Mountains, deserts, hot springs and Las Vegas?

The Alabama Hills at sunrise in March 2017. We didn't see quite this much glory in April 2019, but you can't go wrong with the Hills. 

Pool venue at the music fest.

We drove our fancy van in early April to a music event - the Bender Jamboree (bluegrass) at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas. Yes, Las Vegas. An absurd reality, perhaps the furthest possible place from the natural world.

Although we had an engaging four-day musical experience, the road trip from Southern Oregon to Las Vegas was rich with scenic routes and side trips. And, of course, a couple days in Reno to lavish love on the grands.

We were able to spend several of those scenic-routes and side-trips explorations with hometown friends Sue Orris and Ferron Mayfield, and their worried dog, Curry.

Yes, they brought Curry to Las Vegas, but it turned out OK, even though the dog was worried about staying in the van while his people were in a hotel a block away.

Maybe that was me who was worried. Anyway, the weather was cool and Curry was fine and very well attended. No worries!

Three places stand out: Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, CA, the Shoshone and Tecopa Hot Springs area bordering Death Valley, and Red Rock National Conservation Area about 17 miles west of Las Vegas, NV. 


ALABAMA HILLS - Not to Be Missed

The Alabama Hills was our first stop after meeting up with Sue and Ferron in Bishop, CA on Hwy. 395, which cuts a pretty path alongside the scenic Sierras. Truly, if you haven't driven that road, add it to your plans. And do not miss the Alabama Hills. Even for a quick drive-through.

The Hills are just outside the town of Lone Pine, the western gateway to Death Valley National Park. 

Our Class B vans are dwarfed (look for them) in
a perfect camp spot in the Alabama Hills.

Compared with nearby Death Valley's vast expanse, the Alabama Hills is a concentrated wonder. A jumble of giant buff-colored rocks is lorded over by the Sierra Nevada Mountains including 14,000 ft. Mt. Whitney. I used to think about climbing up there, but I got over that notion when, age-wise, I was already over the hill.

Lenticular clouds are common in the Alabama Hills. This dreamy color was fleeting during an otherwise dull sunset. 

If you've lived long enough, you've probably seen the Hills on the big screen. Over 150 movies (Some sources claim as many as 400 ) and numerous TV shows, mostly Westerns, were shot there in the days of Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, and their ilk. A film museum in Lone Pine is said to be worth a visit. We will get there next time.

Responsible campers carry it out.

Alabama Hills is managed by the BLM, which means, that in addition to one fee campground, the rest of the area is absolutely FREE for dispersed camping, AKA boondocking.

Campsite hunting is competitive, with tent campers, small trailers, and Class B and C RVs seeking the perfect place to settle in and enjoy the splendid views all around. 

Sue and Ferron were in their element. Mt. Whitney is circled. The Mobius Arch Trail begins behind us.

The loop trail to the arch is about a mile long. 

Ferron exults at the Mobius Arch. A sprite-like person,  Ferron usually doesn't travel without a kite, a blaring horn, or his dog. I was pleased that he left the horn behind. 

DEATH VALLEY - Blown away

Death Valley, where we had camping reservations for two nights, was devoid of spring blooms and spring crowds. Due to the unrelenting wind and dust, it was soon devoid of us.

Serendipity at SHOSHONE and TECOPA

Thus we took an unplanned one day/night side trip to the Tecopa Hot Springs.  Our experiences there hung me up for days in getting this post out. 

Honestly, the Shoshone/Tecopa hot springs area just outside Death Valley is such a quirky bit of Wild West Americana that I got all twisted about it. I wrote pages. None of them any good!


I've decided not to tackle it. There's too much to tell and way more to learn before I pretend to capture the spirit of this unusual place. We were there for fewer than 24 hours. 

It's worth a return trip and perhaps a few days .... or more. But I'd better be careful.

Seems that numerous people living in the area had been just passing through.....and the place took hold of them. On the surface, it's dry, dusty and decrepit with scant visual charm. But there's something juicy going on there.

I didn't get his name, but the bartender/brewmaster at Death Valley Brewing was justifiably proud of the 15 or so beers being served. No wine. No liquor. Just beer. Just pizza. Crust crafted in Italy. All good. I had pineapple beer. It was delicious. 

