Gentle Adventures

Gentle Adventures

January 27, 1998

Consider the following arduous adventure by Sandra Johnson that was reported in an ad by a California Outdoor Gear Company:  “I didn’t begin hiking until I was 49 years old.  A little later I walked 56 miles on my 56th birthday in 15 ½ hours.  In 1990 I backpacked the John Muir Trail, 1991 the Pacific Crest Trail, 1992 the Appalachian Trail - all solo.  I realized I want to spend my time in the wilderness rather than on city streets.”  

Or, here is another example: Bernd Heinrich sometimes runs 20 miles before lunch.  He is a distinguished scientist and writer who set several American and world ultra marathon records, including 100 kilometers, 100 miles, and the 24-hour run in which he covered 157 miles (R. Wolkomir in Nov. ‘97 Smithsonian).  Not bad for an author of at least 3 books and numerous scientific papers.

I read these stories and have considerable admiration for the stamina, courage, dedication, and gritty toughness of folks that take on such projects.  “Maybe I could do something similar,” I tell myself.  “All it would take is a little training.  LITTLE TRAINING???  Be serious!”  When I met Bernd Heinrich at an airport to transport him to his hotel, he refused to ride in a car because he wished to run to the motel -- “needed the exercise” he claimed.  He ran upstairs, down halls, across campus and into the lecture room where he presented an entomological seminar.  He ran almost everywhere even now in the Texas summer heat.  An admirable trait, huh?  Well, I have tremendous respect and admiration for Bernd, but I chose not to try to duplicate his feats.  Many of my acquaintances categorize my behavior as eccentric because I still do gardening type of exercises and try to avoid rich sugary foods.  But compared to Bernd, I am a virtual “tweety pooh.”  When I was young, I sometimes dreamed of being a champion in some athletic sport.  Not until middle-age did it occur to me that being a champion was not terribly important.  Then my subconscious, conscience or something kicked in and gigged me for finding an excuse to grow fat and lazy.  Could there be some kind of activity that might prevent my body from becoming vegetative without having to climb Mount Everest?  Could I not find adventure and maintain my physical health without having to swim the English Channel or hike to the North Pole?

In 1991, at the age of 55, I asked myself, “Is there life after Entomology?”  I had one of the best jobs in the world -- got paid for doing my hobby!  Had traveled over much of the world and lived for short times in Australia and Brazil.  “Why change a good thing?” I asked myself.  I could keep my job at A&M University till they force me out sometime after I reach 65, build up a sizeable retirement nest egg, build a big home, and spend the remainder of my life mowing the lawn.  Or, I could retire ½ time to see if there might be something else I might enjoy doing while my health was still reasonably good.  Pat and I could go climb a few mountains or goof off  — depending on our mood.  

A few years earlier we had seen a for-sale ad in the local paper for a motorhome.  We drove to Hilltop Lakes, looked it over, and fell in love with it.  We tried to negotiate, but were definitely out of our league and paid the blue-book price when we might have paid less.  But anyway, we began to learn about living in an RV.  Primarily, we learned by experience -- all the things not to do.  It took several years, but at some point, our other home without wheels began to feel like an anchor around our necks.  When we traveled, we worried that the lawn was not being watered or mowed, that someone would break into the home and steal all of our priceless junk, that a water pipe would break and flood the house or...  

 

Foretravel Gasoline

So, when I reached the age of 60 in 1996, I decided to retire full time, sell the house and see if we could not truly enjoy the gypsy lifestyle -- full-time.  Sure there was some indecision!  After being a workaholic all my life, could I suddenly handle the absence of goals, deadlines, and meetings?  Would I miss the intellectual stimulation of the academic environment?  Was our retirement income sufficient to support our new lifestyle?  Would I whine about needing to return to work because retirement is boring?  Could we learn to again enjoy childish pleasures without feeling guilty about it?  What would all of our friends and relatives think about such irresponsible actions?

Then there was the problem of all the treasures in our home that we had been accumulating for so many years --.family heirlooms, kids’ stuff, favorite and comfortable furniture.  Also, we enjoyed good neighbors, a great neighborhood and a good community! Was it time to vacate the “fur-lined rut?”  Would we regret giving up all this comfort and convenience for life in a motorhome?  This part was especially trying for Pat!  Maybe women sink deeper roots in a community than men, but it was probably easier for me to sell all our treasures in a garage sale than it was for her.  She was game for a change, but it took considerable courage to make such a dramatic change.  Our kids took much of our furniture and other treasures and even paid for some of it!  They never once asked: “Are you sure you want to sell our old home and live the life of vagabonds?” -- or questioned our sanity.  (Do we have understanding and responsible kids or what?) 

Now we were free to start a life of travel and adventure!  We traded our old motorhome for a new diesel job and “hit the road.”  Then we realized that almost every day we were forced to ask the question: How much travel and adventure do we want?  What risks are we willing to take to find adventure?  Slowly, a solution began to evolve.  It would be my job to get us into trouble and Pat’s to get us out.  Well, not exactly -- but close.  It was mostly my job to find interesting and exciting places to go and things to do.  Pat’s job was to carefully evaluate the risks of any new adventure without seeming to be negative -- not an easy task!  In the evolution of our general goals, we came to realize that extreme adventures were not needed to experience the joy and excitement of discovering unexpected pleasures.  No, we do not often experience the high-adrenaline charge of rock climbing or skydiving, but we can experience the satisfaction of “gentle” adventures without the need for an adrenaline rush.

Now, after about seven years of part-time motorhoming and three years of full-time motorhoming, we can look back on some of our “gentle” adventures through some short stories that I wrote and Pat edited along the way.  These stories are not an attempt to provide complete coverage of our travels, but hopefully, provide some entertaining “slices” of our experiences over time.  When we developed the ability to send and receive email, I began to send these stories to a few friends and relatives.  As more and more of our friends and family began using email, our address list continued to grow.  We began to get hints suggesting that maybe these stories should be published in the form of a book.  My stock answer was that publication might be OK as long as it did not turn into work.  To my amazement there are now about 72 (updated to 204 in 2022) of these stories and writing and sending them is still fun, so guess that I will continue until this stuff is either published or it turns into work.

A tentative book title is: “Gentle Adventures: RV Nature Travels” with this chapter as the introduction.  Sister Ruth suggested “Life on the Road.” 

If this venture turns into a bomb, those who encouraged publication (Ruth, Fanny, Dorothy, Peggy, John, Peter, Jack Heacock, Dick Heacock, John Benedict and others) may be forced to admit that by enjoying some of my stories, they have exhibited questionable literary taste.

 

Note in 2022:  One of the beauties of writing blogs instead of a book, is that these stories can always be modified or corrected at some later date.  Consequently, I consider all of the stories to be "works in progress", even though most will likely not be modified significantly before it all ends.

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/4404749581224177008?hl=en