It’s 5 a.m. and I’m on the 12th floor of a Crowne Plaza hotel looking out the window.   Down below in the parking lot I can see a white pick-up camper.   It showed up just after sunset last night.   The owners are fairly bold to spend the night in the parking lot of this hotel, especially when there are numerous open parking lots nearby and the hotel lot is quite small.   Perhaps they are connected to the hotel in some capacity, because when walking by earlier I could see that they had strung an electric cord to an open socket on the nearby lamp post, too.   Either that, or they have cajones the size of bowling balls.

Although I am ensconced in the plush trappings of the hotel, and it is cold outside, I still find myself looking down on the camper with a little wistfulness.   The truck camper says something to me about the freedom of roaming around and staying where you want.   I imagine that the occupants are on a big road trip, and I remember how it feels to pull up in a strange town and find a place to park for the night.   It’s fun and frightening.   I want to do it again soon.

When we came “off the road” from full-time Airstream travel last October, I didn’t think it would turn out like this.   I have been traveling quite a bit lately, and much of it has been in the conventional venues of airplanes and hotels.   I really envisioned months in our house, slowly and luxuriously exploring the nooks and crannies of Tucson, and occasionally slipping away for weekends with friends in the Airstream.   Instead I have been flying around hunting for business and trying to survive a tough business climate for magazine publishers.

There is rarely anything memorable about modern air travel, except when awful things happen, which is probably why most people regard it as an experience simply to be endured.   The only really good thing I can recall about my most recent 10 flight segments was the singing Flight Attendant on Southwest Airlines:

We love you
You love us
We’re much faster than the bus
We hope you enjoyed our hospitality
Marry one of us and fly for free

I’m already married, so if I had a choice I’d rather be traveling in the Airstream. But business happens at high speed sometimes, and then you fly the Airbus 319 (or the Boeing 737, or the Canadair RJ700, or whatever they’re flying that day).   I’m on a two-day quick trip right now, and later this month I may have another one.   It would be hard to complete these missions in the Airstream, especially with winter weather.   Rapid travel is what I must do to survive, so that’s what I’m doing.   I can take solace in the fact that the Airstream will be there for me later.

A peculiar aspect of jet travel is how quickly the scenery and climate change. Yesterday we were hiking in the Santa Catalina mountains, up the steep Ventana Canyon trail.   We stopped about two miles up the trail and looked back on the rugged canyons, studded with saguaro cactus and palo verde, with the city of Tucson spread out below.   It was breezy and in the 80s, and the springtime pollen was blowing around, which made us cough a little.   We had lunch under a mesquite tree, and I thought, “24 hours from now, this will all seem like a far-off memory.”   And now, here in a northern city with patches of snow on the damp, muddy ground, it does.

When we had the Airstream, that sort of change rarely happened.   At 60 MPH, you can pass through a lot of terrain in a day, but the evolution of climates and landscapes happens at a speed you can easily absorb.   The most dramatic change we ever had in a day was leaving Death Valley and driving up to Mammoth Lakes CA.   Death Valley was heading for 116 degrees, but that evening we camped in a green pine forest with snow all around us. When your environment changes that rapidly, it’s nice to have familiar surroundings.   When you don’t even have that (as in a hotel), it is much harder to stay on an even keel …

… which explains why I’m up at 5 a.m.   I don’t sleep as well in hotels as I do in one of the two beds I know (the house and the Airstream).   The Crowne Plaza has a wonderfully comfortable bed and even a handy little “Sleep Advantage” CD with soothing sounds.   The booklet that comes with the CD lists ten “Sleep Tips,” most of which   I usually observe naturally, but nonetheless here I am wide awake far too early, on what promises to be a very busy day.

Still, early mornings like this are an opportunity.   I can get a jump on the day, writing a little, editing a little, and thinking without the slightest chance of interruption.   It’s a chance to re-think priorities and consider options.   Lots of people wake up this early every day and just get on with their routine, but since it’s a rare thing for me, it’s always bonus time. You’ve got to take the bonus time when you get it.

And the flip side of the rapid change in scenery is that it will all change back again in 24 hours.   Tucson is getting warmer — the way I like it — and my daughter is getting taller, and my wife is expecting me with open arms, which are all things I can look forward to embracing.   If I can’t travel with all the things that I love, at least I can get back to them soon enough.

Like many other people, in the past few weeks we’ve been receiving Christmas cards and letters.   But we haven’t sent any.

It’s   not that we are opposed to Christmas spirit, like The Grinch or Scrooge, it’s just that we are terribly conflicted and perhaps somewhat incompetent.   (That’s not better, is it?)   Currently I write this blog, and prior to this I wrote another blog for three years, and prior to that I had even more blogs about various projects.   Considerable aspects of our lives have been well documented on the Internet, and there’s hardly more anyone would care to know about us.   So why be redundant and send out a form letter to everyone?