If you're traveling from Death Valley to Las Vegas, discover Shoshone/Tecopa for yourself. Be sure to visit the museum in Shoshone, where, if lucky, you'll be greeted by John.

A former big-city chef, John is eager to share info about a place he loves. After living in Tecopa for 13 years, he knows everything tourist.

Curry contemplates as he walks the labyrinth at the Tecopa Hot Springs Resort. What is life's meaning? Why is my tongue so long? He's quite the philosopher, that dog.

Typical Tecopa scene. Curry leads Ferron in exploration. Soon we reluctantly leave Tecopa. At least I was reluctant.

RED ROCK CANYON National Conservation Area - Great side trip from Las Vegas

In Nevada's Mojave Desert, Red Rock Canyon's primary attraction, aside from an excellent Visitor's Center, is a 13-mile scenic loop drive with numerous viewpoints and parking areas from which to hike, picnic, photograph, rock climb, or otherwise take pleasure in this beautiful place. 

Here's the not-red-rock part of the conservation area, but even if not red, it is imposing, dramatic, beautiful.

Two million people visit Red Rock Canyon each year, which might keep shy persons away. But after several visits, we've learned that it doesn't take much effort to hike a mile or so on one of the 26 trails and escape the crowds. The canyon is just 17 miles west of Las Vegas and is an antidote to the madness and mayhem of the city.

Cairns for Dummies is what we called the numerous (thank you) extravagant (thank you) trail markers.  Without them, we might still be there.

Is it an agave?  Curry is weighing in from a lower position. Or maybe that's his power position.

Sue was still recovering from knee surgery, so we chose a relatively short hike through the red rocks. See that cairn? 
Without it, we would not have chosen this skinny passage.

Then, I'm afraid, it was on to Las Vegas and the Plaza Hotel and wrapping our heads around living in a casino the next four days. 

But then, there was the 
    🎶MUSIC! 🎶


BENDER JAMBOREE -whoopee!

This is Billy Strings. Never heard of him? Neither had I, but the virtuoso guitarist/singer was my favorite.  Apparently, he's getting around. Check him out. 

Other artists to join my "listen" list: 

• Railroad Earth (not new to the list, but the primary reason we attended the Jamboree)
• Della Mae - all female. Kicked butt!
• Leftover Salmon
• The Hillbenders
• The Good Time Travelers
• Keller Williams Pettygrass (all Tom Petty covers)

Like many music festivals, this one was crazy with costumes, theme days/nights, gregarious music lovers, spontaneous celebrations, lots of dancing, and not too much casino. 

Della Mae's band stood out amidst a mostly male lineup.
Not just for being women, but for being good!

Ferron always brings a cute outfit.

On our way home to Oregon, we camped alone at a reservoir near Fallon, NV. Ahhh. Just what we needed.

Previous Posts

SW Road Trip Spring 2017 
Death Valley 1, Super Bloom
Death Valley 2  



A couple of posts about our winter Baja trip are below. A few more to come. Unless I decide to write about gardens and food for a while.

An Inglorious Day on the Road in Baja
On the Road in Baja - Part 1

An Inglorious Day - On the Road in Baja Part 2

Here's an account of the no-fun travel day I promised. It was only our third day on the Baja and it turned out to be the most disappointing of our 50 days on the road. (Athough it has a rival, which will be coming later.)

The disappointment had little to do with the stretch of Mex 1 described below. Instead, it was all about us and our discomfort about potential risks.

Yes, the intrepid travelers are sometimes scardey cats. Others might say we are prudent. Whatever. 

Ever since we began considering a road trip on the Baja, we read and heard about the "gas desert" section of Mex 1, which is the primary road on the peninsula, going north and south.

We found that overall, Mex 1 is surprisingly good, except for when passing through towns and villages when it often devolves into potholes and, in the north, pond-sized mud puddles. 

The "gas desert" section is 195 miles long. If you look at the map, you'll see two short red lines marking the beginning at El Rosario (not named on this map) and to just north of Guerrero Negro, which is also where Mex 1 crosses into Baja CA Sur. (Ignore the dotted line on the Pacific Ocean.)

