This odd odyssey of ours begs me to reminisce. I can’t help it. I have a lifetime of experiences to look back on, and yet the last 805 days — beginning when we set out on our shakedown cruise — have been so rich and so rewarding that I’m compelled to revisit and remember.
On this day in 2021 we were at this campground, still fridgeless, two days away from heading for Texas to have the burned-up unit replaced with a new one. Last year we awoke at an Airbnb nestled deep in the woods above Flippin, enjoying sunrise over Bull Shoals Lake before beginning a two-day run back to Ohio.
Now here we are, our third straight June 4th in Ozarkansas. Now it’s Home. And just as we were a year ago, once again we’re executing a move, this time paring down to only one life and escaping what Thoreau called “two cases at the same time.”
At least we’re not living three lives anymore.
Thoreau also said this, and it crystallizes our objective:
“Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
Simplicity, it seems to me, as a way of living, is misunderstood. It’s neither backward nor primitive. Simplicity isn’t ease, necessarily, nor does it have anything to do with technology.
Living simply is more like a line and less like a web, more circle than Spirograph drawing. And here’s the key — it’s best measured not by a lack of complexity behind us, but rather by the simplicity unfolding in front of us. Think about that.
Sometimes it’s simpler to buy a truckload of firewood than it’d be to cut it and split it and wait for it to season. It can be simpler to ask a smart phone to map an unfamiliar route than to ponder a paper map and guess.
When we returned from The Mountain yesterday, exhausted and gritty, picking up McDonald’s drive-thru was by far the simplest choice.
I’ve watched people complicate their lives pursuing what they call simplicity. They do seven things to accomplish one, consume days completing a task that could’ve taken five minutes.
It’s a trap.
Want to be more self-sufficient? Healthier? Less dependent on technology and the infernal “supply chain”? Increase knowledge and acquire new skills? Return to “the old ways”? Great, so do we. But lots of that stuff can be complex, not at all simple, so let’s stop calling it something it’s not.
Deb and I are shrinking our world, reducing our count of concerns, limiting the matters in which we’re engaged. We’ll log fewer miles on our vehicles. We’ll read wind and sky more often than we check radar. A walk in the woods and a picnic instead of driving to a restaurant. All things that simplify what’s in front of us.
At the same time, we’re in hot pursuit of a more rustic lifestyle. Backwoods. Homesteading. Country. Short-term, that means living off-grid in an RV — decidedly unfancy and, in all the ways that matter, simpler than any life we’ve ever known.
Smudge update: Our Heeler is healing nicely. We change her dressing every 36 to 48 hours, and the last couple of times we’ve noticed marked improvement in the wound — it’s closing, more pink than red. no longer swollen or seeping.
Ten more days of bandaging to go. We’re cautiously optimistic.
I’m inclined to credit the type of wound-contact dressing prescribed by the veterinary clinic — silver calcium alginate pads. I’d never used them before, but their efficacy in well–known, especially in treating burns. We were advised that silver pads are the ideal dressing for an open-wound-management protocol, and it’s been remarkable to watch.
We’re way behind on laundry.
The shift from using Ernie’s onboard washer-dryer to the campground laundromat, along with weaving that chore into our routine, hasn’t gone as smoothly as we might’ve liked. We devoted our Sunday afternoon to catching up.
Our goal (other than getting soiled stuff clean again) is to make the process as enjoyable as possible. After dropping clothes and coins into the washers, we duck into the campground office to grab cold drinks, maybe snacks if we’ve got the munchies, and then retreat to the covered deck out back to wait.
When the clock says it’s time, we transfer damp laundry into the dryers. More quarters. Back to the deck. When drying is almost done — because it’s best to fold (and stretch) clothes while they’re still warm — we return to the laundromat to finish the job.
In a few weeks, once we’ve left this park and are using laundromats nearby The Mountain, I seriously doubt that we’ll have handy access to a store and a breezy patio at laundromats. We’ll find other ways to make the chore less burdensome.
Because it’s an early summer Sunday, the campground emptied out some today. We’d had neighbors on the five sites closest to us this week, and all five guests pulled up stakes this morning to move on or return home — Texas, Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, Indiana.
Lots of bikers here this week. An unusual number of tenters (and not all have been bikers).
Occupying the travel trailer on the site next door was a couple from the Houston area, visiting Ozarkansas for the first time. The morning after they arrived they went trout fishing, launching on the White River at Cotter. That evening they told us with great enthusiasm of their success — they caught six browns each, releasing ten and keeping two for dinner.
Deb and I always have fun watching newbies to this region. They come for all kinds of reasons — fishing the White or floating the Buffalo, arcing motorcycles through the area’s incomparable roads, or simply parking their rig here ’cause it’s cheaper than campgrounds in Branson.
I can characterize first-timers’ reactions with a single word: surprise.
They didn’t expect Ozarkansas to be as beautiful as it is. They can’t believe that a place like the Buffalo National River isn’t known far and wide. They’re gobsmacked that the roads are so thrilling, so well-maintained and such a well-kept secret (not to mention that drivers ’round here have manners).
They’re amazed to find two radio stations playing nothing but classic Country music, real Country music. They don’t know what the local brand of BBQ is called, exactly, but dang, them’s good eats.
And, of course, they’re shocked to have landed in a place where people are unfailingly polite and remember what it means to be Americans.
Obviously, we get it. Not that long ago we were newbies, too, and we were just as surprised as they are.
We loved Ozarkansas so much that we up and moved here. Some of the first-timers we’ve met have done the same. I’ll wager more of them will.
This is a very good place.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB