Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

The following is both long and a RANT.  You are forewarned - no kat-like
smiley face!

Throughout history there has been a penchant on the part of humans to hang
on to the old ways.  Always we hear about the "good old days" and how much
nicer people were to each other back when we were kids and how much more
troublesome and disruptive kids are today.  "Gee, what a bunch of hooey.
They just needed some good old-fashioned spankings to put them straight
from the get-go!"

As time passes, we do learn more and as we acquire more information we are
able to better understand who we are.  Consequently, sometimes the "good
old days" really aren't - the olders among us are just looking at them
through rose colored glasses, selectively remembering the good stuff and
conveniently not remembering the difficulties and hurts.  The "good" days
are often today, with our greater knowledge and plethora of helpful 
inventions.  And sometimes we now know that people really do have illnesses 
that can cause them to have difficulty relating to their world.

Still, there are the places people seek out to get away from today.  Away
from all the things they live with and see every regular day of their
lives.  Away where they don't have to listen to the neighbor's AC or TV or
Boombox; away from the exhaust fumes.  Camping in a wilderness area is such
a place and Endurance rides are too, or at least they used to be.
Originally an Endurance rider's fanciest piece of equipment was his truck.
Overnight was spent a) in a tent, b) in the shell on the pickup, c) in
one of the horse trailer's stalls.  No extra heat, no AC, no oven to bake
morning muffins.  Slowly over the years, things have been changing.  First
were the portable Coleman cooktops - JOY, HOT coffee in the morning!  What
a special treat!  Then the camper shells with extra goodies like a toilet
(sort of) and a stove and a little, tiny refrigerator.  Now, many
"endurance" riders bring all the comforts of home with them, the AC, the
TV, the Boombox, the exhaust fumes, and without giving a moment's
consideration as to how invasive and unwanted their actions are to those
who want a REST from the everyday stuff, they blithely set up "house", not
"camp", and proceed to act as if they were in their own back yards.  They
say things like, "Why be miserable when you can be comfortable?" or "Coming
to these rides is SUCH a good experience for the kids" (who are 2, 5 and 7
and they all hate horses and are either running wildly amok or screaming
for something that got left at home "BUT I WAAANNNTTT MY GAMEBOY").  I have
a suggestion for you parents.  If YOU can't make your kids part of the
experience, leave them at HOME with grandma and grandpa so you can come to
the ride with just your truck and trailer and pitch a tent.  Then you won't
have to worry about the kids or the grandparents being too cold or too
bored or too uncomfortable and Angie and I won't have to lie awake
listening to your damn generator all night.

But times are changing... the "camping experience" and the "Endurance
experience" are both morphing into the "RV experience".  Big rigs, then
bigger rigs and rides that used to be able to host 75 riders are down to 40
because of it.  Talk about reducing access to our sport and limiting it to
the elite.  We are doing just that by default.  Still, you RV'ers are
gaining in numbers.  In the not too distant future most "endurance rides"
will be attended by spandex clad, Club toned gods and goddesses in $150,000
mobile mansions and if we poorer types aren't careful, you won't even
notice as you run over our primitive little tents.  You sure as shootin'
don't notice that your generators are disrupting our nights' sleeps and
apparently even think that because YOU want it all, it's okay to run those
whining, fume-spewing travesties all you want.  When it comes to all the
noise and fumes, heck we live with them every day so "we really should be
desensitized to that... it shouldn't be THAT big of a deal".  And if your
comfort means "running the generator past 10:00pm... so what?"

Yes, times are changing.  Things are getting more comfortable.  We turtles
are becoming more and more adept at carrying our houses on our backs
wherever we go.  But do you suppose that for once, just this once, the old
ways were better?

Diane Trefethen
AERC #2691





=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=