Camping Chic - How to Look Better on Less

As I have explained in previous posts, I live in a small space, a 22 ft RV to be exact, and sometimes  I don’t have electricity.  My water usage has to be limited to what I can carry in my holding tank and by the proximity of potable water.  I sometimes go days without an available shower (I will explain later,) let alone a blow dryer!  But am I piggish about my person?  Nope, I am too smart and resourceful for piggishness!  You see, I and my husband, Lance, travel around the National Parks and Forests, and place a priority on FUN!   This lifestyle, unfortunately , is not conducive to preening and primping; but it can still happen with a little brains, ingenuity, and planning!  Of course, even the word pretty is an illusion, and subjective at best, and everyone has a different idea of what looking good really means. Being clean and neat has fewer definitions.   House dwellers, with all the comforts of home have differing standards; some are neat-nicks and some are, well…  slobs about their personal toilette!

Over the last few weeks I have learned a few things regarding looking good under adverse conditions, or should I say, staving off the inevitable ugliness as much as possible.  I am willing to share my regimen because, although I have many strikes against me from the my choice of lifestyle, and a dearth of beauty products, I can overcome many tough beauty challenges.  At the very least, with the following suggestions, anyone can minimize the pain of the ugliest of ducklings.

Starting from head to toe:

• Wash your hair when it is dirty!  If you don’t have much water, or if sometimes you have no water at all to shampoo your grease ball hair, minimize the difficulty by having less hair in the first place.

  

  You get the idea!  Short!

  Get your hair cut to a super short cut!  Simply get over the impractical idea that your hair has to look a certain way.  It doesn’t!  Also, nobody on earth gives a darn about your hair!  This is a sad truth, so admit it.  Do what is practical to be clean and neat.  The key is a good, super short hair cut.  Don't take me so literally as to buy clippers and give yourself a crew cut.  I don’t mean to be that practical, but get a cute woman’s haircut. I like a bit of sideburns.   This haircut works OK without a blow dryer, so don’t settle for a kind-a-short haircut because then you'll be tied to a blow-dryer, and if you have no blow dryer, a kind-a-short hair cut looks the shitz!  You know when a short haircut grows out just a little bit and gets flat on top?  You want to put off  this problem as long as possible, so just get a super short 'do in the first place.  Then get a little mousse or gel to shape it if you want to, but the priority is that it needs to look good au natural!  That is the first thing!  In short (pun) your hair cut needs to look good without the use of a blow dryer and it needs to be able to shampoo in ½ gallon of water! Period.

The benefits of this kind of haircut are legion.  You can wash it in a lake, sink, fish gut trough, or if  none of the above are available,  you can wear a cute hat, if you have a cute hat.

Here are my hats! 

Actually, it's a scarf tied around my head!

My favorite!

I don’t wear a regular baseball hat because that is what my husband does, and I can’t afford to like a man.  It is bad enough to have a super short haircut but a ball cap adds insult to injury and is not an asset to me.   I like the engineer style hat, like Che Guerra wore.

Another benefit is I can be fearless and wear a turban type thing.  The key to pulling this look off is to pretend it is the livin’ end and that you look fantastic.  And, by the way, that is The 
Secret to looking good anyway.  (You can get away with iffy fashion statements if you do it them with confidence.  This is a recurring theme, so take note.)

