Full Timing Ladies?

[Jody Forsyth]

Here is a story about one.

http://www.rvwest.com/features/nov/f...ervliving.html

Hi,
I tried this link but it said it does not exist.

[Donna D.]

Hi,
I tried this link but it said it does not exist.

ahhhh that's too bad. The web is dynamic and things are constantly being added and deleted by the owners... or moved to a new location. It's one of the problems we see here on FiberglassRV when people put links into a post to a website with pictures, rather than embed the pictures here. When the site goes away, so do the pictures (or in this case the article)

[joy mccalla]

Hey everybody! I'm a single mom with a daughter that will be 9 this month. I work in the school system so have my summers off. I'm saving to buy a 13 ft something that I can pull behind my Xterra. I LOVE reading these posts and am so excited about just me and my daughter camping together next summer.
And to think about... when I retire I could sell my house and travel full-time - just me and a dog? Wow, what an awesome dream! In college, my friends and I would spend the summer following the Grateful Dead and tent camping. Those were the best of times. So when I retire I could spend my time traveling around the country? WOW! That's my new dream...

joy and lily

[sheridan]

Check out a club called RVW. It is a wonderful RV club for women RVers and offers classes in just about anything pertaining to safe RV travel for women and even offers mechanical classes. My advice to women travelers is to be sure to wear a cowboy hat when traveling at night to create a masculine silouhette and to be sure to purchase a large pair of beat up sturdy work boots from a thrift store and keep them to the side of your trailer just outside the door. It wouldn't hurt to hang out the laundry with a huge Shirt as well. Cellphones are no longer a luxury, they are a necessity, and networking with other single gals on the road is a real plus too. Have fun, but be clever about it all. Enjoy! Oh yes, and they own a park in Apache Junction, Arizona and one between Diamond Point and Sequim, up on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Although many are lesbians, not all are. They are great gals and all look out for one another in this close knit community/sisterhood.
RV Women

[Raya]

My advice to women travelers is to be sure to wear a cowboy hat when traveling at night to create a masculine silouhette and to be sure to purchase a large pair of beat up sturdy work boots from a thrift store and keep them to the side of your trailer just outside the door. It wouldn't hurt to hang out the laundry with a huge Shirt as well.

While I stay aware of my surroundings, and don't "advertise" that I'm traveling solo, I'm personally draw the line at wearing a disguise. In some ways, I think it's good to show that people (male or female) can travel. I guess if I'm traveling alone I don't mind if another woman - who may have been considering it - thinks "Oh, cool, I guess I will take that trip next month that (whomever male) couldn't get time off for."

Also, I guess if there's any time I feel slightly vulnerable, it's when I get out of the car at night to, say, go into a rest area. I don't think the hat would work then

But really, it's just that having to disguise myself as a man just irks me enough that I won't do it.

Just my opinion, of course.

Raya

[Karen B.]

I'd forgotten about this thread--and it was good to reread it, the advice everybody's had on the subject, all ends of the spectrum. I'm not a full-timer, but I'm a solo woman. And after the first night of camping by myself this summer, I lost all the paranoid fears that I brought with me. I was kind of surprised by that. I've gotten over feeling so conspicuous and I've never felt the need to advertise that there was an absent man somewhere around my campsite. When I'm sitting in my chair or cooking dinner over the fire, it's fairly obvious I'm alone. And the only time that somebody approached me, it was on my last night of the trip, an older woman came over and was curious about my camper and if I was alone. I reminded her of her granddaughter, she said. So it's really interesting how my views of camping alone have changed.

This is how I summed up my summer:


***

Solo Woman Camper’s Manifesto

It’s a simple enough concept: you want to go camping, so you do. You want to see the world, you want to see your country, you want to see your home state, and this is the easiest way to do it, you think. You went camping as a kid, so this isn’t a foreign world. You’ve traveled internationally by yourself, so that’s nothing new. You’re a single woman, thirty years old, who wouldn’t trade her solo life for anything.

As with the rest of life, reality is a lot more complex. But who wants a boring life?

You trade in your Ford Escape for a Jeep Liberty with a tow package. Your father gives you an extra stinger he has no use for. You know what you want—a 13-foot Scamp, the camper you’ve wanted for years. So you stalk Craig’s List, eBay, and a few RV sites, waiting. You find a few, lose a few. But then you find one that’s perfect and it’s only two hours away. Thirteen feet, AC, furnace, fridge, the whole shebang. Before the week is out, it’s sitting in your driveway.

Everybody around you worries for your safety, some more than others. A few think it’s just a really bad idea. And for a while, you buy into their worry. You consider getting a dog, but you’ve got two cats already and a dog wouldn’t fit in your apartment. You download a barking app for your iPod instead. You think about taking a baseball bat for protection, but then realize you don’t have enough room in the Scamp to swing it to protect yourself, so you sleep with your Maglite under your pillow. But you’re not stupid. You know how to listen to your gut—and if you don’t feel good going to the campground bathroom in the middle of the night, well, then, that’s why God invented the Porta Potty. But after the first night, you don’t even think about this stuff anymore. You’re aware, yes, but the paranoia goes away, completely.

