Roading

A lot of people are full-timing it these days. Gone is the idea of some fringe counterculture completely non-understandable to outsiders, hail today, where living a life on the road is deemed not only acceptable, but successful.

Living this way, in small square footage and always so often somewhere new, has never brought upon us wayfaring strangers wondering how our children will get fed or handing out bags of charity food. We’ve never been told our way of life is insufficient to raise young ones, at least not by anyone who’s opinion would register on my internal Richter. Family, both close and extended, have always been supportive, or at worst, comical about our pursuits. Jokes about living in trailer parks are more prevalent than, say, scorn.

That’s not say we haven’t been taken in by communities. Loved even. People have offered spare space heaters, invited us to gatherings, hell even into their homes for as long as we’d care stay. We appreciate that kind of humanity, and take advantage of such opportunities when they seem prudent. The world is full of friendly people–and yes, dangerous–but more so the former in our experience.

And I am thankful for that, because I know that’s not every travelers experience. There are fanatical religious traveling hymnal families and the craziest hippies you’ve ever seen making due with tents and vans. Neither are right, just as paying rent or a mortgage are wrong.

It just feels good to know that, in a modern America where talk jumps from gun violence in schools to World Series attempts to government shutdown illusions, that we’re not the only folks around willing to set all of that and everything else life seems to be about aside, to instead wander as aimlessly as possible through what’s left of the old and what’s become of the latest to see what this country, and I suppose life in general, have to offer.

So I just want to lay down a blanket hoorah for everyone of us out there finding their way down the road. Scrounging trainhoppers and bearded bicyclists, rock star sized tour buses and tent campers, RVers and hitchhikers alike. Whether you’re retired, freelancing or busking. Looking to get on the road, current full-timers, or retired veterans. You are my people and we are the last remnants of what America has always been about, from the Mayflower to Lewis & Clark to slacklining, we’re the desperate and mad for something more than seems possible. The willing to get hung up from the tied in place. The ones who understand the difference between ’round the bed and ’round the corner.

Thank you for your support and dammit, safe travels and good times to you all.