A Christmas card would be nice, but really, it seems to be beyond my ability.   I can write a blog every day for three years.   I can write, edit, and produce a magazine four times a year and ship out 12,000 copies.   I can maintain multiple websites, manage a staff of 10-15, and write personal responses to over 8,000 emails* every year.   But I can’t manage to buy two dozen Christmas cards, address them, and get them in the mail.   There is clearly some sort of mental block here.

* Note that this works out to an average of 21 email responses every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.   That’s with me responding to only about half of the personal emails I get, too.   If you got a note from me in the past year asking you to please remove me from your email joke list, that’s why.   Sending such requests may lead to people thinking perhaps I really am Scrooge, but it’s just me trying not to disappear in a quicksand of electronic messages.

I admire the photo cards that some people manage to get together.   It shows that you’re organized enough to get the family together weeks or even months in advance, order the cards, and get them in the mail.   The card shown at right is a prime example.   (But I have to admit it didn’t come to me.   I found MM’s trailer and hooked him up with GSM Vehicles, and they got the Christmas card.   There’s no justice.)

You’d think that out of the 10,000 or so photos I shoot every year I’d at least get one or two photos of the three of us.   Not so.   A couple of years ago I tried to make up for the lack of photos of us together, by handing my camera to bystanders when we were at scenic spots.   I ended up with a lot of photos of us appearing as badly-lit dots in front of things like Crater Lake and the Grand Canyon.

After several disappointments, I set up my tripod on the beach at St George Island (Florida) and tried to do it myself with the camera’s self-timer. The result was a lovely photo of Eleanor and Emma, with me grimacing in the bright sun.   The wind was so strong that day that on the 14th or 15th take, the tripod blew over and the Nikon got buried in the sand.   The pop-up flash stopped working, and despite repairs, the camera has never been the same since. We didn’t use the pictures, either.

I’m not alone in my Christmas-card-impeded state.   For many years, Eleanor has written long long Christmas letters with complicated tales of our year in review. The letters usually get printed out on fancy colorful paper, stacked in huge heaps, and then neglected until roughly February. At that point, under prodding by me, a few get mailed to elderly relatives who don’t have Internet, and the rest go into recycling.

This year, Eleanor tried a new tactic.   She wrote a rather succinct letter about our 2008.   Those of you who followed the Tour of America would find it very amusing.   It basically says, “We continued traveling in our Airstream,” and “Emma is doing well with homeschooling.”   Succinct, yes … and for details, she provides the URL of our travel blog.

I’m sure some of the relatives who get it will interpret this as:   “We still live in a trailer because we can’t afford better,” and “we’re neglecting our child’s education.” But we realize that the letter would mostly be going to relatives and out-of-touch friends who have little interest in the details.   Reading a Christmas letter from someone you haven’t heard from in a while is an amusing bonus, something to lighten up the dark winter days.   You get a chance to find out how weird people have gotten since you last saw them. We don’t want to disappoint anyone.

I’m always amazed when someone does manage to get cards or letters out, and I appreciate each one very much.   If we ever got a round of cards out I suspect we might shock some people to the point of requiring medical attention.   I can’t say yet that we will do so this year.   Eleanor’s current letter exists only as a draft, with a total of one copy printed, and it’s December 22.   I have a feeling that, given we are two days from Christmas and leaving for an extended trip in five days, the letter may languish until February again.   It may end up as an email.

Perhaps the best move would be to write   next year’s Christmas letter early.   If we started in February 2009 we might actually get it out by Thanksgiving.   All we would need to do is predict what we might do in 2009, which would be far more amusing anyway.   When the letter actually hit the mail, we could compare the prediction to the reality for our own benefit, but for the purposes of people receiving it, it would probably be close enough.

It might read like this:   “In 2009, we enjoyed a few months in Tucson before getting antsy and heading out in May for several months of travel.   We visited some parts of the northwest US that we hadn’t seen before, and then met friends in Montana and Wisconsin before settling in New England.   Over the summer, Rich finished our 1968 Caravel project so now we have that as a smaller trailer for weekends.   We went to Newfoundland for two weeks, then zipped back to Arizona to hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. Back in Arizona we adopted a desert tortoise who we named Fluffy, and Emma achieved her green belt in karate.   Later this winter we plan to take an extended trip through Mexico.”

But that might be too boring.  As Emeril might say, why not kick it up a notch?

