The last gasp.
The last gasp of a summer holiday is Labor Day, which pretty much marks the end of the normal warm-weather travel season. As usual, I'm hunkered down inside the camper with the doors and windows locked, looking through a periscope to see how bad the traffic is.
I feel very fortunate not to have to deal with holiday traffic, or worse, the holiday crowds. It's the poor working folks who are forced to deal with it while retirees like myself are sheltering in place until the whole situation is over.
The folks who can will have left work yesterday after lunch to beat some of the traffic to whatever patch of woods or state parks they're going to, which is exactly what I did given the opportunity. When I was young, raising a family and paying a home mortgage, I would always volunteer to work on holidays like Labor Day since I would get paid double time. But when I got older and had a government job, I would try to work on the holidays for the same reason. But when I couldn't, I would usually stretch my holiday out as long as possible by leaving at lunchtime on Friday and taking a sick day on Tuesday...... well, I was kinda sick.
But now that I'm retired, a fulltimer, and a long-term boondocker, I don't have to make excuses or hurry to get somewhere; wherever I'm at, that's exactly where I want to be, and whenever I get there is the perfect time to arrive.
theboondork
Boondocking at Pete's.
The Petrified Forest. National Park.
Boondocking in Wickenburg, Arizona.