• I have olive skin and am of a certain age, so I have dry skin, tending toward wrinkles, and I tan super easily.  I just spent a month in Arizona and noticed that Arizona ladies look brown and wrinkled.  They also look happy and healthy.  For me, I like to be tanned but want to avoid the alligatoring of my skin.  I use a sun block if I know I will have an  my face exposed.  Everyday I wear a foundation with sunscreen, as a matter of course, and then I wear a hat for obvious shade, but also that my poor nose doesn’t turn into a brown fig!   I already have freckles and sun damage on my cheeks so I don’t want to make it worse.  As far as smile lines and crows feet go, who really cares? Nobody.
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• Wear earrings. (See first photo)  All too frequently, the best thing a girl has going is pretty ears, so if this is the case, go with it.  Allowing empty ear holes is a waste of a good opportunity to spruce up a little!  Cute, yet tasteful earrings are a must. Wear minimal ones, or even diamond studs.  They are a nice touch and always terrific!  Do not wear big, gobby, cheap and flashy earrings. (No shoulder dusters. They never look great, they just look cheap.)   The key is to be streamlined and tasteful, and with your short hairdo, stud earrings look great. 
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• Wear colors that look good on you.  It is great to have the camper chic style a la REI or Cabela’s, but if you don’t look good in beige, don’t do beige, or camouflage, or the like.  I am a Winter color girl,  WEBSITE and being such I look washed out and wan, like I am going to die, if I wear beige near my face.  So, when getting dirty and grimy is unavoidable, don’t make it worse by wearing something that you look crappy in in the first place.  Grime happens so the right color looks better grimy than the wrong color.  It  really is very easy to look good, even in your play clothes.  I personally think the  well-worn- out look is a good look,  as long as it is in good repair and is worn out from honest wear, from actually living the life!
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• Make sure your pants fit!  Buy the right size and wear a belt.  Belts with some stretch look good and they hold your pants up, which makes the butt fit and keeps the crotch from sagging.  Who says that you have to wear baggy play clothes?  Make sure your pants are long enough if they are supposed to be long!  Fit is so important! I am a too fat chick, and fat looks like fat no matter how slim (pun) you slice it, so I can admit it and get over it!  I make sure my clothes fit so that I am sure to look like a too-fat lady in nice fitting clothes.  I don’t want to look like a fat lady in wiener skins! Come on ladies!  By the right size!  And while we are toughing on touchy subjects, a quick aside: If you are a man with man-boobs, do everybody a favor and wear a shirt!
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• I love my red hiking boots!  Enough said! 

  

  I neglected to clean the dust off them before I took the photo!  These are Teva Rika Peak

• I almost always wear a necklace, and I make it a chunky one for outdoors.  It looks stupid to be seriously overdressed, but I like to have on a piece of jewelry simply because it is girlish. 
  
  And I  can’t afford not to look girlish since I am big and strong naturally, with course dark hair, have a square jaw and rather strong features.  And then when I get grungy, and sunburned on top of all of that I begin looking like the man next door…so I try to do the girlish things that don’t cramp my fun. ( I would never wear high heels camping  That is for bimbos.)
• I try to keep my hands looking nice.  Nails filed and trimmed, wear a ring or five, and light nail polish if I have the time.  Light looks better when it is chipped and showing some wear and so looks better far longer than a darker colored polish. 
  
  
  
  
  
  I always keep polish on my toes, because again, it is feminine and I have pretty toes. Tee-hee!  Go bright on toes because I think it is pretty to have red peeping out of your sandals.  Dirty feet scream  that I am dirty all over so I make sure to wash my feet in a bucket every night.  I grease my feet with heavy Eucerin cream before bed so that my feet are soft.  I hate cracked heels and they look like trailer trash.
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• Wet ones or baby wipes are good for washing everything when in a pinch.  Hot weather and tromping around outdoors, and pottying in less than perfect circumstances, call for wipes.  They are discreet and invaluable.  I am not a pottying snob and will never let a bodily function come between me and a fun time so, be prepared by stowing a few in a zip lock and throw them in the backpack.
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• Use lotion so that your skin stays nice.  Don’t get dry and flaky.  Wash in a bucket of warm water with a mild soap and get mostly clean.  I read a book called Glass Castles, and the protagonist says that one of the important things her mother taught her was that you can get mostly clean in a cup of water.  I agree, but I like at least a half gallon.  I will pack that much with me if I have to.  Um, underarm deodorant, chap stick and tooth brush too.  I never wear mascara in the boonies, because it is just too hard to get off without making black raccoon eyes.  I can’t afford to have black under my eyes, and it never looks good when it gets wet and runs down my cheeks.  I feel it is too much hassle and I pay too big a price for black eyelashes, when roaming outdoors in the sticks. 
• My guilty pleasure: I have a Mio rotary facial scrubber  under the sink in my RV.  I use it to keep my face clean and exfoliated and my elbows and knees soft... when I have electricity.