It's a serious chunk of paved but rough road that is only 19 feet wide, has no shoulders, no rest stops and few places to pull off. The guidebooks want you to know all about it. It isn't a place to run out of gas, have a mechanical issue or, God forbid, an accident!

Despite the road's shortcomings, semi trucks, humongous RVs, and lumbering RV caravans can't dodge it; it's the only paved route connecting Baja CA Norte with Baja CA Sur.  

But this story isn't about a road problem. 

The real "problem" was that we thought we might have a problem. And that worry led to an unfortunate decision to camp way too early in a place that was not only a gas desert but a real desert. 

As a result of being uncertain and nervous, we wasted much of one day of our ever-shortening life spans and our dwindling adventuring capabilities. We also squandered emotional energy.

All for being safe.

This is what being safe looks like. It was 1:30 p.m when we camped amidst a minefield of dog poo, far from an ocean, behind a tiny cafe that didn't even serve beer. No wifi or cell service. No other campers. It was a cloudless day ruined by a ferocious cold wind, which made being outside miserable. We were a couple of gringos hunkered in a bandito-bait van looking forward to sleep so we could awaken to a new day.

Not that safety should be ignored, but it should not have ruled that day. We had our reasons, however weak.

Guidebooks and travelers warned us about:

• Driving at night - you could hit a cow, disappear into a pothole, die in a ditch
• Boondocking alone - robbers scan the landscape for vulnerable gringos. 
• Running out of gas on a lonely road with a long distance between fueling sources could mean being grounded for a day or two.

We bought into it. Maybe it was that evil camper the previous night who told us gleefully, that with our fancy pants Class B van, we were red-meat targets for getting ripped off. 

OFF TO A BAD START
Somehow we departed our previous night's camp later than we'd hoped. The going was slower than we thought.

As we pulled into the only cafe in the "gas desert", not quite half-way to our destination, it occurred to us that we might not make it to where we'd planned to camp, before nightfall. 

It was December 29, 2018, and sunset was at 4:50 p.m.
Oh no! We might have to drive in the DARK!

We had a decent cafe lunch and talked it over. We'd learned that for $7 we could park in an expansive space behind the cafe and have bathroom privileges. Even though we have a toilet in our fancy van, we avoid using it for, ahem, voiding. 

We had no idea what the second half of the "gas desert" road would bring ......so we decided to stay put. And make the best of it. We can do this.

I thought I'd walk around in the desert and check out the only-grows-in-Baja cactus variety - the Cirio Tree - AKA Boojum. But the wind made walking miserable, and I settled for taking a photo near the van.  

Cirio trees are endemic to this area of Baja and grow to 70 feet. They are covered with stubby branches sprouting tiny leaves.

Then I settled for sitting inside, reading, writing, and editing photos while PK spread across the back seat with a book. Hours to go before we sleep.

A kick-back day of reading and lounging is welcome after a couple of weeks of go-go travel, but we were not ready. 

It seemed so wrong. But there we were confined to the van, or our own volition, at 1:30 p.m. on our third day in Baja. 

Writing this post forced me to process this little blip and put it into perspective. We didn't suffer, except for boredom, our own fault.

The next day we saw that the road was not that bad and it only took us three hours to get where we'd planned to stay and we could have made it before dark.

Forehead slapping! 

Maybe we learned something? Let's see if we can remember the next time we face uncertainty that it is possible to err on the side of caution. And that what we missed was almost certainly better than what we experienced.

Following are photos from this day and the next two en route to the Sea of Cortez and Mulege.

The day began with more gorgeous valley scenery in an intensive commercial farming area about 100 miles south of Ensenada. In addition to vineyards, this area is known for fresh produce.

However, driving past mile after mile of mystery crops covered with plastic, we could not say with certainty what was growing under there.

Eventually, valleys and mountains transitioned into a desert. Several miles of Mex 1 through the "gas desert" were reminiscent of Joshua Tree National Park. The scenery was surprising and ever-changing.

I seriously love Baja's taupe deserts and verdant valleys alike. The roads in central Baja are slender, but the traffic is light. Except when a bus, semi, or RV  is coming at you.

The narrow road traverses numerous washes.

Approaching the Sea of Cortez, Mex 1 turns sharply down. 

Down, down, down.

