Turbo Diesel Registry
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/594528
62 www.turbodieselregister.com TDR 90 Ready To Travel Off the Map Boondocking 101 Regular tourist travel, RVing along regular highways, usually means camping at regular civilized RV resorts, on trips where one views the sights featured in the likes of Triple-A guidebooks. That is certainly a wonderful way to see America in your Ram. But there is another world out there—off the tourist map, into what old-time geographers labeled terra incognita, blank white areas on their maps—such as the place where Stanley famously found Livingstone in darkest Africa. My grandmother had just such an antique geography in the attic, which we, as children, delighted in on rainy afternoons. Today, what with satellite mapping and DeLorme digital map software, there's no such "unknown land" any more, not in the literal sense. That's kinda sad for us inveterate explorer-types. But—glory be!—some of us outlaw RVers have found there still is, really, in today's American Outback, remnants of that beckoning primitive world, off the beaten track, overlooked and scorned by civilization. Or at least that's the dream territory we enter when we go boondocking. Our introduction to the very word "boondocking" was when we first met the editor at a Cummins jamboree in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1995, a couple years after he launched the TDR and right after we bought our stalwart Second Generation Turbo Diesel. Later, when Bob and I retired from college teaching at the University of Tennessee, we joined up with Robert in his backup crew editing his gloriously audacious new magazine. To mark the occasion, he graced us with an early version of the now-legendary Geno's Garage "Boonie Box," designed for survival in the "boondocks," Robert assured us. I had to go to my Webster's to find out what in the world "boondocking" might mean in twenty words or less. Now I want to share what it has come to mean for Bob and me in twenty wonderful years of hardscrabble education in what, for want of a better name, we call boondocking. For our purposes in this column, it is helpful to consider some of the brands that real live boondockers give to themselves and what they are about. "Wanderers," "gypsies," "nomads," "outlaws," — deliberately colorful self-characterizations by a generally eccentric band of adventurers who want to draw their own maps. I certainly wouldn't want to include any fugitives from the sheriff (although we've come across spouses on the lam from child support). I do include "romantic" non-conformists, widows and their dogs, solitary hermits on wheels, and reincarnations of John Wayne with a Ram rig that doesn't get manicured oftener than it rains. Add a couple of retired teachers to the cast of characters. If you like, fill in the blank yourself with your idealized role. Maybe your own rig is a bit more upscale than our wagon; well, that's okay, as long as you are willing to take it into places we take ours. Look at some of our travel stories in past issues, particularly on our expeditions into San Rafael Swell (Issue 78, pages 68-71) and the Maze area of Canyonlands (Issue 80, pages 72-74), and certainly the White Rim Trail (Issue 74, pages 72-74). You'll get the hang of our style of boondocking; and I'll not be surprised if you too want to take your Ram by the horns and venture beyond polite RV society. That doesn't mean you have to be uncomfortable; it just means you've got priorities. You need to know the special constraints and what to plan for. Our earlier boondocker stories weren't labeled as such and didn't really say a lot about the camping aspect of the trips off the beaten track. So let's talk about that aspect now. For defining the sort of camping we are bargaining for, we take our cue from the origin of World War II GI slang for "the middle of nowhere," boondocks, originally a Tagalog word for "unexplored country," off the map in the Philippines. So this is going to be serious camping. We don't want to use the word boondocking for simply "dry camping" by the side of the road, maybe behind a pile of gravel in a highway maintenance yard overnight. Everybody has done that at least once. Our definition of boondock camping is more precise and more useful. Almost all the peculiarities and fascinations in our style of boondocking can be considered under two heads: where, and how. Where? Where do you find the "off ramps" from RV civilization? And, second, How do you do it once you're off the grid—what are the distinguishing challenges and constraints? The key answer to the first question, "where," is Public Lands. Of course there are endless possibilities of impromptu and extemporaneous camping in the land of private property: a friendly farmer's back forty, an old quarry, turn-offs down lonely country roads to nowhere, abandoned town sites—the imagination runs wild. But federal public lands (with occasional closures and restrictions), free of cost or ridiculously cheap, on which citizens have a presumptive right to enter and explore: this is the defining element for boondocking as we are considering it. In fact, nearly half the area of the US is owned by the federal government, administered by the Federal Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Corps of Engineers, and the National Park Service. These territories have many statutory uses, including mining and cattle grazing; but one of the principal uses is for free "Ready to Travel" is a forum where TDR members tell about their travel adventures and favorite destinations.