So, in a nutshell, this is my standard toilette and what can do to stave off the uglies.   I get a few compliments and quite a few favorable comments.   I still want my husband to think I look snappy if I can't  be gorgeous.  I am just vain enough to be tickled when someone says that I look good in my grubbies.  It is worth the few concessions it takes.

Cool artist's studio in Lake City, CO

I am so envious!  This is the coolest art studio ever!

I love this roof!  I am certain when it is in bloom it is magnificent!  The lady is cleaning out and  planting flowers in the garden in the foreground and the artist himself was inside painting the 

walls.   They are getting ready for the tourist season  (summer) in Lake City, CO. 

Lake City is an artsy little mining town, similar to Creede, only more remote!

Here is a link to Lake City.

http://www.lakecity.com/

Click and take a look!  I could live here if it wasn't so darn high!

Random Artwork on Riverwalk, Creede

Lance and I took a walk in to the town of Creede from our RV Park, only about 3 miles round trip, just to get a little badly needed exercise.  We were delighted to see these random acts of artwork along the trail.  It looks like someone simply painted these few rocks and placed them about every hundred yards along the river walk.

I love it when someone waxes creative and then shares with everyone!

And these were under water!  I am happy they photographed well.

Here are some shoes gracing a storefront on mainstreet.  I guess one could call it art!

Mountain Views at the Rivers Edge RV Park and RV Resort

This is home until July 2, 2015 -

Critique:

It is very beautiful here at this park.  This is the entrance and look at the lovely rainbow!  Yes it is rainy this time of year.

This RV park has two parts: The resort area has spectacular lots for sale and they are
Be-au-tiful, along the headwaters of the Rio Grande. Because they are owned and not rented, the folks with he mammoth RV's worth 100's of thousands of dollars, maybe a million, have spaces here with they modify to there liking, with hot tubs, outdoor bars, elaborate landscaping and the like.  It is amazing and certainly out of our league!

After checking in at the passcode secured gate,  you drive the above promenade to the office to formally check in.  The "haves" are quickly winnowed from the "have-nots"  (meaning us) and we made our way to the RV Park area, which is much more run of the mill RV fare.  We have a graveled space, with full hook-ups, reliable internet, and access to laundry, showers, and clubhouse.

There are pros and cons to this place, like all places.

Pros:  Great scenery, great clubhouse with tables, pool table, events and activities.  The laundry room is ultra clean and modern with plenty of machines.

The grounds are great, even splendid on the RV Resort side.  The whole place is very secure and well run. Post office boxes to receive your mail.  Fully staffed office!

Cons:  Man is it expensive!  We pay $525.00 plus electricity, and the washers and dryers are 2 bucks each!  Ouch!  And, we get the distinct feeling that we are on the wrong side of the tracks.  It is obvious!  It reminds me of the Carol Burnett sketch where she is the flight attendant on a commercial airline, and Harvey Corman is an upper crust rich guy in first class, and Tim Conway is John Doe   in coach.  I am certain that you, dear Reader, can imagine the hilarious antics that that famous  threesome could enact given that set-up!  Somehow I feel a bit like Tim Conway!  Maybe it is just me, probably is.  It does come to mind though!  Each day, every minute,

That said, I am enjoying our stay here in this park!  Would I recommend it?  Certainly, but only to wealthy  strangers to whom appearances mean everything .

Now that I having said that, Lance disagrees.  He doesn't give it a thought and thinks that we with smaller rigs, are parked far fromt he office to give the impression that they are  very full and have a busy park.  Maybe somewhere in between  is where the truth lies.  Probably is.

Here's the link: you decide and let me know with a comment!
http://www.mountainviewsrv.com/

Freemon's ( Most Excellent Burgers)

 When asking the locals about the what to do and see in Creede, Colorado, the first thing they say is The Reportory Theater, and the next thing they mention is Freemon's.  We will hit the theater next week, but this week we decided to try out Freemon's and see for ourselves just why Freemon's is a must see destination spot around the area.

