we must all move on, but friendship have been forged that may last for many years.  The community acted charitably and in a very harmonious way.  We did not pay attention to the fact that their motor-home was old.  We didn’t check their pedigree, their passport, their politics or their religion before we decided to help them and welcome them into the community. 

 

Did you notice how this friendly and helpful community came to life?  It came about because one person, Pamela, knocked on the door of an RV and said “Hi, I’m Pamela.”   And I’m proud of her for doing that.  

Can we afford to be full-timers?

Add caption

The big question for many people who are considering full-timing is -  Can we afford to be full-timers?

Pamela and I are full-timers. Besides our experience, I am a compulsive number cruncher.  I keep a large spread sheet (A1-W367) where I enter everything about where we stayed, how far we traveled, gas mileage, etc.  I just finished writing the equations to summarize, average and annualize all of the figures for our 2018 budget.  With a bit of explanation, I hope this will help would-be full-timers and may even be of interest to others.

The biggest mistake we see new full-timers make is getting themselves into serious debt buying an expensive living unit  - Class A or C RV or big trailer. We live in a cozy twenty-foot trailer we call Nitsitapiisinni (Blackfeet for “our way of life”) that has a queen-sized bed; a lovely dining and sitting area with a giant window in the back; a kitchen complete with gas range & oven, double sink and full fridge; and full bath with a bath tub. Sure, we only have 160 square feet but it is quite comfortable. The important thing is that we got a good deal on a unit, which we like and serves our needs, for which we could pay cash.  Even if we had needed to finance, our monthly payment would have been less than a week’s groceries and supplies.  Point: don’t let a slick salesperson talk you into more than you can afford.  You don’t need to have a unit big enough to hold everything you’ve accumulated for the past forty years. What do you think you need?  Now think about that again.

 The second inhibitor, which is not a mistake but a problem of expectation or priority, is what I am calling “site cost” =df the cost of parking your unit for the night.  We live off the grid most of the time. That’s what we enjoy. We know that most people probably prefer to be near towns with restaurants, shopping, etc. That’s just not us. We love being in the wilderness. Nevertheless, between living off the grid and our five months at Glacier, we only pay for a site 29% of the time.  Some people want to stay in a KOA every night. That isn’t going to work unless you have about $15,000 or more a year in your budget just for that.  Right now, we are averaging $11.85/night for nights that we do pay. (If we divided our site cost by 365 that would be down to $3.85/night.)   The only reason that it is that high is that we occasional splurge and stay somewhere that is neither free nor takes a federal Senior (1/2 price) Pass.  Since our annualized site cost is only $1,266.55, we can afford to splurge when we want.  Some full-timers actually have a better per day rate than we do even though they have a higher annual cost. These people find campgrounds that charge around $300/month and will stay in one place for months. Our actual cost is lower because we love to volunteer for the National Park Service, so we have around five months a year where we have no site cost. But please be advised, don’t volunteer just to get a free site. Unless you love the work, it isn’t worth it. The work is very real and the hours are long, but we love it. That’s a whole other story, so let’s move on. 

We have 320 watts of photovoltaic panels on our roof and another 160 watts portable solar panels, so we can generate plenty of electricity. We also have two 224 amp hour 6 volt batteries giving us 224 amp hours of 12 volt power. This not only removed generator expenses but mean that we don’t have to look for a place to stay where we can get “pole power”.  We use propane for heat, hot water, refrigerator and cooking, but we only average $0.85/day.  That’s good because we spend a lot of our time in cooler climates where we frequently need heat. The bottom line here is that you want to be as self-sufficient as you can and have good high-efficiency equipment.  We do own a generator but we have only used it a few times in the past four plus years. The problem with generators is that they do cost money, they require maintenance and they do burn gasoline. I would also add that a generator is a pain in the gluteus maximus.  Running a generator may not seem like much when you do it while on your family vacation, but try 365 days a year. I love our photovoltaic system. The two 160 watt panels on the roof, the top-of-the-line 30 amp control unit, and installation cost us only $1,800.   The new solar technology is so amazing that I’ve actually seen our system generate power from moonlight. Granted, it wasn’t enough to run an LED bulb, but it was still generating.  And even better . . . I don’t have to start it or plug it in. I don’t have to do anything.

One of our biggest cost is towing our trailer.  We have a 2013 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 half-ton heavy with a 5.7L Hemi gas engine, tow package and a beefed up rear end. The truck is sufficiently powerful, efficient and paid for. The modifications on the truck cost us less than $1,000.  Having experienced the benefits, I would have been willing to pay much, much more. Amazingly the beefed up rear end makes hooking up the big Blue Ox so much easier. (Again, a story for another day.)   Our truck and trailer together are about 42 feet long and weigh just shy of 10,000 pounds (5 tons). With the ½ ton heavy and the top-of-the-line Blue Ox hitch I can go just about anywhere safely. The thing is that this combo does cost money to move.  Our travel cost – based upon $3/gallon – is around 36 cents a mile.  I use $3/gallon as a base because, even though we average closer to $2.50 or less, places like California and extremely remote areas will be $3 or more. I would much rather base my budget on a higher number. We cover lots of miles each year.  Our annualized gasoline cost is $5,258.66.  Gas is our third largest budget item after food/supplies and healthcare.

