By Chuck Woodbury
Editor, RVtravel.com

Maybe your grandmother shopped here. Maybe you did if you grew up in rural America. You don’t find many variety stores anymore. And when you do, boards are likely nailed against the windows.

Wal-Mart is the new Variety Store. I suppose Mom and Pop stores like this could compete better in an age where there wasn’t as much “variety” — when there were three brands of toothpaste instead of six dozen.

Woolworth was a good variety store. It had its day. After awhile there got to be too much variety for even a big store like that.

HENRY FORD DOOMED THE VARIETY STORE when he built his first Motel T car. Suddenly, people could drive a few miles to shop, spreading business around. When the roads got better, they could drive even farther. And if they didn’t want to drive at all, Mr. Sears had his catalog. Main Street became less relevant. Then Sam Walton reasoned that people would drive 50 miles to save $10 on a toaster. And so he began building Wal-Marts, quickly outpacing competitor Kmart that, alas, had the corporate IQ of a chimp.

If you ever find a variety store like the one in this photo, and it is still operating, stop by to buy something, and maybe even take a little trip back in time.

When I’m on the road with time to spare, I love to stop at rural cemeteries. It’s not morbid at all. There is so much history in a cemetery that visiting one is like taking a trip back in time.

Anyone who has any detective in them can find clues about the people buried there. I know that someday I will occupy such a place. Perhaps someone like me will stop by, say hi, and spend a few minutes trying to figure who I was. I love that thought.

When I am exploring a cemetery, reading headstones and trying to put pieces of lives together, I know that I am simply visiting with people who traveled through time before me. We all take our turns. My time is now. Lucky me.

In the very rural cemeteries of the West, you find many childrens’ graves. And the adults, well. . . they didn’t live as long as we do. Life was hard and uncertain. A decade ago in a tiny, nearly forgotten California gold rush cemetery, I stumbled upon a family plot — father, mother and five daughters — the Gaugh family. The oldest daughter lived to 18. Her sisters died younger. The husband survived his wife and all the children by more than a decade.

I have never forgotten the Gaughs. What grief the father must have endured as the sole survivor of his family. Oh my goodness, I cannot even imagine! Yet I try. I try because I want to honor him, his wife and his precious girls. But I also want to remind myself that I am alive now and must appreciate my life — and live it to its fullest. I once read a quote that went, “Live each day as if it were a work of art.” What splendid advice! Visiting a cemetery pulls me out of a stupor in which I forget to appreciate that “I am one lucky guy to be alive.” Such a jolting thought helps me go forward with energy and purpose, and to appreciate every day, every experience and every person I meet.

MY DAYS TRAVELING BY RV are among my best. I see new places. I meet new people. I fill my head with new experiences that morph into memories. And I am richer for it. I am happy to live in a time where I can do something like this.

Stop at the next cemetery you come upon. Spend time reading the headstones. Sit on a bench. Think. Feel privileged to be above ground and not below. And, corny as it sounds, say hi to the residents. Learn what you can about them and about yourself, too.

So when is a person elderly?

Last week I asked you to tell me when you believe a person should be considered “elderly.” See the chart to see the responses. I am sure that if we asked this question to a group of college students, the results would have skewed younger.

I loved some of the comments from the more than 2,500 of you who responded. Here are a few:

•”I am 59 feeling 45 except in the morning when everything aches. I have seen folks at 85 and some can run circles around me! I think you better be pushing 90 before I would call you an old timer. Most start to slow then and smell the roses.”

•“I know so many full-timers almost 90 who are still going a lot better than me at 63. Maybe elderly is a frame of mind.”

•“Elderly” is 10 years older than I am.”

•”I am 70 and used to think my father was really old when he was 60. However, my grandchildren do not think of me as being old. Good news for me. I think age is just a number. How you feel and take care of yourself will leave the impression on others whether you are old or not.”

•”I am a nurse and see mostly patients between the ages of 50 and 90. It always amazes me when I see someone who is 55 and I, too, would term them “elderly,” but only because of their health and appearance. Then again, I had a 77-year-old woman patient the other day who could have passed for 55!”

•”I am 67 and my wife is 70. We walked up to the service counter at Best Buy with a computer problem. A kid about 18 asked what was wrong. We told him and he replied, “Oh, Bill can handle that.” He turned around, took about six steps and said to Bill, “the old couple need your help.” I guess to an 18-year-old we are old – ha!”

“Old has very little to do with a calendar. It is all about mental attitude and physical condition. If you think you are old or you feel like you are old, YOU ARE.”

