Our modern camping and travel.

August 4th, 2014 – Somewhere in Kansas.

We’ve explored our local area and our country quite a bit over the last 42 years.  These days, we usually travel the longer distances with our little Navion iQ Class C motorhome towing our Honda CRV.  Once we’re set up in camp site, we explore further afield using the CRV.

It’s quite a difference from when we first got started.  Our earliest exploration was by foot in Vallejo, California.  Then we got our first car, and, boy, did we put the miles on that little car.  We visited San Francisco, the Marin Peninsula, and up the coast to Fort Ross.  We made it to Donner Pass, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite – all in a few short months before I was transferred to the next school, which was in Idaho.  It was there that we did our first camping, renting a tent from Navy special services.  Over time our camping included buying our own gear, dabbling in backpacking and, in the late 80s, graduating to a used, very small travel trailer.  That lasted for 3 long camping trips, but, on the last one it was totaled when we were rear-ended in Tulsa.  Then it was back to tent camping and another couple of backpacking trips.

All of that was before the modern era of the internet and social media.  When we were traveling, we just went.  We might drop a post card to family from somewhere on the road, but there wasn’t any constant contact like there is today.  Of course, that made it difficult if someone needed to get in touch with you, but that’s the way it was.  Sure, you could call, but that was pretty much before the advent of phone cards, too, so calling long distance generally meant short calls on a public coin operated phones.  You either needed a pocket full of change or you called collect.

We didn’t make many calls like that.  Too expensive for us, too expensive for our families if we called collect.

Today, though, it’s instant communication, any time you want it – most of the time.  We can make a phone call from most places where there are concentrations of people and along most major traffic arteries.  We can also send a text message and check in on all of our social media.

On this trip, we will often be away from the concentrations of people and traffic arteries where cell service is concentrated.  Quite often, our cell phones will have a message at the top of the screen: “no service.”

That’s okay.  We’ll check in when we can but we’re not going to go out of our way very often.  Our kids will know about where are and where we will be going for the next week or so as does Karen’s mom.

Our modern mode of travel without constant contact: it works for us – and we really don’t know yet where all we’ll be going.