"CAMPING" AND APOLOGIES FOR THE SPRUCE

To my dear blog followers who grow more and more incensed by each click that brings them to the all familiar, "world's largest spruce tree", I offer my sincerest apologies. I'd like to say that leaving that post up for the last few months was my clever way to emphasize just how long that tree has been growing on this planet, but alas, that thought just occurred to me.  Life has taken this writer/photographer down some interesting rabbit holes these past few months, and the epiphanies look like maturity and a new relationship with money (if the epiphanies hold). While the hiatus was lengthly, know that the key points of what transpired in that time will be discussed in future blog posts or an ebook. For now though, here is a post I began two months ago.

If you look closely at the picture above you will find that one party is actually camping, while the other has chosen to bring an air-conditioned house with them to the ocean. It's funny that both these activities are refered to as "camping". Marketing geniuses have expanded the definitions of words so we feel good about activities that might be bad for the earth or ourselves (another good example is "diet soda"). Surely everyone believes that "camping" is a good thing. Yes, tent camping is a good thing: it allows people to get outside and slow things down, to reconnect with nature. It is a spiritually positive event. RV camping involves expending tremendous resources to get that box from point A to point B. The carbon footprint is huge and chances are, the endless barrels of oil needed to move those things around aren't all coming from enlightened democratic countries. Whether people acknowledge it or not, these factors weigh on them. It's also hard to be rejuvenated by nature when you spend your time inside an air conditioned box watching TV. That's what the people shown above were doing when I snapped this picture. It was a sunny 70 degrees on this cliff overlooking the Pacific, and they were inside watching JAG reruns. I was in the tent next door trying to read Siddhartha, and the crashing waves were not quite loud enough to drown out their generator noise. My fragile zen calm quickly gave way to anger.