Nomadic Encounters in Kansas

As the long days of driving from east to west dragged on I realized that my stress level increases the later it gets and if I had not found a place to sleep for the night. I stopped for a while when I had internet access and found a free campsite in the middle of what looked like nowhere Kansas. I drove through a small no name town wondering where the road was actually going. Through twists and turns and tiny country roads, I finally ended up at a "fishing lake". I wasn't really sure what a fishing lake was but it seems to be a state park that's free for anyone who wants to camp there for up to 14 days and just fish.

A woman in a campsite a bit down the shoreline from me wandered up to take a look at my rooftop camper. She was brown and creased from years in the sun. Her age was indeterminate. Her voice was ragged from too many cigarettes. I hated myself for noticing.

She was a free spirit. She said she had been living like this for 10 years. She started with a car. Then a van and then finally upgraded to a trailer. I looked at the trailer down the road, rusted and aged. I felt sad and also interested in what her life must be like. She told me she had never been to the West. She just keeps bouncing around in the middle of the country. North in the summer to places like wherever the hell we were. She had her routes noted on an atlas. Highlighted so she knew where to be at what time of year. I found her fascinating.

She also said that these months at the fishing lakes had been insanely hot this year. But strangely, you cant cool off in the lake. You're not allowed to swim in them. You can wade out in them like all the people do that are fishing, but if you actually get your shoulders below the water it's considered swimming. And you can be fined a hefty amount. She said something about her grand kids being able to splash about in the lake, but that they couldn't sit down in the shallows of the water. She said in a few days she was on her way to another lake where she could stay for 15 days. It's an interesting life.