Freemon's is located on highway 149, about 16 miles away from Creede, and on the way to North Clear Creek Falls (fodder for another blog.)  At first we drove right because there was no sign indicating we had arrived, and we didn't know what we were looking for.  Off to the side of the road was a low slung log building, with a front porch and plant steps.  On the screen door were posters, flyers and announcements for every yard sale, funeral and fundraiser for miles around, but the door was open in welcome and we went in.

 Inside the place was abuzz with activity.  A line of a dozen or so locals were waiting to order from the menu on the wall which bore only a few choice;, hamburgers, cheeseburgers and  beer battered or waffle fries.  I think there was a grilled chicken option for the discriminating diner!  There were folksy people crowded around the handful of tables, all chatting and guffawing as if they all knew each other, and they likely did.  It was a very home town establishment.  

   

Here is a random table of locals.  These guys were on their way up to the Falls  and had to stop for a burger.  They loved that I took their photo!

This is my bacon cheeseburger! I took a bite before I remembered to photograph it.   It had a toasted and buttered bun, the good kind like you get from Costco,  a large patty well cooked, bacon, lettuce, tomato slice, pickles and a mess of fried onions.  The fries were especially good, but I don't know why...they just were!

This is the front porch that was devoid of people due to rain.  It would be wonderful in the sun!

Freeman's also sells a few groceries, mainly milk, eggs, bread,  and match's; that kind of thing.  There was also the predictable shelves of handicraft items, made by the locals that appeared to be in little demand.  Obviously the good burgers were the draw.      

On the way back from the Falls, we made a return stop at Freemon's for ice cream,  They are known for their good ice cream.

This little lady, Sarah has been working at Freemon's for 6 years.  She's  enjoyed her 50th wedding anniversary...and she is still scooping creamy ice cream and frying great hamburgers.  Freemon's was was definitely worth the drive.. 

Left Denver, arrived in Creede, Colorado

Since we have two grown children and their families in Denver, we stopped there and spent some time doing family oriented things.  so, back to the adventures.

We looked on the internet for places to park our RV near Denver and were sorely dssappointed.  What we find is that many RV parks do not have any internet presence and so cannot be found that way.  We called around off and on the several days, trying to plan our next move, and to plan for where to spend the 4th of July, the biggest summer vacation time of the year.  We were in for trouble.  There was nothing available anywhere near Denver and so by default, we arrived in Creede, Colorado.

What a happy surprise.  Creed is a little mining town southwest of Colorado Springs, up high (8800 feet) in the Rockies.  Man, it is beautiful!

A street corner in Creede

Lance always beats me to the punch in his emails, so I will attach an excerpt from him describing Creede, and I think you will get the idea clearly from him.

Mountain Views near Creede

Creede, CO is the county seat of Mineral County, and the only town of any size, with about 500 residents in the immediate vicinity.  There are 290 residents in the city proper.  It does not even have a county library, but it does have one of the highest rated repertory theaters in America!  People come from far and wide to attend the theater in Creede.  '

Creede also had, and still has, the richest vein of silver ever mined on earth.  There is a vein of silver here that is 30 feet wide and 10 miles long, that is currently not being mined because of the low price of silver.  The first five miles were mined between 1885 and 1985.  When the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market in silver it caused the market to collapse.  I talked at some length to a miner, or rather former miner, today nicknamed 'Brownie', a man of about 75 today, and he told me all about the silver vein as it is currently.  He said that he mined for 26 years, until Bunkie Hunt ruined the market, and he said that the silver assayed out at about 1,000 ounces of silver per ton!  Anna atsa' lotta silver, as the Italian man said.  The town at the north end funnels down between to 600' high precipices, and the road goes almost straight up.  This is where there commences at least 8 or 9 different mines, but can you imagine 10 more miles of silver in a vein 30 feet wide??  You are talking tens of millions of ounces of silver.  Brownie said, 'this whole mountain is basically loaded with silver'.

