A Woman’s Account of Retirement in an RV by Wendy Smith

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The traveling part is fine, we get to read maps, write down gas mileage and use flush toilets without turning on the RV’s pump at our gas station stops. Our thoughts of trailer spots with green grass near a lake or a pool diminish as the desert enfolds us and our soul mates become obsessed with dry camping on BLM land. I see lines of rocks left behind on the desert floor starting and ending nowhere and wonder why. After three days in our desert domain I am gathering rocks and putting them in a straight line! There are lots of rocks but the length of your line depends on how brave you are as to how far you will venture for rocks – is there a sidewinder by that brush where that rock is? A tarantula? Well maybe I’ll get braver tomorrow, or is that why the lines of rocks stop? After observing a few RVers, I believe husbands turn into boy scouts, mechanics, car washers or triathletes. Mine was a combination of all of the above. First you have to have a fire pit. Why there is no wood but miraculously he finds branches and twigs out in the desert and hauls them back. Then spends four days washing the 23 foot RV with a small pot and even rips up one of his free Marlboro T-shirts for a rag and painstakingly washes every square inch of the fifth wheel and waxes it. Well now he decides even though we are camped well away from the other RVs and there is water and a dump station close at hand that this is too civilized, so we move on. He says “There’s a place called The Oasis.”, and I’m thinking, sounds nice. We travel out of town down a dirt road and of course out in the desert. We come to a gravel pit and stop. I’m thinking this is an oasis? Well maybe it’s over that gravel hill; I climb it and see more desert. He says “Oh, no this is the golf course driving range, see those two palm trees way over there, that’s the Oasis. We could walk.” Well we drove and sure enough a few miles over, there is a hot spring under a palm tree, a small puddle up to your knees. He is ecstatic. I am thinking of the oasis in Hawaii where they have a palm tree in a huge pool and you swim over and sit on a bar stool. Oh well this desert does make one hallucinate. Today we saw 1,000 lambs (I thought they were sheep). They were shearing the wool off them. It was quite interesting how they did it and I thought, well in 80 degree weather they won’t fare to bad, until some guy started talking to us and said “Now in 30 days they go to the slaughterhouse”. Well back to the desert and the RV; it’s only 11AM and I’m told “See those mountains over there, well I’m told that’s a nice walk.” “Well,” I say “you go for it, I think I’ll clean up and take a nap, all of a sudden I feel in pretty good shape!” Entertainment! Let me entertain you, let me see you smile – that song seems to stick in my head. We are at a spot where the flies are very plentiful and seem to flock to the door of the fifth wheel. I remember we have two sticky fly tapes. One I hang outside by the door, after two minutes it is full with buzzing crying flies. The other I hang inside, after two minutes I forget and bend over to get something and get my entire head stuck to it. Ever try to get your hair untangled from fly tape? I’ll tell you I didn’t need mousse or hair spray that day. We do have a TV, a small 5” jobby, which we turn on and watch the news, though fuzzy at times it keeps one guessing does that announcer really have two heads? In the evening we sit by our campfire listening to the coyotes howl and I’m wondering what other predators are crawling in for the kill. Of course I never experienced desert wind and tonight I did, it has been howling for four hours. It’s only 8:30 but the fifth wheel has been rocky and rolling and I don’t mean the fifties dance music. Well I could go on and on, and probably will – we have been here for a month – only three more to go. I feel like Moses out here only his hair went white and mine is going black at the roots. What shall I call my story, Wasted Days and Wasted Nites or Hell on Wheels? I guess this too shall come to pass but for now the saga goes on-----