For Us, a Lifestyle; for Others a Life

Denny and I have been staying at "private" campgrounds the last couple of days as we are having to do a lot of travel to take care of some old business. "Private" in campground books means campgrounds that are privately owned by a corporation, business or family and sometimes there are only 20 or so camp sites on a couple of acres of land. Here in these small campgrounds you'll find people on the move, like Denny and I or construction/utility/temporary workers who are working a local site for a few months to a year, and folks that have discovered that the monthly fees at a small campground beats paying rent for an apartment or small dwelling. These folks aren't traveling for enjoyment or education or for the zest of discovering what dwells around the next curve in the road. They are here because they have to make a living or because this is all they can afford. You'll recognize those folks as soon as you arrive at the campground because there will be boxes, extra refrigerators, exercise equipment, gliders and piles of "stuff" all around the exterior of the trailers and often the trailers themselves will have developed the algae green of the interior of a dirty fish tank. Here at our current campground a more extreme example is a sad young man wearing the white dress shirt and black slacks of a grocery store clerk who is living in a tent with his belongings strewn about and who is apparently without the benefit of a car. You wonder what his story is.

Denny and I realize how lucky we are. Yes, money has become very tight with the increases in our health insurance costs and the price of diesel fuel. But we have our health, we have each other, and we still have the freedom to explore this beautiful country that we have come to love more with every year we travel. I sometimes bemoan the fact that we don't have as much money to play golf or splurge on something we want, but at least we're living our dream. Not dreaming about living the good life.