“2009 has been a spectacular year for us.  Airstream Life took off like gangbusters when Honda introduced a small car that could tow 8,000 lbs and still get 25 MPG.   With the extra money from the business, we added a second story to our Airstream.   Rich had Lasik so he doesn’t wear glasses anymore, and Eleanor got augmented to a D-cup.   Emma suddenly took an interest in science and is applying for her first biotechnology patent this year.   Our tortoise had babies and they all won ribbons at the country fair. Next week we are scheduled to appear on the Tonight Show, and Microsoft has asked us to start a new magazine called ‘Windows Life’.   We hope you are doing well also.”

It’s always healthy to set goals for yourself.   If any of those things happen, you’ll read about it here.   I think you’ve figured out by now that you shouldn’t wait for the Christmas card.

 Adam and Susan have been visiting Tucson in their Airstream for the past week.   They are becoming, with our constant encouragement, full-timers in spirit.   They arrived here without a rigid schedule and have been just taking every day as it comes.     That’s the right frame of mind — just “be” in the moment and don’t worry about tomorrow.

Since I was between issues of the magazine without a lot else going on, I took a few days to go hiking with them.   I’m trying to retain some of the lessons I learned while full-timing, and one of them is to take the vacation opportunities whenever you can.   We hiked the Sabino Canyon Trail up to Hutch’s Pond (8 miles roundtrip), a little of the Mt Lemmon Trail at the height of the Santa Catalina Mountains (about two miles), and a little of the Romero Canyon Trail from Catalina State Park (about three miles).

Our choice of trails wasn’t random; I’ve been scouting various route ends in the Santa Catalina mountains so that we can put together a long day hike from the peak of Mt Lemmon at 8600 feet to Tucson’s base elevation of about 2400 feet.   The total hike will be about 14.5 miles, all downhill.

There’s a hidden goal in this hike.   We are planning a rim-to-rim Grand Canyon hike with Adam and Susan next fall.   Starting from the north rim, we’ll hike from about 8200 feet elevation to the canyon floor, and then back up the south rim.   It just happens that hiking down from Mt Lemmon to Tucson almost exactly duplicates the weather conditions, distance, and geography of a hike down from the Grand Canyon’s north rim.   Then we’ll hike up another trail (on another day) to simulate the steep hike back up the south rim.   This will help us test our gear, stamina, and mental gumption before we get to the real thing.

We’re also thinking about other roadtrips.   We are definitely going out to California after Christmas, and the only question is how long we’ll be out.   Eleanor is already talking about “a month or so.”   She wants to visit Death Valley, and I’ve already scheduled four stops in southern California.   I can also see stops in Las Vegas and Quartzsite. We clearly aren’t ready to just “settle down” and stay home.

I don’t know why, exactly.   Life at home has been very pleasant.   The “fall” weather in Tucson is amazingly nice.   The house is comfortable, and Tucson has provided us with all the diversions you can expect from a mid-sized city.   We’ve met people.   Halloween was a great success (30-odd kids at the door, good trick-or-treating for Emma in her wizard costume).   But undeniably we still like life with a regular mix of new scenery.

Adam and Susan have left for California and won’t be back for a few weeks.   In the meantime, I may haul the Airstream off to the Los Angeles area to have an axle issue dealt with.   It’s a good excuse to check out a few spots in California that I’ve been meaning to visit. And being recent “homebodies,” any excuse to travel is a good one.

Planning trips is part of the same pathology.   I hate not having a trip in mind, even if it is only a rough plan.   So without even meaning to, I’ve sketched out the next year of travel, much like I have sketched out the next year of Airstream Life magazine.   Most of it is entirely speculative, but it’s fun to consider nonetheless.

The Grand Canyon rim-to-rim hike is logistically challenging.   Our hike will be about 24 miles, but the drive from one rim to the other is about 250 miles.   That means we need overnight lodging at both ends of the hike, as well as tenting in the middle while we are in the canyon.   The temperatures will range from near-freezing at the north rim when we start hiking, to mid-90s at the bottom of the canyon in the afternoon.   Reservations are needed far in advance for lodges, campground, the hiker shuttle from one rim to the other, a backcountry camping permit, meals at Phantom Ranch, and “duffle service” (mules can be hired to haul your pack up the south rim).

We’re also working on getting our gear in order, like new hiking boots for everyone.   They’ve got to be well broken-in before we hike 24 miles, so there’s another reason to find some local hikes.   It all works, and it makes the little things we do to fill the time into really meaningful things.   I like the complexity of the rim-to-rim plan because it keeps me occupied when we are not traveling.   Everything we do now helps get us closer to the big event.   So it turns out that the secret to successfully staying home may be in the planning and preparation we do in anticipation of the next time we go away.