June 15, 2015
17 – A Matter of Optics
We wake up with heavy legs that confirm we just pedaled all the way from Maine to New York with a dog. Rain falls on the thin cover above our heads. But when we walk outside to get breakfast we find that it's the warm, soft kind of rain, the kind that makes it something to love instead of fear. The rain rises and falls in force but doesn't leave until morning has gone. It's the backdrop for the unrushed reading and writing and route planning that make days off one of the most wonderful parts of a bike tour.
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I don't know if it's unique to this part of the country, or if it happens everywhere and I just never noticed, but the places where we're paying to set up the tent feel more like mobile home parks than campgrounds — every last one of them that isn't a state park. The sites left open for people passing through are the exception, not the norm.
In these campgrounds the spots are filled out by parked trailers with underinflated tires that don't move much or at all anymore. They have broad patches of green moss starting to grow on all surfaces that aren't flat. These trailers are surrounded by the markers of domestic, non-traveling life: small gardens, wire fences that mark the boundaries of what feel like yards, lawn mowers, potted plants, windsocks, awnings butted up against canopies, wooden deck furniture, and tiki torches. There's at least one American flag raised high at each site. We've seen far more RVs and travel trailers parked in campgrounds in this way than driving down the roads since setting out from Bar Harbor two weeks ago. I'd call it a ten-to-one ratio, easy.
It's this narrow subculture we never knew about or thought to look for until the last few days. But now that we know it's there, we can't help but notice it, and all of the quirks that it brings. On their face it's easy to make fun of, to laugh at, or to belittle those things. That goes double if you're like Kristen or me and grew up in the well-ordered grids of the suburbs. But the more I think about it, the more I start to get why these people are here and not out in the country or in a small town or larger city. Parking an RV or travel trailer in a place like this means less up-front costs than a house. There are fewer taxes to pay year after year. There are so many fewer things to break or wear out that you then have to replace. You have the freedom to pack up and move anywhere in the country, whenever you feel like it. I also get the sense that the people we see and meet in these places haven't drowned themselves in huge mortgages and expensive car payments and toxic credit card debt like most Americans. There's a lot of honor in that. The tiki torches and garden gnomes I still don't understand, but hey.
I don't get the sense that the folks in these semi-campgrounds have much in the way of assets. I imagine their ability to weather a financial storm isn't high. But beyond the lower level of comfort, the way they choose to spend the time they've been given doesn't look all that different from most older people I know. They watch a lot of TV, hang out with friends and family, cook or go out to eat, go swimming or fishing at the nearby lakes, and do their best to fight back against their health problems. It's a matter of optics more than any great difference in day-to-day lifestyle. I'm not saying I'd want to live in one of these places, but there now exists within me a much greater level of respect and appreciation for people who do.
I have a lot of time to think about all of this, because today we never make it past the parking strip that runs in front of the restaurant and campground. There isn't any need to.
In the dark of the late evening with the rain sounding just like it did when we woke up, we lay back in the dry of the tent and the warmth of the sleeping bag. We talk and rub Walter's little head and listen to music. As Nirvana's live version of the Southern Appalachian folk song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" builds toward its crescendo, a frisson of some feeling I can't describe rushes through me, showing itself in the waves of goosebumps that rise and fall along the length of my arms. And then, sleep.
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