In my young adulthood I would frequently get in my VW bug and go on a long weekend camping trip in Colorado with only $25. I had been in the Boy Scouts and the Rangers as a kid, so sleeping in a tent was no big deal. We’d usually try to incorporate a visit to a ghost town, a mountain pass, a hot spring, and a timberline hike.
This summer the band did a Colorado tour where several of the stops were door deals, and to economize we slept in tents at Crested Butte and Telluride. On long camping trips, as long as the weather is O.K., you get the feeling that you could go on indefinitely. Jewell lived in her VW van while she was gigging regularly at a coffee house in San Diego, so she wouldn’t have to get a job to pay for an apartment.
In Hawaii there are showers at the beach, and a state health care system. There is a bus that will take you all around Oahu for $2. I then started to think about all the people who have service industry jobs they dislike, and an average of $10k in credit card debt, and are falling behind each month, and are living where they live because they were born nearby. I wondered who had it better.
December 13, 2009 at 3:55 am |
I often ask myself the same question. While I do work full time in a regular day job, it provides me the flexibility to go out and experience the world in a way that a traditional corporate office job would not, despite the fact that those jobs probably pay more.
“you want to go on a cruise Hank?” they ask
“No, I’d rather drive through West Virginia for three days, eat at diners, and sleep in my truck.” or a host of other wild, exciting, non-mainstream things.