Goin' Back to Cowboy
&
A Home Base Philosophy
A Struggle Between Opposing Spiritual Needs

It took me some few years to sort out the tangle of an RV home base philosophy and Goin' back to Cowboy and get it all clear in my own mind.

I had to do that before I could even begin to pursue it and then write it down here.

... and I'm still having some difficulty getting it taken from that feeling in my soul and putting it to words.

I'd dumped pretty near every material thing and taken off full time on the road in the spring of 2010. Surprised me some little bit when almost immediately... the gnawing inside began.

Turns out, I'd taken a big part of my life for granted...

There's two things at work inside my head... one is Goin' back to cowboy. The other is, and it works in support of that first, is a home base philosophy.

Now, I never ever wanted to leave the road altogether and I don't now. I have how-some-ever__discovered that like a lot of nomads my wandering has its limits. I've realized needs beyond that of constant movement.

There are things I wish and need to do that simply don't fit well into an always moving camp. My leather work, Journal building, odd bits of wood working__refit and maintenance work on the rig__all sorts of things... and something else as well...

... something that doesn't fit the description of "Things".

Equal to all those things, a hard to describe need for a place. A retreat that I control. A spot where I can pull in and sit for as long as I choose without one of the kings minions coming along to push me out and prod me along.

Yet there is another reason beyond even that need.

The last and greatest motivation that leads me to Go on back to Cowboy and carve out this Cowboy Winter Camp is__Horses.

It is those Horses that  I cannot describe as mere things. They've a spirit and a soul, I believe, that no other creatures on earth possess.

Their worth to me tallies up greater than all those other reasons.

They are the motivation behind me goin' back to cowboy as well as the cause of any home base philosophy of mine of any sort.

For those not in the know... a horse is a creature whose soul captures that of men. Once they get inside you they become a part of you...

*Just a kid, cowboyin' in 1968 or so*

You can try to leave 'em behind. You might think you should walk away and do other things, as I did... but their spirit will follow along and call to you, as it has done to me... and eventually, you will go Home.

Their pull is even stronger than the motorcycles I treasure so deeply.

I found the greatest part of that gnawing I mentioned, that started up so soon after "The Leaving"__was that the Spirit of Horses missing from my life opened up a great void. It left my soul hungry.

It was a void I finally recognized the source of, and could no longer endure.

*On the ranch - around 1995*

That's a hard thing for a lot of folks to 'get'. It's the same as the old motorcycle saying; "If I have to explain it, you won't understand."

You either just get it or you don't.

Removing horses from my life was a great and regretted mistake. Having them in my life for the greatest part of my life, and working with them to make my living for a goodly part of that time__ it was a fools choice to leave them behind.

The only true mistake a man makes though is to refuse to see and accept the mistakes he's made__and correct them. That is the only enduring mistake. All else is just learning and experience.

There is a trap here though. That trap is the place itself. I've owned "Places" before. They easily come to own you rather than the other way around.

I need a place of respite and a place of horses. That's the foundation of my Home base philosophy... and my understanding of why I'm Goin' back to Cowboy.

It's Not to build some showpiece I have to slave over to maintain.

This new and likely last place will be quite a bit different than those before. My intention is to build it cowboy simple and cowboy strong.

It will be based around simple needs and not any sort of materialism. While it will not be without debt (my economic reality dictates that) that debt will be a fraction of anything I allowed before.

The place will serve me. I will not serve it.

The core quarters will be the very rig I travel with. An auxiliary "RV Casita" of sorts, maybe three or four hundred square feet, will likely be added at some time to give a little more space to stretch out. If and when that happens it will be as time, materials and ambition allow, built out of pocket.

What won't happen is the construction of some great house with more rooms than I'd ever use and space than I'd ever need.

The "Facilities" (kitchen, bath, power and waste) will be those contained in my rig, currently the 2016 Lakota LQ I just acquired.

There will be corrals for the horses and a functional leather studio as well as very likely a small, as in a hundred square foot, writing shed.

Those things will all be set up not only as tools to satiate my personal creative needs but also to fulfill my need to still produce a living.

I'll try and squeeze my home base philosophy into one long winded sentence;  My goal is to carve out a Horse camp to ride out from on wide circles when the hunger to wander pushes me toward the horizon; knowing I have a serene and safe retreat to come home to when battered and road weary I need to cool out a while.

Underlying it all__Are the Horses. The reason for it all__Is the Horses...

Leaving them behind is a mistake I will never repeat.

So there it is, my philosophizin' on why and how I intend to do this job. Both Goin' Back to Cowboy and a home base philosophy.

Either I've laid it out plain or you don't get me at all. Either way, it is how it is.

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