And there it is! Now we really feel like we're in Baja CA Sur.

PREVIOUS BAJA POST

Baja Part 1 - Border to Don Eddie's Landing

On the Road in Baja Part 1

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts about our Baja travels earlier this year. The blog is best viewed on the website. Just click on the title, if you are an email subscriber. Thanks for checking in!

Many landscape photos that appear in this blog were shot through the windshield with an iPhone7plus. My blue shirt is reflected here. This scene is representative of the dramatic and beautiful northern Baja terrain. Baja scenery overall is outstanding. 

We were 50 days on the road earlier this year driving to the Baja Peninsula and back. Fifty days, most of them in our Class B RV - a Sprinter van all dressed up with camping conveniences crammed into space about a quarter to half the size of a walk-in closet.

I have toured closets that could sleep five or six adults. Believe me, our van can handle only two. And it's good that we're average to small-sized shrinking adults. And that we like each other.

Now that we're home with ridiculous comforts, more room than any human beings need or deserve, and calming predictability, I am entertained by my travel notes.

TRIP STATS

• Nights spent van camping - 35
• Airbnb stays - 8 
• Nights in hotels - 3
• Nights spent with friends - 4
• Miles logged  - 5,185 from Southern Oregon to Todos Santos, Baja CA Sur and back (with a quick side trip to Arizona)

 It all went by with a whoosh.

One of few negatives about travel is that frequent relocations tend to shift time into hyper speed. Every day has its own story, beats with its own rhythm, and glows with its own light. 

Well, honestly, a few of those days were far from glowing. I'll get to those later; I know that the bum-luck bad-decision stories are appreciated.

For now, I'll start with crossing the Mexican border at Tecate, a surprisingly anxiety-free experience despite warnings to the contrary. And then an account of our first days on the Baja Peninsula.


CROSSING INTO MEXICO 
We chose to cross the border at Tecate because it is the smallest and least used of the three ports of entry in San Diego County, CA. The reason? It's out of the way. For us, was, coming from Joshua Tree National Park, it meant navigating narrow twisting mountain roads. Yippee! We like those roads.

This one would have been better without snow, however. The snow was an unwelcome travel surprise about 50 miles north of the Mexican border.

At the border, we were almost lonely; one car was ahead of us and none behind.

No would-be immigrants swarmed the area. It was peaceful and the Mexicans working the crossing were friendly and helpful, performing only a cursory search of the van. Our uneventful crossing took about 15 minutes. In another ten, we were out of town.

RUTA de VINO

Who knew? Northern Baja has a lovely wine region spanning from Tecate to Ensenada and beyond. As we drove the deluxe Highway 3 sixty-seven miles to Ensenada, the vines were dormant and, early in the day, the tasting rooms closed

We also spotted vineyards south of Ensenada before lush greenery and intensive farming transitioned to desert. The Ruta de Vino includes 64 wineries spread over seven different valleys in a Mediterranean micro-climate.

We did our part to ensure the success of Mexican vintners and sampled a fair amount of Baja-produced wine. 

     The scenery along the Ruta de Vino close to Ensenada. 

ESTERO BEACH in ENSENADA 
It was the day after Christmas, and we gave ourselves a gift by booking a room at the Estero Beach Hotel, which, we discovered, no longer operates an RV park listed in our guidebook and where we had planned to stay. 

Darn! Too bad. But after several days camping en route to the border, we were ready for a hotel. It was a good place to practice showering without ingesting any water.

The Estero hotel is a beautiful accommodation, and it was off-season, so we scored a half-price room and enjoyed the view (pictured below) from our balcony. It was an odd but great way to start our Baja camping adventure - lounging around in a luxury hotel!


       

The hotel restaurant served fine Mexican fare. PK ordered a combination plate for lunch not realizing it was crowd-sized. Somehow he polished it off. Because it was so tasty.

Mine was served on a cutting board, each crispy taco stuffed with either shrimp, catch-of-the-day, or octopus.  Hmmm.  Octopus. It was OK, but a bit chewy. I tried not to think about the suction cups. Great cilantro salsa.

                                       ****

We headed south the next morning all cleaned up, well fed and eager to explore.

Oops. A military roadblock. This looks worse than it was.

