Three days ago I decided to become an RVer. I drove an hour and a quarter from San Rafael, California, to Davis near Sacramento to see an Agile. Really cool, but very claustrophobic inside.

Yesterday I drove to Sacramento again. This time to test-drive a Pleasure-Way Ascent – same Mercedes chassis and motor, different cabin makers – all 19 feet 7 inches of it. I loved it. My corgi Annie will love it, too. [She didn’t go with me because it was too hot.] On the way home, I stopped by AAA and obtained a book on camping in the ‘extreme west.’ When I get the hang of the extreme west, I may skip over the not-so-extreme west, which is mainly desert. I want to finally visit Yellowstone National Park. I want to camp by one of Minnisota’s thousand lakes.

I found an old notebook and began My RVing Diary. I spent my evening in Google bliss gathering information on how to outfit an RV. How and where to dump the waste from an RV. Learning the difference between green water, blue water, gray water, and black water. I found all sorts of videos of people traveling with their dogs. People cooking gourmet meals in their teensy-tiny kitchens. People enjoying the sunrise from atop America’s precipices while sipping an RV-brewed cup of espresso.

I had already made up my mind I preferred traveling alone than with anyone I know.[Actually, there is one exception, but he is not available.] I turned 65 this year, the age I remember my grandmother being. My hands look like hers, with blotches all over them and veins protruding like the roots of a camphor tree breaking the sidewalk. My last marriage ended 21 years ago. My efforts at trying to find someone to have fun with and travel with have introduced me to some wonderful people. But the reality is…

My grandmother said she took up golf when she turned 65. My grandfather took another two-month trip to the Far East. My mother went to China with my step-father. My father wasn’t speaking to me when he turned 65. If you’ve read my book about him, I think you will agree he was probably in no position to do anything fun.

I’d rather spend my leisure time writing than playing golf, or sitting under a massive umbrella on a beach in Hawaii, or, heaven forbid, taking a cruise. Like my grandfather and my mother, I’m a hermit by nature, though I do feel lonely most of the time. Now I imagine myself writing in my Ascent while it is parked along the Avenue of the Giants, or by Old Faithful, or how about on the banks of Niagara Falls?

America, here I come. But I have to gather some pocket-change first.