There is a loop you can drive, called 'Bachelor's loop', named for a ghost town above us here at about 10,500 feet.  Bachelor was the first town here, but it soon was determined that the current location of Creede was a better place for a town.  Anyway, the Bachelor's loop road goes about straight up, about one mile outside of town and a little stream flies down the canyon next to the dirt road.  So precipice, stream, nearly vertical road--about a 12% grade I would guess with loose gravel and dirt. We went to drive it yesterday in our Ford F-250 and right at the top the road takes an acute turn to the right, to continue up to the top of the mountain.  I made a little run at it twice, eased the gas in  second gear, and the truck simply did not have the traction!  It was like trying to climb a 12-13% grade, on steel ball-bearings with dirt all over them.  Just before the acute turn the truck would just start throwing gravel in all directions, lurch, and begin to slide sideways as it skated on those 'ballbearings'.

View from the road, near Creede

 

It was unnerving to say the least..  So now I have to back the truck down to a more level platform, so it is cramp the wheels as you go into reverse as the truck just sort of takes off wherever those ball bearings are rolling to, then jam the brakes and slide.  Well you get the idea.  I did this twice.  At that point we decided to turn around and go the other way on the loop which was much safer.

So, we went around to the west and came up the back side of the mountain, and it was much easier.  We went by Bob Ford's grave, well former grave, he got moved back to Missouri, but the reason they moved him is that after 1892 when he was shot, men kept coming over and peeing on his grave.  They hated him because he was known as a back shooter, he shot Jessie James in the back of the head when he wasn't looking, so the men here hated him and pissed all over his grave.  

Then on up to Bachelor, the ghost town where we saw a big ol' cow elk and a bunch of deer, and then on down to another mine that is being reconstructed for tours.  This place is trippy, when you park you stop very abruptly as you notice it is straight down for a very long ways, and way down below about a thousand feet I could see where I had just done my spinning out routine detailed above.  Cynthia just about hyperventilated on this one, and she did not like having that truck near the edge of the precipice, so I stopped ten feet back and put on the parking brake.  This mine still has an immense amount of amethyst, a semi-precious stone which is almost found with a vein of silver.  They had some jewelry there that had some real knock out stones.  Anyway, that mine will start guided tours in about two weeks so we will go back, and go down into the bowels of the earth… I guess.?  The guy guiding us around, we were the only people there, affirmed that there is still so much silver around here it beggars the imagination.

So, Creede is pretty neat.  A person could retire here, but the winters are 20 below, and snow, so it won't be me.  We sure have a great country though.  I am convinced that America has so much wealth left in it that we will never know just how much it really is.

Hayden, Arizona -A Small Town in Decline

This is a sign posted at the Little League baseball diamond and I thought it was particularly  noteworthy.

Hayden, AZ was a unplanned stop for us, and we found it so pleasant there that we stayed for 3 days, to recoup from a small mishap that we had regarding our bike rack and bikes that were mounted on the back of the Little House (LH.)

As were were driving north out of Tucson, we were in a congested area on the edge of town and another motorist pulled up beside us, waving like mad and yelling "Bikes".  I was driving and so pulled over and found that our new bike rack had experienced some metal fatique in the shaft holding our bikes in the air and it had literally broken apart, the bikes came down and dragged on the highway until I couold get stopped and pulled over.  We were not going fast, maybe 30 mph but it was fast enough to badly damage our bikes.  The rack is toast, and the bikes need quite extensive repairs.  So we took everything apart, put the wreckage into  he LH and pressed on for the next town.  That's how we come to stop in Hayden.

We were sorely disappointed about the bicycles, and miffed, and hungry and hot, and crabby, so we stopped at Maria's Mexican Food.  There we asked about where we could park our rig for the night, and where we could get our bikes fixed, a haircut and find internet.  As luck would have it we found a great little spot down by the city golf course, along the river, with trees and shade.  

Hayden is a copper mining town and the mine is the only payroll of any consequence.  The mine was booming many years ago but now it's production is waning and the people aren't making the money they once were.  Every building in town is dilapidated.

