November 13

On Dauphin Island and in many other campgrounds I have seen tenters arrive in their pickup trucks or SUVs, fully loaded with all kinds of "camping" gear. The idea seems to be to visit Wal-Mart and buy as much as will fit into your vehicle, drive a couple of hundred miles to a state park, and set up all the gear. There was a woman at Dauphin Island, camping with her two young daughters. Each had her own tent, each of which was larger than mine, and each of which was filled with an air mattress inflated by a noisy 12-volt pump connected to the giant SUV's cigarette lighter. She struggled to erect, in addition to the tents, a 12-foot square collapsible pavilion, but gave up, letting its frame and sagging cloth roof eat up space. Darkness was encroaching, I had cooked and eaten my supper, and brushed my teeth, and ready to get into my tent and sleeping bag, and she was still assembling chairs and yelling at her kids. I'm not really all that different. I just can't carry as much. When I was fifteen we used to spend summer weekends on a small lake in northern New Mexico. Five of us with all our gear (sleeping bags, fishing tackle, and a box of food) fit into a '49 Ford.

Today, near Perkinston, Miss., I met Brock, a man eight years younger than me, who is riding the same route that I am, in the opposite direction. He started riding in San Diego, will go to St. Augustine, and then to South Carolina to visit a daughter who is in university. He too is pulling a BOB, and has all of his gear in it. His load is half of what mine is. He has a tent and uses it much more than I do mine. He is a very nice guy, and we talked for twenty minutes on the highway. He was surprised that I have been lonesome and homesick; he is thoroughly enjoying his excursion. A storm was brewing, and he suggested the Haas-Cienda campground in Poplarville, Miss., where I am now, safely out of the oncoming rain, with my tent pitched on the campground's stage, which is roofed over and walled on the south and west sides.