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A Magical Journey

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lakes, road trip, Travels With Maggie, tagged , , , , , , , on November 12, 2024| 4 Comments »

As if by magic, a lakeside campground often turned up during my nine years of living and traveling on the road exploring this beautiful country. — Photo of my RV Gypsy Lee resting at Jackson State Park in Alabama by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

          When I was traveling around the country in my small RV, I almost never took the direct route from place to place. An interesting looking side road always seemed more important than the destination where I was headed.

My mother told me this was a trait I had gotten from a grandfather who died before I was old enough to remember him. “He could never pass up a turnoff,” she told me on one of our back-roading trips to Jenny Lake in the Tetons, a place she fell in love with the first time she saw it.

 Judging by how she enjoyed taking different routes to get there, I could just as easily have inherited it from her. I think that quite likely, because promising her a road trip to the Tetons was often the bribe that I had to make to get her to visit me from her home in Illinois to my home in Northern Utah, where Yellowstone was only a five-hour drive away.

My mother and I made many of those trips in her later years. I treasure every one of them, but especially those in which we got off the beaten path. There’s magic in driving down a road not knowing what you are going to see, especially when you stop and explore along the way.

 As Ursula K Le Guin said, and I believe, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.”

As I ponder Le Guin’s words, I think of the journey I’ve been taking for the past 85 years. The destination I’ve arrived at is far from the one I envisioned when I took those first wobbly and uncertain steps along an expected path. Detours along the way — some forced and some on purpose – have put me where I am today.

And since I’ve come to a place where I have love, friends, a lovable canine companion who keeps my life interesting, and a continuing zest for nature and life, the detours along this hard-won journey surely must have had some magic in them.

What do you think?  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited). She is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Living on a Budget Doesn’t Take the Joy of Traveling Away

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 23, 2011| 5 Comments »

Wood storks right out my RV was a common sight during the month my RV spent on Pine Island in Florida. -- Photo by Pat Bean

  “The real fun of traveling can only be got by one who is content to go as a comparatively poor man. In fact, it is not money which travel demands so much as leisure, and anyone with a small, fixed income can travel all the time.” Frank Tatchel, “The Happy Traveler,” 1923

The view from my RV's rear window at Cade County Park near Sturgis, Michigan. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

Several people have asked me lately, how I can afford my life on the road. My response is that the way I do it is probably cheaper than maintaining a house, for sure if you have a mortgage or pay rent.

I have a basic budget for food, entertainment, gas and lodging of $60 a day. It was $50 seven years ago, but both gas and RV park fees have increased since then.

A daily break down might be $30 RV park, $20 gas (My small RV gets 15 mpg and I don’t do long drives), and $10 food. I rarely eat out.

However, a week’s stay some where saves gas money for things like a trolley car tour, a bookstore purchase or museum fees. When my budget is strained, I simply sit more.

Staying at a state park that has RV hookups, which is my overnight lodging of choice, usually costs only about $20, which gives me some leeway for commercial parks that might charge $35 a night, and I’m running into more and more of these lately.

For safety reasons I don’t skimp on choosing a clean, populated, lighted park. An emergency overnight stop for me is a Wal-Mart parking lot, which I only have used one time in seven years, and that was to escape traveling in a sudden storm.

I didn’t choose my way of life to sit in a parking lot. I want a view and a place to hike.

A squirrel viewed from my RV when it was parked at my son's home in Lake Jackson, Texas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Free winter parking at my kids’ homes, where I can usually hook up to their electricity, usually saves me enough to cover the cost of regular maintenance for my RV. The bonus here is that I get to spend time with loved ones.

In addition I’m serving as a campground host at an Idaho park for four months later this year, where in exchange for some part-time chores, I get a free campground site with a lake view and free utility hookups. The money I save during this time will be used for more on-the-road adventures.

Living in a 22-foot home (which I bought when I sold my home) where everything has a place, also means I save money simply by not buying things. It’s amazing how much money you can save this way, even on clothes when the space to store them is tightly limited. I basically live in pants, shorts, T-shirts and tennis shoes.

Not counted in this breakdown are my monthly expenses for health and vehicle insurance, and my phone and air card bill for my computer. I do all my money transactions on the computer, and thankfully have an angel of a daughter-in-law who forwards my mail for free.

Except for an occasional credit card bill to cover emergencies, I have no bills.

So there you have it. Frank Tatchel was right. It just takes a bit more money these days than I suspect he was talking about in 1923.

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