Retirement
Talk for Boomers, Seniors and Retirees
What to
do with the Rest of Your
Life? |
Episode 113 Road Trip Part 6:
RV Park in the Mohave Desert
Hope,
Arizona consists of an RV Park, a restaurant, and a church.
It is on a lonely stretch of road at the junction of highway 60 and highway 72.
Highway 60 is a great way to go if one is headed east to Phoenix from Joshua Tree National Park: very
little traffic and wide open expanses of pure desert. Some where along the way
we got a great photo of a single tree filled with perhaps a hundred pairs of shoes.
There was a short fence that ran beside the tree and the fence also had shoes
tied together and strung across the wire. It is the kind of things that make us
slam on the breaks and go back for another look and a photo. We would have left
a pair of shoes to join those of other passersby, but we didn’t have any
extras.
This is Retirement Talk. I’m
Del Lowery.
Hope,
Arizona popped up right at lunch time. Here is a little clip
from our lunch stop:
(Insert audio clip)
I failed to get an interview
at the restaurant. Everyone had finished their meal and left before we did. We
drove across the road to the church parking lot where Brenda took out her
sketch pad and started a drawing. I took a short nap and then wandered off in
search of my first interview on the trip.
(Insert audio clip – I found
a guy about 80 years old sitting next to his RV. He had been coming to Hope for
over 15 years.
Here’s where I panic. I must apologize
to my listeners. I was nervous; I didn’t trust my recorder to be doing the job.
I fiddled with it as he spoke. The screen appeared blank in the light. I pushed
the wrong button. The rest of the interview was lost. I promise to practice and
do better in the future. I’ll have to
give you a brief synopsis of the rest of my visit with the RV’er.
He liked the place because it
had good drinking water. He liked it because of the warm weather. When I asked
him what he did with his time the response was something like, “Well, we talk
to neighbors. Some folks play golf. I don’t. Some ride dune buggies across the
desert. I don’t. We have lots to do down at the hall. There’s cards and bingo
and almost anything else you could ask for. There is always something going on”.
I asked if he had a
television. “Oh, yes,” he responded enthusiastically. “We all have our dish” I
kept looking around for someone else but no one appeared. The place was quiet
and empty. He had a wife who must have been inside; perhaps taking her
afternoon nap. He had a little green indoor/outdoor carpet spread out by the
trailer. On it were little plastic figurines, a couple of small tin men like
out of the Wizard of Oz were standing there, a few plastic birds and colored
balls filled out the yard.
What was retirement like for
this guy? It was to travel to a warm climate every year. It was to sit back and
talk to a few friends. It was to take life easy. It was cheap to live. Well, he
picked the right place. He said that if he wanted to go to a store there was
one just 60 miles east and another just a hundred miles away. Mexico was just
a 120 miles away and he could go there if he wanted. But he didn’t.
I don’t know about this type
of living. Some people, people like him, find it fulfilling. I’m not exactly
sure why, but I guess it depends on your expectations and your idea of what
life is all about.
He liked to talk. I had
difficulty tearing myself away. I don’t think he sees a lot of people, especially
strangers. If you are looking for a place to, “get away from it all” and I
mean, “All”, I would think Hope,
Arizona would be a great place to
be.
As for me, I was ready to
shake the dust from my boots.
This is retirement talk.