Whirlwind Western Trip
In October I headed south again. Due to a hurricane I had to skirt around my usual places in South Carolina through Tennessee. My friend Daphne had told me about a good campground in Alabama called Open Pond, with a beautiful small lake. There were three loops: a primitive one, and two loops for RVs, some quite high-end campers with fancy outdoor carpets and stringed lights. I met several people in the primitive loop who camped there the entire winter. They didn’t have to leave after fourteen days and it was only 3.00 a day. I may have liked to do that but it got quite cold in mid-winter.
I loved the nearby city of Andalusia. I met so many kind people there, hospital workers where I got tested for tick illnesses, Walgreen’s personnel, the nice woman at the Chamber of Commerce, the friendly guy in the tiny health food store. I had my car serviced at a couple tire places there. There was no cell service at Open Pond, even with my Verizon but that certainly did not deter me from camping at such a great place with great people and good hiking trails.
When arriving in Florida I tried out a different campground. My friend Raymond with his tiny home was going to be camping at Horseshoe Beach, a county campground right on the gulf coast near a neighborhood it was not private enough for me in my tent. So Raymond showed me Shired Island, another county campground nearby, with a beautiful sandy beach and a perfect site backing up to the woods for me. A local guy came around every morning to collect cash fees. I loved walking and sitting on the little beach even though the water didn’t seem clean enough to swim in. The campground became quite crowded over the weekend with people nearly camping on top of each other with no designated sites. A couple years later during a hurricane both Horseshoe Beach and Shired completely disappeared forever into the gulf.
I camped at ForeLake Campground not too far from Hopkins Prairie, which became a favorite in the coming years. I got lost the first time I tried to find it even though its main entrance was right off a paved road. I learned you have to be careful using GPS to find campgrounds as often it sends you in to a back entrance where you drive over bumpy service road for miles or get stuck at a pinion where you can’t drive any further.
ForeLake was much closer to Walmart, and other stores including a great health food store. Sometimes the mosquitoes were fierce, however. This time, even with my screen tent, too many mosquitoes were biting me. I remembered being in Sacramento several years back and there being no screens on the home windows due to the lack of insects, so I decided to drive out west in November. My plan was to relocate there, but instead, my cross-country trek became a two-week whirlwind trip.
I traveled through Louisiana and fell in love with downtown Natchez, Mississippi. Someday I plan to go back to that area and explore the Natchez Trace where there are many campgrounds. I had my heart set on getting to Arizona where many people with MCS live due to low mold. And where many nomads congregate. I dreaded driving through the huge state of Texas in my old car. Thankfully, I had my trucker friend John to chat with on the phone. He would tell me the positives and negatives of particular cities and highways. In exchange, I would buy postcards from various states for his granddaughter’s school project.
I visited a friend at a community for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities in Ennis, Texas, but didn’t stay more than a day because it was too cold. During the entire trip I would look at my phone to see where the temps were warmest and head in that direction, but when it came time to sleep it kept being 32 degrees wherever I landed, lower than the predicted temp.
I really liked Ruidoso, NM and legally, per forest ranger, I disperse-camped on a wooded cul-de-sac near a neighborhood. There was snow on top of the mountains and freezing sleet when I drove up. And the ski shops were already open. I couldn’t believe it was so cold so far south.
I visited White Sands National Park and enjoyed the drive there in the Hondo Valley with lots of trees with autumn yellow leaves. I visited Roswell, NM, a city with lots of places and activities relating to UFOs and aliens. In a beautiful Native American store I questioned the owner about campgrounds in the area, but he didn’t quite understand primitive camping. For many people, especially those with more money than me, their idea of camping is more like glamping, with recreational vehicles, lots of activities and upscale amenities, instead of just woods and tents.
In Tucson I set up my tent at Gilbert Ray Campground and drove around exploring the area. There were lots of Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, and I was quite aware there were numerous cell towers at eye level at traffic intersections. While I loved the beauty including the huge cactus and sunsets at the campground, I realized I was exposed to a lot of EMFs due to the higher elevation and the line-of-sight cell towers on nearby mountains.
I camped at Imperial Dam in Yuma, Arizona. My campsite was actually across the border into California. Dozens of RVs were parked in full sun along the ridge most likely for better cell reception. I was one of only a few down the dirt road near the lake, where I set up all three tents under a shade tree, a rarity in the southwest. A ranger came by to tell me that high winds were expected and that my tents would end up in the lake. I started taking them down and ended up scratching my car with the metal poles as the wind tried to wrestle my screen tent out of my grip.
I camped in Quartzite, Arizona, a popular town where many nomads congregate in their RVs. To me it just looked like a parking lot of campers; no privacy. I stayed in one parking area with a few scrubby trees. It was okay but no one else set up a tent there so I slept in my car. Then I drove north to Parker Dam where I saw wild donkeys clip clopping along the road. Unfortunately, the primitive campground was closed for repairs.
And surprisingly, there was not an absence of flying insects. There were bees flying into my car when eating a picnic lunch at various parks. And at Imperial Damn there were so many annoying buzzing bugs all around and within my car that I had to swat with my racket.
I was not personally impressed with the southwest. I missed the beautiful foliage and shade in the east. John said that I could rent his RV so I hurried back to Florida, where while getting an oil change, I was told I shouldn’t even be driving my car because the tires were so bad, fairly new tires that had worn down unevenly. And I had just driven 5000 miles.
My mechanic said I could park John’s RV on his property. But before I would have John take a lot of time to get his RV there, I decided to camp in my tent on the property, which turned into a fiasco. I set up my screen tent, and one of the metal poles ended up slamming me in the face and giving me a black eye. I also set up my regular tent for sleep and my privacy tent. The property, while located in a rural area, was on a yellow-lined road, busy especially at rush hour. Maybe in an RV the traffic noise wouldn’t bother me as much but I certainly wasn’t pleased for any kind of long-term living. I could smell Bounce and marijuana, and some of the closest neighbors were quite noisy long into the night. After four days there helping my mechanic and his wife clean and organize their garage/workshop, I decided to call it quits and went back to quiet campgrounds.
I started spending a lot of time at craft stores searching for items to make dragonfly earrings in the hopes of creating an income, but it turned out to be more of a hobby to be used as gifts. At Christmas there was a week of extreme cold and John let me stay in his RV while he was on the road. It was parked at a golfing campground and the other residents were very friendly and inclusive with Christmas activities on the grounds. But it was too crowded with RVs very close together and laundry smells, so it wasn’t the best solution for me personally for long term.
On my return to trip to Massachusetts, I spent some time exploring a different section of North Carolina, the Uwharrie National Forest, where many campgrounds were quite crowded. I camped at quiet, primitive West Morris Campground, where I ended up tripping over a tree root and falling hard on my butt causing further back pain. It was a very pretty campground where a friend was also camping with his dog. I didn’t see any bears but plenty of paw prints on our cars. The negative was hearing the sound of road traffic.
I returned to Massachusetts at the end of April. The weather was still cold so I stayed a week at a friend’s million-dollar rental house in a suburb of Boston. The on to Patrick’s property where I once again stayed in the loft above his garage. This time however, I didn’t have to climb a ladder because a beautiful outdoor staircase had been built up to sliding glass doors. I felt like I was living in a treehouse with the surrounding beauty of gorgeous trees and raspberry patch, and sightings of wild turkeys with their babies, a couple deer and a coyote here and there.
After spending the summer in Massachusetts, with constant rain, and only one or two beach days, and where I had two hand surgeries and dealt with severe jaw pain after a horrible tooth extraction, had lots of occupational therapy and chiropractic treatment, and started on a lectin-free diet, I once again headed south.