You must also plan on routine maintenance.  Even though we get high quality tires and they do last more than a year, I budget for buying a set of truck and trailer tires each year. Put that with routine oil changes and an expectation of around $1,000/yr repair work, we budget around $2,800 a year for maintenance.  We went years without spending this much, but the one year that we did, we were happy that we had it in our budget.

We cannot talk about full-timing or any retirement without talking about health care.  Pamela has a little over two years before she’s eligible for Medicare.  Montana ACA is really good so our monthly budget, premiums and co-pays, for both of us is $500. Still, this is $6,000 a year and our second biggest expense. Honestly, we’ve started visiting Mexico where you can buy prescription medications at a fraction of the cost in the US. The last time we came through US Customs from Mexico we stood in an enormously long line of mostly US seniors. When the US Customs Officer asked what we brought back, almost every person said “medications”.  In the Mexican town across from Yuma, AZ they have excellent dentists.  Our friend, who is terrified of a dentist’s office, won’t go anywhere else now.  I wear contacts. Contacts aren’t cheaper but you can get a pair of bifocals with transitional lens for around $100.  These are quality products.  Mexico has universal healthcare and, as visitors, we are permitted to benefit from it, like some folks who go to Canada for medicine.

Putting this all together in a budget, we expect around $20,348.72 a year in basic living expenses; i.e. site cost, propane, gas, food/supplies and healthcare; and another $2,832.34 a year in maintenance. This comes to $1,931/month. Of course, there are other expenses.  Since anything we buy must fit into our trailer or the truck, we don’t buy a lot of “stuff”, so we don’t have a lot of incidental costs.  Because our basics are easily covered by our monthly income, we do occasionally treat ourselves to a restaurant meal. Be careful. It is easy to run up a big monthly bill by eating out, especially during those times when you’re on the road. We eat out as seldom as possible.  Pamela might make sandwiches while I’m pumping gas. Even as little as we eat out our food/supplies budget is around $150 a week. Some times that $150 is every two weeks, but we have found that we’re wiser to figure on weekly.  If you eat out even once a day, a $150 food budget isn’t going to get you through a week. 

Don’t even think that we actually live on $1,931 a month, although some full-timers actually do live on less. There always seems to be something else that we need or must pay.  My point is that by looking after the basics, which is not really difficult and far from austerity, you should have sufficient funds if both of you have Social Security or one person has Social Security and a small pension.  Pamela and I are two widows who found each other several years ago. We have lived for four years without touching any of the principal in our retirement. We have lived on Social Security and two small pensions.

One last word – home state.  I guess that’s two.  Your home state can make a big difference in your annual expenses.  I don’t worry about the taxes and fees because Montana is good to seniors, there is no sales tax, ACA is excellent, and you only pay for your trailer tag once, not annually.  We have heard that this is also true of South Dakota, Florida and Texas.  We’re extremely happy that Montana is so good to seniors because Montana really is our home. In the average year we spend 5 months in Montana and 7 months roaming around ten other states, not counting the time we take to go to the Midwest to visit our children.  Be sure to check out the residency requirements for the state of your choice. Check out the tax structure, cost of healthcare, sales and other incidental taxes, license plate fees, etc.  If you are not a true resident, check on the requirements for becoming a bona fide resident.  It could save you money.

Full-timing isn’t for everyone. You have to really love being a nomad.  It does offer the most marvelous true independence one can imagine. This is true if you, like us, prefer back roads and wilderness or interstates and RV parks. While we do spend most of our time off the grid, we have a marvelous social life and a great many friends scattered throughout western North America with whom we keep in regular contact. We meet and interact with an amazing number of like-minded nomads who become good friends.  I think you would be surprised at the number of evenings, even for those of us who frequent the wilderness, that we have friends in for dinner or visit their units. We spend many evenings with a bottle of wine, a glass or beer or tea, getting to know new friends or sharing adventures with old friends. We can almost never tell you the day or the date. Half the time we probably can’t tell you the month, and we frequently have to stop and figure out the season of the year. At this writing I can’t really tell you the local time zone.  Tonight we are staying in a lovely campground on the Colorado River at the southern end of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. We’re only here because we saw a sign that said “Lee’s Ferry” and decided to turn. We do that routinely and have discovered some marvelous places.  We might stay here just tonight. We might be here next week. Because we have made ourselves totally self-contained, the only thing which can make us leave our beloved wilderness is the need to dump waste and take on fresh water. 

If you think this life is for you, that’s great. I would make two suggestions.  Firstly, spend a lot of time planning and crunching numbers.  It is most likely that you can afford to be a full-timer, but it is much more enjoyable when you know you have things covered.  Secondly, do a trial run before you completely cut your ties to sticks-n-bricks.   Most people we know who start out on such a ‘trial run’ never go back, but if something comes up, you’re not caught in a very difficult situation.