We knew we'd run into "crime-stopping" roadblocks, and had been advised to remove wallets and purses from the van as it was being searched for guns and drugs. Other than getting the stinkeye for taking photos, this and three or four other roadblocks were no problem. 

Oops! Road construction. Quite a lot of it between Ensenada and our night's destination, Don Eddie's Landing.


We waited in a long line for our turn to pass through the construction area. Food vendors were standing by to ease the pain. Candy or pork rinds anyone? 

DON EDDIE'S LANDING - Nice surprise!
When we travel, PK strongly prefers to drive. Fine with me. It is my job to navigate and ferret out attractions to visit and places to spend the night. Since Mex 1 is the main road going north and south in most of the Baja, navigating isn't that challenging. Even though finding side-trip routes can be tricky. And one never knows about camping. 

Our camp spot at Don Eddie's was, umm, Spartan. And big. And not too far from the restroom, which, unfortunately, was hidden behind a palm tree and unlit. There's a story here, but I decline to tell it.

Don Eddie's Landing, an old-time fishing lodge, turned out to be a bit of a side trip that I found in an indispensable guidebook, Traveler's Guide to Camping Mexico's BAJA by Mike and Terri Church.

It was 3.3 miles off Mex 1 on a paved road, although the short entrance to the "landing" itself was sketchy.  

One wouldn't expect much while bumping along this roadto camp,  but a big juicy surprise awaited. 

Don Eddie's Landing turned out to be a popular stop on the snowbird circuit, and we got lots of "beta" from other travelers, as our son, Chris Korbulic calls information garnered before you commit to something. 

We were still a bit skittish, on day two in Mexico, after friends and relatives questioned our sanity for traveling to such a dangerous place. My auntie Ellen forbid me to go. 

Ironically, the first traveler we talked with, camped next door and headed north to home, was eager to tell us all about the thieving going on in the south. 

His story was one we heard repeated, and that we later witnessed, in the same area he described — Bahia de Conception, on the Sea of Cortez, south of Loreto.

I'll save that story for a later post. The point is, despite the following statement that actually came out of his mouth, we were not deterred by this news.

"With that van, you look like millionaires," he declared. "You will be prime targets!"

Thanks, dude. Would we turn around and go home? No. We would not. But we would take extra care and be a little bit wary.

For the record, we had NO problems whatsoever during our Baja travels and never felt unsafe or threatened.

True, the US State Department has issued "do not travel" warnings for several Mexican states on the mainland, but none for most of the Baja Peninsula. 

The homicide hotspots in Baja are clustered in the north, close to the US border. Tijuana, Ensenada, and Rosarito Beach are cities to hurry through. 

The next person to provide "beta", but with a positive spin, was a woman who frequented Don Eddie's Landing. 

"Where are you going for dinner?" she whispered in a conspiratorial way as I headed into Don Eddie's inviting bar and restaurant to check the menu. 
I didn't know there was a choice, but she sure did. She and her husband led me over some rocks to a path leading to a "hidden" restaurant tucked between buildings. The woman insisted we try it.

"You will not believe it," she promised.

Thus we were introduced to Eucalipto Restaurant, the best place we ate in Baja. With all the great seafood and authentic recipes yet to come, that's saying something.

It was a culinary thrill to happen upon a place such as this that doesn't fit in its surroundings and presents unexpected excellence. For me, at least, although PK is not prone to superlatives.

The chef was blasting something the entire
time we were there. The restaurant was packed.
I'd rename the place House of Fire.

Flames lit a nearby table as the waiter fired up liquor and poured it into a shrimp and pasta-filled Parmesan bowl. The entire kitchen was open-view, and I couldn't keep my eyes off the sauteeing veggies flying around and flames licking fish, meat and even mashed potatoes.

Dinner! Mediterranean swordfish and flamed-finished mashed potatoes topped with done-just-right tossed-in-the-air veggies. We both ordered this and had delicious leftovers for the next two nights of van dining.
Along with local wines, of course. We do our part.

NEXT UP:  We made a bad decision the next day. It will be embarrassing to tell the tale. 

Attitude and aging - Lighten up!

