How boondocking can save your sanity

By Bob Difley

Tea Partiers on the right, Socialists on the left. Wall Street bankers’ grubby paws plumbing the depths of our pockets while politicians squander our meager shillings before they even get into our pockets. Guns continue to show up blatantly on the hips of middle-aged gun rights activists, while Mexican drug cartels turn border cities into battle zones. And we RVers, mobile and ubiquitious as we are, often seem to find ourselves barely skirting the thick of it. What to do?

Go boondocking! That’s right, boondocking is the solution–thankfully not part of the problem. I’m not talking here about simple dry-camping, I mean getting out into the boonies, down bumpy old logging roads and sandy desert trails. Off the asphalt. Out of sight and sound of any Starbucks, roaring motorways, and bright city lights.

Head down that rough road–don’t worry, your RV is built on a truck chassis and can take it–as far from the interstate as you can safely drive. Then find yourself a level spot, drop your awning, and kick back. What do you hear? Ah ha, you exclaim as it hits you. It’s not only what you hear–birds chriping happily to lure a hot female, warm afternoon breezes shushing thouugh pine trees and rustling aspen leaves, and a brook babbling in tongues over hidden rocks and submerged branches.

It is also about what you do not hear–angry protestors shouting epithets at startled bureaucrats, the roar of cars and trucks rumbling down our nation’s highways, wailing sirens of police vehicles and medical response teams racing to the latest random act of violence, or cable channel talking heads extoling the virtues of their philosophy and denegrating the (pick one – nut-cases, socialists, old white male republicans, wimpy bleeding-heart liberals) of the other side.

No, none of that–if you keep your radio and TV in the off position, or if you’ve gone off far enough where you don’t get recepion anyway. What bliss (there’s a great old word). The joys of Nature full on in the sensory zones.

So if you are ready, start boning up on your boondocking skills. Get off those tethers, activate your adventure gene and head off to where the buffalo roam, the coyotes howl, and neither Rush Limbaugh nor Keith Olberman will have your ear. And you might want to download a copy of my eBook, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands for some boondocking tips before you head out.