These are the last snow photos you will be seeing on the BCB for a few days, so put 'em in the freezer else they'll be melted by what's coming next. Fire and Water do not mix!
A commenter suggested that there is a full-timer trapped in my part-timer's body. I agree to a point, but when you look truth in the eye... few couples can sustain a full-time lifestyle beyond a year or three. Note I said "couples." Singles can push it longer, but eventually most of them throw in the towel because "someone" with a different set of travel plans walks into their life. There are a few notable exceptions to singles staying on the road; Wandrin Lloyd and Boonie come to mind.
But couples always seem to eventually find that place... that picket fence that strums their heartstrings. If you want the truth about how serious a couple is about going on the road forever and ever... after they sell their sticks and bricks and kiss the grandkids goodbye... contradictory tears streaming down smiling faces...
ask them how big their storage unit is.
It's a shortcut question to the subconscious. You see, a ginormous storage unit is both a lie detector and a fortune teller.
If you have one filled to the brim,
it's nothing more than a parachute, a fire escape, a trap door, a secret passageway... how many ways must I say it...
a highway
"home."
If you are thinking of selling your house and really serious about becoming full-timers... of driving off into the sunset on an eternal roadtrip... but you have a storage unit filled with keepsakes and furniture and nicknacks and heirlooms and antique cars and tools and framed art and so on and so on...
you ain't going to make it five years
tops.
Just my opinion...
an observation
based on experience.
Do "couples" find that magic place that strums their heartstrings, or does the female half of the couple find it? Males are not a nest-building species. Houses just mean endless maintenance and expense.
ReplyDeleteBut I think you are right: being a long-term full-timer correlates with singlehood.
uh oh... :) uh... Well... The gals build nests... the guys build... FORTS! :)
ReplyDeleteI've been a gypsy from the day I was born. But... Like Jim Bridger who wandered all over this glorious west... He had a "Winter Camp" homebase... and Farm back in Missouri. How many of us can claim to have climbed to his level of Yondering?
Now... in this rig... What can I say... I love... I love... I LOVE the road... but tearing at me is also the shop I had where I could fabricate anything I wanted, any modification to the rig... and Leather Accoutrement Known to man... even weld up various and sundry Cowboy Inventions...
On my Home page... the first page I ever wrote, I said some day we might leave the road. It took a long time to get here. The vagaries of life throw constant curve balls... Though I will NEVER stop wandering, yondering and going down a Ribbon of Asphalt...
... It is HIGHLY likely I'll find myself, Like Mark, with some variety of a "Home Base"... from which I shall sortie out on wide circles... Giggling in the Wind...
... and I can honestly say... it'll be the testosterone side of the "Couple" that chose the trail... and not the estrogen. :)
Boonman,
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to imagine you in a "nest," same with Lloyd. Does the highway end at some point and does one settle into a walking world in some little or down town place with good coffee shops, sweet rolls and conversation?
CowBoy Brian,
I picture a plot of land with a shop that has living quarters over it... out in the country... someplace where it's not too hot and not too cold... come and go from there. Maybe someplace like Cottonwood or Clarkdale. If we split a piece of land it shouldn't cost too much. A guy does like to keep his tools.
Did you see the cowboy's head lift up his eyes widen and his ears perk up? ;)
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