Note: I excavated this post from my draft archive— one of 163 drafts waiting to be finished —as I searched for references to attitude. Why? I participate in a quarterly discussion group, and attitude is the topic for our fast-approaching get-together. The draft is about three years old, and the primary difference between then and now is I know even more women with attitude advantage. 

 Next, I'll tackle the drafts I've started about recent Baja travels. Thanks for staying tuned!

------------------

I'm lucky to have positive, physically and mentally active, smart, deep-thinking women as friends. Most are age 60+ 

Laurie Gerloff and I resting after a 5-mile uphill hike through cacti and cairns near Tucson, AZ, a few springs ago. I was almost 70. Laurie in her early 60s.

An earlier post about ditching hair dye and accepting aging generated numerous responses, mostly on Facebook, where I share links to my blog posts.

Readers who subscribe to this blog by email may be avoiding FB, and I don't blame them, but they miss the revealing conversations that sometimes develop in comment threads. I enjoyed reading hair-dye and aging stories amidst numerous comments about the ditch-the-hair-dye post. 

I was the only person, however, to see the excerpted comment below, delivered to me via email by Laurie, my friend for 40-some years, and a frequent travel buddy. She and her husband, Steve, and PK and me, have explored together extensively, including several trips to New Orleans, Mexico, and in early 2016, the Galapagos Islands and the Ecuadorian Amazon.

This airplane would soon be flying the four of us out of the Amazon Basin on
the same runway. For more about this "old people's" adventure, See Wild in the Amazon

Laurie changed the subject from fiddling with hair and face, boobs and butts, and other attempts to preserve a youthful appearance to instead concentrate on what's in your brain and heart. What comes out of your mouth.

Guard against calcification and becoming old and set in your ways.  She writes:

I’ve spent much of today thinking about aging and my own march to wormhood. I think that the most youthful attribute for geezers like us is not a head of blond hair, but a young attitude. And I think that we, and many of our pals, have it in spades.

As a youngster, I used to think of old folks as cranky, curmudgeonly and stuck in their ways. It seems that many oldsters calcify — they resist change, don’t take risks, and allow their minds to close and their comfort zones to shrink. I struggle to fend against calcification.

Flexible, open-minded, adventuresome are adjectives Laurie uses to describe concepts for ideal aging. These are powerful adjectives for any stage of life, along with thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion, and incessant curiosity. 

Accepting aging is more than just going along with the physical deterioration without nipping, tucking, hair-dyeing or suiciding. It's about resisting cultural pressures to hang onto youth when we could be embracing the fact that elders have insights, wisdom, and historical understanding impossible for people decades younger. Oh the things we've seen!

We also have a continuing capacity to relish life and face challenges with strength and resolve because we've learned how. 

It's OK to get older. Way better than not getting older. At least that's what I think now at age 74.

I love this poem by Janyne Relaford Brown.

 I Am Becoming the Woman I've Wanted

“I am becoming the woman I’ve wanted, grey at the temples, soft body, delighted, cracked up by life, with a laugh that’s known bitter but, past it, got better, knows she’s a survivor – that whatever comes, she can outlast it. I am becoming a deep weathered basket.

” I am becoming the woman I’ve longed for,  the motherly lover with arms strong and tender, the growing up daughter who blushes surprises. I am becoming full moons and sunrises.

“I find her becoming, this woman I’ve wanted, who knows she’ll encompass, who knows she’s sufficient, knows where she is going and travels with passion. Who remembers she’s precious but knows she’s not scarce – who knows she is plenty, plenty to share.”

Getting by with Less is Good for the Spirit

A clotted sky above the Sea of Cortez, January 2019. Free to all for as long as it lasts.

PK and I are currently road-tripping on the Baja Peninsula, about halfway through a couple-months excursion in our cushy camper van. 

Shortly before we left our Southern Oregon home in mid-December 2018, I ran across a column I wrote in April 1985 when I was a 40-year-old reporter/photographer/columnist at the Grants Pass(OR), Daily Courier. 

In 1985 PK and I lived in a house built for us four years earlier. It was still very new to us, although we'd occupied a beat-up mobile home on the same property for eight years prior.

In April 1985 we had one child, Quinn, who was 7, with another about-to-be conceived, a son, Chris, who arrived in June 1986.

Our adult children long ago fledged and we have grown old, still living in the same home. 