“The older I get, the older old gets!“

My writing suffered. I struggled to write creatively while the baby played or slept. At first, I was irritated at the interruption of my previously free-form life. But then, as weeks passed, I fell head-over-heels in love with my little girl. My life was suddenly fuller, richer.

During the next decade, our family traveled often in our RV as I gathered material for my next quarterly issue of Out West. My wife Rodica wrote alongside me, and wide-eyed Emily had a grand time exploring the nooks and crannies of America. Alas, five years ago Rodica and I divorced. Our life goals, we agreed, were different. Yet, through these recent years we have lived only a half-mile from each other and remained best friends. She, Emily and I have spent countless hours together as a family.

Now, as I look toward September, when my child leaves home and I’m “single” again, I begin to dream all over again of traveling and writing — when I can again meander the back roads at my leisure, camp in beautiful campgrounds, and settle in with good coffee and my laptop computer — writing for hours on end with breaks for hiking, exploring, maybe a little fishing. I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

Of course, whatever happens, I will write about much of it here. About 100,000 RVers read this newsletter every week. I love being able to communicate with so many people. Through the last nine years I have met many of you and corresponded with thousands of others. I hope, as my travels take me across the USA and Canada, I will bump into many more of you.

Keep reading, my friends.

No doubt you have seen these telescopes at scenic overlooks. Although I have no proof, I believe these are aliens from outer space. This is just a hunch, mind you. I only bring this up because I found this photo in my big slush pile of photos and could not resist sharing it with you. It’s such a darn cute telescope. I mean, just look at those big eyes!

But that is not what I want to write about today. Instead I want to tell you how utterly confused I am now as I begin to plan a cross country RV trip late this summer. I figure I will stay on the road between two and three months. My parental nest will be empty for the first time in 19 years, so there is no good reason to stay home where the highlight of each day is waking each morning and thanking the Lord above that I didn’t die in the night.

During the last week, I have spent a lot of time studying my road atlas. I look at roads, and towns, and then I consult with the absolutely wonderful guidebook Road Trip USA to try to discover good stuff to see. Frankly, and to be perfectly honest (which I always am) it’s bloody impossible! There’s just too much out there!

I also have people to visit throughout the country. So I need to calculate how to swing here and there to visit as many as possible.

From experience, I can tell you with almost certainty that even after mega hours of studying maps, it will not be until I actually turn the ignition key of my motorhome to leave that I will decide which direction to head first — maybe north, maybe south, maybe directly east. I know I won’t go west because I will drive into the ocean in 75 yards, and a sunk motorhome would be bad for its carpet.

I believe that the confusion I am experiencing is the best kind of confusion in the world. Because no matter how confused I am about where exactly to head, I know that along the way, no matter which route I take, there will be wonderful people and places.

So don’t think for an instant that I am complaining here! No way! I am just relaying to you what my brain is currently telling my fingers to type.

So now, here we are six days into our road trip. Our home state of Washington turned into Idaho, then Montana, then Wyoming. . . South Dakota, Minnesota, etc. Now, as I write this, we are parked in a residential neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, where Emily will visit with a high school friend who starts college here in a few days. I’ll take the time to finish this newsletter.

Even after six days, there’s more distance to cover. America is a whole lot bigger when you drive it by car or RV than when you fly over it at 500 miles per hour. Emily knows that now.

We’ve raced across the country — much too fast for me, speeding along on Interstates, where the idea is getting somewhere as quickly as possible and not necessarily seeing much along the way. We have paused a few times — Devil’s Tower National Monument, the Little Bighorn Battlefield, South Dakota’s Badlands, plus tourist spots including Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, and, of course, the 60-foot Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Photos: TOP: Devil’s Tower taken in the early morning from my campsite at the national monument. BOTTOM: Emily photographs the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

I am writing to you now from the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. I arrived Wednesday, a bright and sunny day. Oh, my goodness: the fall colors! They stunned me! I have heard about the fall colors of the East for years, but I never knew they were THIS INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL! As I drove, the beauty lulled me into a hypnotic state. I felt like I was on tranquilizers, like I was floating on a magic carpet.

As I was preparing to take my morning shower, I was overcome with happiness at the thought of soon immersing myself in its wonderful warmth. Here I am in a motorized house on wheels that despite its tiny size offers not only superb shelter but a shower, too!! As I stood there ready to step in, I found myself shouting out loud: “This shower is an amazing thing, Charles!”

My day cannot properly begin until I have had two cups of coffee and then a shower, and in that exact order! This must happen or I will spend my day feeling tired and dirty. So you can see why having a shower on board my wheeled home is important to me. Actually, I can sum up very easily: “Life is very good when your motor vehicle has a shower.”