Oct 4 & 5th
…Still at Buckeye hot springs
A veritable herd of FourWheelCamper (FWC) neighbors! THIS is what it’s about! We all camped together!
My acquaintance from one of my campering forums arrived late afternoon. Argos and his goofy 5 year old Golden ran and ran and ran and… after the dogs had their dinner, us people were standing around chatting and tail-gate snacking when Argos fell over! It looked like his front legs collapsed under him. He had the look of a toddler child who is trying to stay awake, but not being terribly successful. I picked him up and put him in the camper with Pugsly. He hopped into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
A short while later, another FWC drove by our backwoods boondocking spot. I waved at them, and waved them over. The adventurers were none other than “Mule Hawk”, a young couple whom I’ve been following on Facebook! They quit their jobs, sold their house, and took a year off to travel. They set up camp with us and we all chatted outside between our three campers until it got too cold post-sunset.
Talking with the MuleHawks about their reasons for doing this adventure, got me thinking. There’s this idea – a prideful idea – that one’s work has to be significant – “cool”, that it is somehow part of your identity. But what if your life-style – your travel – is your identity and the work only exists to fuel and fund that part of ‘you’?
“What do you do?” is the ever-present question. You go to a party and that’s one of the first questions your new conversationalist asks. “Oh, I work in IT at a hospital” satisfies. But what if the answer is “I’m traveling around for a year… or more” THAT becomes the identity, not the job. I did that when I was younger, but somewhere along the line the societal requirements change and job-identity becomes more important than doing-identity.
“Oh, I’m a motorcyclist” But what do you do? “… er, I work in IT.” Ahhhh.
Originally, I was going to meet my FWC forum friend at these hot springs on Oct 5th but I arrived early. I could have left today and met at his place in Reno, then caravaned to a hot springs in NV, but I decided to just relax and stay another day and he took off a day early. If I hadn’t been relaxed about schedules I wouldn’t have stayed at the hot springs another night and I would have missed meeting Luke and Annie of MuleHawk Adventures. And that would have been a major shame!
Steinbeck, “… in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity”
and “…we find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”
Rosh Hashana was the day I started this journey.
Very fitting, considering this holiday is a time for reflection and change.