On the road again:
Greetings from Kalamazoo, Michigan
In a previous blog, I wrote about Cyndy's and my adventures on the water in Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Since then, we've also been fishing on Grand Traverse Bay near Traverse City, walking the Lake Michigan beach near Manistee, and dancing at a camp on the shore of Lake Huron, all in Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
Click here to see some of the photos that Cyndy has taken on our journey.
Today's Story
After leaving our brick-and-mortar home in Kalamazoo six months ago, Cyndy and I are back here for a short spell, visiting friends and family and taking care of medical and business appointments.
We’ve traveled more than 14,000 miles in our truck and travel trailer, about 90 percent of them on non-interstate highways and secondary motorways, often having the road to ourselves.
The corner points of our loop around much of the United States were south to Alabama, west through Texas and the Southwest to California, north to Washington State, east to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and south again to Kalamazoo.
We’ve stayed in 52 different campgrounds, most of them on federal land –– national parks, forests, and monuments and properties of the Bureau of Land Management or Army Corps of Engineers –– but also state, county, and city parks.
We’ve nestled into the yards, fields, and driveways of a few friends and family and spent one night in a highway rest area and one night boondocking on a desert plateau.
Right now, our trailer is next to a friend’s airplane hangar, adjacent to a grass airstrip –– with full electric, water, and septic hook-ups.
Thanks to our solar panels and large capacity tanks for fresh water and waste water, we’ve been off-grid –– with no hook-ups –– for as many as 11 days, and we could be in the wilderness longer than that.
We’ve learned that we prefer to be away from big cities with their noise and pervasive concrete. This means we’ve not attended concerts and cultural events like we thought we might, but we have been to a few contra dances.
Mostly, each morning, we relish taking four or five steps from our bed, opening the door, and breathing in the immediate natural purity of forests or natural landscapes.
Often, I have said to Cyndy, who does most of our itinerary research and planning, “Thanks for bringing us here.”
Our trailer is 21 feet long and 8 feet wide for a total living space of 168 square feet, the size of a tiny house.
It contains all the basics: bed, bathroom with shower, kitchen with three-burner stove and oven and microwave, dining area with a table that seats two comfortably and maybe four slender folks, and a love seat that simulates a living room.
The only difference between this trailer space and a large home is the distance we don’t have to walk to get from one “room” to another.
Also, we don’t have an office, per se, so I do a lot of my writing while sitting outside in a beach chair on our awning-covered patio.
We’ve spent $2,500 on campground fees, $4,000 on gasoline, and $5,000 on food.
These expenses, plus vehicle maintenance and miscellaneous items, amount to less than $100 per day, less than what had been paying for our apartment and domestic lifestyle in Kalamazoo.
It feels good to know that we can travel on the cheap!
Perhaps our greatest logistical challenge is the absence of cellular service in the western and plains states. That has inhibited my internet research and made it harder for us to check weather conditions.
The GPS app on our smartphones is often out of reach of a cell tower, but fortunately we have a satellite-connected Garmin on our dash for driving directions. Plus a good old paper atlas.
Noticeably absent from our travels has been meaningful conversation with other campers. Because we eschew commercial campgrounds as much as possible, everyone we encounter is transient. There isn’t much time to connect intellectually beyond the basics of “Where do you live?” “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going?” But also it seems that people who are away from home just want to be “away” from everything and everyone else too.
In contrast, because Cyndy and I live in a small space and travel together in our one-and-only vehicle, we have lots of time to explore and learn more about each other … as well as the beauty of our nation’s natural wonders.
I know that, speaking for myself, I have a greater appreciation for the United States because of this journey. In Kalamazoo in 2017 and 2018, I was involved with the political measures to end gerrymandering in Michigan. I saw much chicanery in our state and national government that I don’t like –– and I still don’t.
But I do love this land. It is magnificent and diverse with new and delightful beauty around every curve and over every hill.
Plus, it simply feels good to be on the road!
Next loop: New England for a bit of fall color
Thanks for reading my stories.
God blesses everyone ... no exceptions.
Robert (Bob) Weir
