Summer Road Trip, Anyone?

Posted on March 16, 2012

I wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention, because this is the perfect kind of outing for people with smaller travel vehicles, who are “making the best of it”. This isn’t the kind of trip for those that think RV’ing is heading south for the winter and setting in a park somewhere. This is for those who are interested in living “minimaly”, who want or need to make the best of what they have, and who are interested in both the environment as well as making life better for themselves as well as the rest of us.

I’ll let you read the opening offering at: http://mobilecodgers.blogspot.com/.

The “Philosopher” (along with a few others) have an idea, but other than what I told  you above, you’ll have to read the rest of the offer for yourself. After reading it and thinking about the implications of it, I had quite a few questions for Randy, and fired off a couple of emails to his inbox.

One suggestion was to update us soon with more details of this “quest” on his blog, and give us more of an idea what he has in mind. I gave him free reign to republish my concerns or edit them as he saw fit, so I’m not sure if he will reply to me or to make a new post. That’s up to him.

I know that most of you will not be interested in this, for various reasons. Some are too far away, some wouldn’t be able to go even if they wanted to, and for some, there may be no interest at all in the topic. After all, there is no itinerary (yet) other than visiting the parks of New Mexico. But in what order and for how long?

Topics of learning are hinted at, and yet there is no schedule of “workshops” (yet) to let us know what and when. Apparently the trip is already starting and can be joined at any time, but how are we to know if we want to? Aren’t most of these topics already covered at the workshops held at Quartzite and The Slabs?

The big question involves the supposed need for “community”, and I’m sure that will bring mixed opinions. To me, “community” is all those pre-structured RV resorts where people live side by side and put up with seeing each other, and the same sites day after day for six months at a time, plus all the rules and internal politics of the resort. Most of the “attendees” are upper middle class or higher, and so are the fees for staying there, despite the fact that many “true” RV’ers have been traveling and living for months at a time on the road and pay NO fees. But I guess if continuing the ill-perceived perception of affluence and all the bills and stress that go with that are your thing, then who am I to argue about it?

But we also have people reading this who are actually trying to “scale down” to smaller vehicles and RV’s, pay off their debts and learn to live within their means. (Yes, Congress, it CAN actually be done!) These people are not only interested in saving money, but doing things to make both their own lives better as well as to make the world a better place, by cutting back on their fuel, power consumption, and save water! They aren’t interested in payments on a huge behemoth that sucks gas like a fish, or in owning real estate and all the bills (and permanency) that go along with it. They are conservationists in the best sense of the term!

This is what Randy’s proposal is all about… in seeing whether there are enough like-minded people out there to want to join him and a few others for a summer of exploring the 35 New Mexico State Parks by caravan, enjoying and learning from each other’s company. The proposal seems a bit “loose” at present, and leaves many questions, but I trust Randy will provide answers soon enough.

I reminded him that no society has ever survived as an anarchy, and that there must be leadership. The suggestions I offered were exactly that… meant to make the experience better for all concerned, so I hope he won’t take it as criticism. When you get this many people together and try to fit them into a different State Park every week, you have to have a plan in mind. I offered many suggestions in hopes that they can make it work.

So go take a look at his post, and if you can offer any suggestions, please offer them up in the comments or send him an email. And if you have anything to say that you want to add here, please give me your thoughts.