And now, after all those years of working and raising kids and caring for an elderly parent, we are free to travel the world. Which we do. 

My 1985 column is about how we traveled before we had jobs, kids, or a care in the world. 

Unlike the photo-loaded blog posts I usually publish, this one has just one image. During the trip described below, I did not bring a camera; I couldn't afford film or developing. I had no money. Paul and I had known one another for just a couple months. 


From the 1985 column 

I live in a nice house. It's new and pretty and has lots of oak and tile and thick carpets. It has a washer and dryer and dishwasher and a color TV. Sometimes I sit in the reclining chair in the living room and admire my house.

But other times I sit in the same chair, eyes closed, and drift back 12 years to when we lived in a three-sided thatched hut on a beach on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

We weren't there long, but the time was memorable both for what we had and what we didn't.

We rented our little stretch of perfect white sand beach for pennies a day. One morning I relaxed in my hammock tied between two palm trees and watched a long thick green serpent slither through our camp. I didn't care. It could live there too.

Iguanas sunned on rocks in front of our three-sided hut while the turquoise waters of the Caribbean lapped at their thorny claws. A coral reef was not far out and we snorkeled to it, observing the brilliant corals and tropical fishes.

Sometimes we'd get lucky and spear the tropical equivalent of lobsters and have ourselves a feast. Other times we'd eat the dried beans and lentils and canned meats we'd stocked up on.

Paul fashioned an oven out of an old peanut butter tin, and we burned dried coconut shells for heat. We made simple biscuits, cakes, and cookies.

We had no refrigeration, and except for the bottled water we bought at a not-too-distant village, we had no fresh water. We washed our clothes, our dishes, and ourselves in the turquoise sea.

Once a week or so we'd travel a couple miles to a cenote, where an underground stream surfaced from the limestone catacombs beneath the Yucatan peninsula. I remember the sweet fresh fragrance of the crystalline emerald water as we swam. Tiny silver fish flickering in the sunlight 20 feet below seemed unperturbed by our splashing.

Swimming in that small but unfathomable hidden jungle pool was a deep pleasure I will surely never forget.

Once our old 4WD Toyota Landcruiser got buried to the hubs in the sand. I'm sorry to say we pulled down a palm tree when we attached a winch to it trying to get out. There was no AAA, or anyone else, to come to our rescue.

We made do. We learned the truth of Thoreau's observation: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can do without.

And a woman, too, I might add.

No TV, no radio, no phone, (oh joy!) no newspapers, limited fresh water, limited diet, no washer, dryer, trash masher, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, carpets, or air conditioner.

We got as much pleasure from solving our survival problems as we did from the natural beauty of our surroundings.

These days we recapture some of that simplicity when we go backpacking or rafting. We gladly leave our conveniences behind and make do for as many days as we can get away with what we can carry.

We need to reaffirm, somehow, that we can rely on ourselves and each other without all the luxuries and trappings of society.

Things are different for people born into poverty. They have no choice, no luxury of slipping back and forth between a world rich with material goods and an impoverished one where their children die of preventable diseases and malnutrition. Or endless wars.

But with our great wealth comes the choice. It isn't an easy choice.

Choosing to live with less, learning to simplify, certainly isn't the American dream.

A simpler less materialistic way of life would wreak havoc on the gross national product because our capitalistic society depends on us to be busy little consumers. 

Choosing to live with less would throw a wrench into the speeding reckless wheels of commerce.

What it might do for the human spirit, however, is another matter.


Postscript January 2019

OK. My younger self is talking to me, reminding me that I don't need anything.

Although this very day, in Mexico, I bought a pair of earrings and a colorful woven top. 

Clearly, I'm not ready to forgo everything superfluous to survival. 

But I intend to reexamine my relationship with Amazon Prime, which makes it way too easy to surrender to consumerism—and with all the energy-using shipping and waste-producing packaging. 

I'm so sick of styrofoam padding and air-filled plastic bags. Isn't everyone?

About 15 years ago I lived an entire year without buying anything new except for food and underwear. 

It's still January. I will make a NY resolution. 

I will buy nothing new until a year from today. 

I'll let you know how it goes January 15, 2020.

However, new landscapes and experiences will not be prohibited on the long road ahead.