More crowds

About a hundred members of Escapees have escaped Quartzsite and gathered across the road from me. But they're far enough away that I don't hear their generators.

Lesson learned

After I posting about being able to have the door open on winter evenings, Nature chastised my bragging by sending van-rocking wind. I've had to seal up the Rolling Steel Tent to keep out the dust.

Alex

Alex was shooting a documentary at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. Its working title is "Burning Van." After he interviewed me, I interviewed him.

The monetary cost is low, but...

It's time again to renew my vehicle registration. Eighty bucks is a pittance, but getting it done costs a lot of frustration. It's as if South Dakota wanted to make their online renewal process obtuse and awkward to discourage its actual use.

First, there was no Renew Vehicle Registration menu item on the home page. Because, you know, no one would ever want to renew their registration.

Then, once I'd read a not-very-prominent paragraph and clicked the correct logo to get to the renewal login, it decided last year's username and password were invalid, so I had to create a new account, with an overly complex password and three security questions. Because, you know, no one would want someone sneaking in to pay their fees for them.

After it emailed me my new username and password, it wouldn't let me copy and paste the password into the login box. And it wouldn't show me what I was typing as I was typing it. I could type or see the actual characters, but not at the same time. Because, you know, who would want to do that?

Then, if there's an error entering your payment information (like not noticing auto fill stuck part of your phone number in the ZIP+4 field) you have to reenter your card number.

But I finally got it done and received a confirmation email. Woo! Legal for another year!

The $1.77 "Convenience Fee" made me laugh. I guess it would be a lot more if the process had actually been convenient.

Not to make you feel bad, but...

It's the middle of January, in the United States, it's getting dark, and it's warm enough to leave the Rolling Steel Tent's door open. This is one of the things I truly love about the nomadic life. Oh, and no mortgage, no rent.

Adios RTR

Denise & Dale

Robot 34

Another freebie

On my way back from Blythe I stopped for a shower at the Flying J in Ehrenberg.

The cashier asked, "Do you have a rewards card?"

"No."

"Are you a professional driver?"

"No."

At this point they usually ask for twelve dollars. Instead, he got on the intercom and said, "Eric, my computer shows showers 3 and 14 are available. I'm sending back a guy in a gray shirt with a white beard. Give him one of those."

"Why, thank you."

Eric directed me to shower 14.

"Thank you."

This has happened five or six times before. Or a trucker in line behind me will offer one of the free showers he'd accrued with his rewards card. There are nice people in the world. I left a tip.

Hurray for friends with skills and tools

Forrest at work

The Rolling Steel Tent had been making thumping, knocking sounds on rough roads—the kind of sounds associated with worn front steering and suspension parts. So I went to a mechanic in Yuma that had been given high scores on Yelp. He put the van on the lift, shook, jerked, twisted and articulated the steering. He showed me how the Pitman and idler arms were worn.

Some Steering 101: The hand bone's connected to the steering wheel bone. The steering wheel's connected to the steering shaft. The steering shaft's connected to the steering box, and the steering box's connected to the Pitman arm. The Pitman arm is connected to the steering linkage. The idler arm, on the right hand side of the chassis, mirrors the Pitman arm, except it's passive (idle). And all of this makes the wheels turn right and left.

The mechanic worked up an estimate: $911, most of which was for parts. "The parts estimate is based on the highest price. We might be able to knock off thirty or forty bucks."

I know mechanics mark up parts prices to help cover overhead. I don't begrudge the practice, only the degree to which some of them do it. So I went online and to the Chevy dealer to find out the actual prices. The mechanic's prices were 100% more than the dealer's full retail. Dealers are notorious for high markups. The dealer's prices were about 50% higher than full retail at auto parts stores. And the auto parts stores' prices were about 50% higher than online parts, even with shipping.

Before going back to the mechanic (or to a different one) I contacted my mechanic friend, Forrest, to get his opinion on the prices and how to proceed with the repairs. He said he was going to be at RTR (which I hadn't known) and he could do the job there if I were to get the parts. Well sure! 

I ordered the parts from Rock Auto and had them shipped to Quiet Times—a shop in Quartzsite that receives shipments for a small fee. The parts and Forrest both arrived Tuesday.

You can see in the video what it takes to replace the Pitman and idler arms. One of the biggies is an air wrench, which requires a compressor and the power to run it. Or, in our case, a lot of grunting, banging, torching and swearing. But Forrest got it done, with me handing him things he needed. Now I just need to get an alignment. And find a way to repay Forrest for his generosity.

More cleverness

My friend Forrest keeps his wrenches nice and orderly by stringing them on self-locking clevis pins. A square one for one type of wrench, a rounded one for another type.

The start of a new video series

About half the vehicle-dwelling folks I meet are part-timers. They hit the road for a few days, weeks or months, then return to some type of home base. What's more, some of my full-time vehicle-dwelling friends have been transitioning to part-timers or have forsaken the nomadic life altogether.

Since I have no desire (yet) to attach myself to one place, and since I can't imagine (yet) living in a building again, I decided to have part-times tell me their stories. Perhaps my perspective will change.

So here's the first in the Nomads with Anchors series, starring my friend, Lesa (pronounced like Lisa).

There is no overtime

A few days ago, my friend, Vanholio!, posted a blog article asking what we’d do if we had only six months to live.

The thing is, we seldom know when those last six months start.

I learned today that a fellow nomad had died. Steve had been in and out of hospitals several times in the past few years and had a sense his end was approaching. Soon. But if there were things he still wished he’d done, he was in no shape to do them.

The last six months might not be about death. We could be alive but physically or mentally unable to do those things we keep putting off.

A friend has crossed a couple of things off her bucket list—not because she has accomplished them, but because her body will no longer allow her to.

Randy (the guy who told me about Steve passing) is losing his vision due to macular degeneration. He’ll eventually have to stop driving, among other things. He now has fewer options for his last six months, whenever they might be.

There are people here at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous using wheelchairs, mobility devices and canes. There are people with bad backs, bad hips, bad joints, bad bones, damaged tissues, faulty organs. There are those who have trouble breathing or peeing. But they’re all trying, in their own way, to live as if they have only six months left.

A woman I met today said her van was far from being what she wanted, but she’s out seeing the country anyway because she doesn’t want to waste time waiting for the van to be perfect.

You or I might already be in our final six months. So we should start living that way now. If it turns out we have years or decades more time, then wonderful. We would’ve lived the way we wanted, with more chances to keep living that way.

Far from the madding crowd

A guy took my camping spot while I was away. I half expected that to happen because I didn’t leave anything to claim the site. But he ended up doing me a favor. I drove farther back from the road, past my friends, to where there was almost no one camped. Ah, solitude.

The closest neighbors

Subsets

Full-time nomads are a subset of the general population. Full-time nomads who go to the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous are a subset of that subset. Full-time nomads who go to the RTR and camp according to vehicle type are a subset of a subset of a subset. A Venn diagram of that would look something like a target.

Here's a group of people with modified step vans.

And here are some people with the same model of Ram ProMaster-based Winnebago.