A remains of a house that
 simply crumbled away

 The schools, the public buildings are in disarray.  I tried to get my haircut in this little burg, and asked for directions to Lupe's.  She cuts hair from her home.  So after finding her home, it too had a closed sign in the dusty window, and it looked like the only thing living there were mice.  No haircut for me!  We drove around the corner and passed the Police Station.  PHOTO  There are as any as 8  nice police vehicles parked out front.  Evidently this little place spends money on police cars.  It seems like a gross over expenditure of the few resources scraped together by the poor folk around here, but there must be something we don't know.  According to the locals, the mine is not taxed very high, and the city charges a pittance for utilities and services, (we can attest to that, they only charged us $10 per day to stay at the best  place in town!), and the whole economy is in a downward spiral.  It is a sad and forlorn little speck on the Arizona landscape.  I wonder what will happen to these little towns?  there are lots of the m in Arizona,  big nasty open pit mines everywhere you look.  We all enjoy the copper, but hate the mine, that ruins the landscape, taints the water, and pollutes the air. I am so sad to say this little town is doomed.

On a happier note, the locals are good folks, trying to raise families here.   But their future looks rather grim.  They actually live in these shacks, and barely make ends meet.  There is a small grocery store, Guisetti's that has been here for 3 generations.  I asked there if there was a place in town to cut my hair and senior Guisetti, (3 generations were lolling around at the cash register), said he could cut my hair because he was also the meat cutter.  Great.  We bought our bottled water and passed on the offer.  Everybody does their shopping up the road in Kearny or Globe. Did I mention that on telephone poles and billboard all over town were warning notices recommending residents be tested for  arsenic and lead.  Sheesh! I feel for these people.

We attended a Little League game because it was in our back yard.  We sat in the bleechers with the rest of the parents and grandparents, half of the total population was there, and cheered on the 5-7 year olds.  I was surprised at what lengths the Haydenites go in support of Little league.  There were two games back to back, and the kids took it very seriously.  The teams were girls and boys, each with crisp white and blue uniforms and plenty of zeal. A whole platoon of parents were making it  happen, by coaching, umping, and keeping score; volunteers  were grilling, scooping, and doling out food at the snack shack (we bought nachos) and it was pretty obvious that this was a main event in Hayden.  They did it all again the next night with bigger kids.

  

Giant gas station at Pagosa Springs, Colorado

How marvelous it is to be able to get propane, gasoline, water, and use of a Sani dump, and clean restrooms all in one place, at one time. It is a joy to  do all of these things in just one stop. I think that we have had this experience any place that we have stopped from Washington State Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and finally here in Colorado we find the perfect place. Also, I must say, Pagosa Springs is one of the more beautiful places that we have seen so far. A big thumbs up for Giant service stations!

I don't know what happened to my photo.  Just imaging a lovely, clean, state of the art gas station!

Rock collection

This is a collection of some small stones pebbles found in my camping space near Cortez Colorado. I chose the most colorful rocks or the ones that have an unusual shape or feature. And then I simply glue them on to a flat piece of sandstone with Elmer's glue all. That's it! It pleased me a lot because it is such a reminder of this part of my grand adventure in the southwestern United States.
I gave this artwork to my friends Marja and Cinto who were visiting here from Amsterdam. She said it will remind her of her travels here in the Southwest.

This piece measures about 7 x 5" and is about and inch thick.  I glued it with Elmer's Glue.

Some artwork done in the Little House on the Highway

 I recently (4 years ago) took a painting class at Walla Walla Community College because I needed an art credit as a requirement for my AA degree.  I always kinda liked drawing but was never very good at it.  I sometimes "cartooned" and doodled but not much more than that.  What I learned at the college was that I really enjoyed painting! So, I have taken a few short classes in water color and find that painting is a great hobby to take on the road.  Watercolors are quite compact and paper and paints don't take up much room...so I guess I will post my paintings and other art work on the blog!

This little painting is a watercolor, about 7 x 10" and I think I will send it to Nancy, another RVer and jewelry maker who repaired a pair of earrings for me.

Here is a crazy mixed media painting that I created for my niece, Ali's graduation.  It has cutouts from magazines as you may notice.  Her swim suit is actually a pair of sunglasses and bath oil beads.  Her hands and mouth are from a model in the magazine. It was a lot of fun to put this together and I think it has a tongue in cheek flair.   She also looks remarkably like Karen Black, no offence to her, or her spelling.