You feel like everybody’s staring at you as you’re driving down the road and you wonder what they’re thinking. You think that they’re thinking that a woman alone is ludicrous. There’s no way a woman could handle camping like this on her own. And that puts some more steel in your spine. You can do all of this with your eyes closed. You know exactly how to hook up your camper, level it. You know how to use your WD-40. You’re so good at backing up the camper that you don’t even think about it anymore. You know exactly how to build a fire and how to cook your dinner on it.

And then you start to mess with your Scamp, to make it more functional—because you know exactly what you want out of it, just like you know exactly what you want out of your life and you’re not willing to compromise that. You know that you’ll be traveling with the cats, so accommodations need to be made for them. You need a dedicated writing surface, because the Scamp’s main function is as a mobile writer’s retreat. So you build yourself a front dinette. Your father helps and it’s a good memory-making activity for both of you. You come from a long line of tinkerers, and camping tinkerers at that. You build closet shelves out of PVC and plywood. You build a drawer under your bed to take advantage of the space. And when you’re done, you stand there, look at what you’ve accomplished with your own two hands and know it couldn’t be any more perfect if you tried.

People will never understand why you do it, you finally realize. Don’t you get lonely? No, you don’t. Don’t you ever feel afraid? Not yet, you haven’t. They might eventually understand what compels you to travel, but they’ll never understand what compels you to travel alone.

They’ll never understand what it’s like to travel with your home on your back, that everything in the world that you need is hooked to your hitch. They’ll never understand the absolute joy that comes with stretching out in your zero-gravity chair with a book in the middle of the afternoon, next to a piece of scenery you’ve never seen before. They’ll never understand why you’re so happy, standing in your camper in the morning, deciding what kind of tea you want to greet the morning, then sitting on the picnic table and doing nothing except drink your tea and breathe. Even the things that don’t go right aren’t that big a deal. Setting up or tearing down in the rain? It makes a good story. The time when [insert story here] happened? Good conversation for later. How about all the leaking that the windows were doing and how much silicone it took to fix it? That’s what it’s all about, right? Stories and memories?

It’s pure, undiluted, absolute freedom. The freedom not to have to compromise in this one area of your life, because the rest of life is all about compromise. The freedom to get up when you like, go to bed when you choose. To do everything because you want to—and because you can. And if you want to just stay around the camper, there’s nothing wrong with that either.

In your first summer of Scamping, you log a couple thousand miles. Ohio to Mackinac to the Apostle Islands to your parents’ house in northern Minnesota. William O’Brien State Park, down by Stillwater, MN. Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi, a place you haven’t been for years. The trip back to Ohio, which takes you from the Minnesotan North Shore to Copper Harbor, Michigan, to St. Ignace, to your own driveway in Ohio. It’s a good first summer and you’re looking forward to even more miles put on those tires, more pages written in that camping journal of yours. This is what it means to really live your life, you think.

Sometimes, when the Scamp is parked in your driveway and you don’t have any plans in the works to take it out of the driveway—because life has interfered with your camping—sometimes you just go in there, lay down on the bed, fold your hands behind your head and smile. This is what it feels like when you actually live your dream, something that’s been nebulous for so long. This is it. This is it.

[Raya]

See now, that's what I meant to say

Absolutely

I have a funny story about camping "alone." This is a number of years back, but one spring two friends and I went on a long-distance kayaking trip in a Toyota pickup with a little camper on the back. We started in Minnesota, wound our way out to Northern California, drove down to San Diego to meet up with a friend who had moved out there, and then worked our way back through New Mexico, Texas, and etc.

Along the way, we camped. I can't tell you how many times the three of us (all female) would be out in our campsite, cooking, reading, working on the kayaks, or whatever, when someone would come up to us (ahem... all three of us), and ask: "Are you alone?" Cracked us up every time

Another funny moment, in Texas: I was pumping gas at a clearly marked Self-serve gas station, when a fellow in a cowboy hat came up and took the pump handle and re-started pumping the gas into our truck. I figured "whoops, must have pulled up to the "full serve" pump, and said something to that effect. The fellow replied "Oh no, we pump it for the lie-deez."

Huh, this never happens in northern Minnesota when it's twenty below and windy

Raya

[Joy A]

I camp solo but with Lily, of course.

I can say that I think I meet more people solo camping than when I camped with a friend along. Some of it is because others are curious about a solo women and then the other side of the coin is that I don't have anyone to talk to at my site so I go out for a walk or bike ride and strike up a conversation with someone.

I come from a long line of self suffient women, ranchers and wilderness folks. Being self sufficient runs in my blood.

Solo camping/traveling isn't as boring as people think....it's only as boring as a person makes it.

[Gina D.]

"Oh no, we pump it for the lie-deez."

Here in No. Arizona, I have had male customers at the pump say "Let me get that for you".

In my limited travels outside of urban areas... I mean WAY outside of them, I have become to realize that most of the country is like this.

Men here tip their hats, open doors, call you ma'am, apologize if they swear and they don't put up with any other men (Or boys) who do not do the same.

I do not mind if they DON'T do these things, I don't expect it. I am "city-ized" I guess.

Or... more likely.. I have reached the age where thats the proper way to do things LOL!

In my mid 30s, I took amtrak from Portland, Or. down to Klamath Falls Or. I was to meet friends at the station who were driving up from the Bay Area, and we were going camping at Howards Prairie Lake. The train was expected to arrive at K Falls at midnite.

On the train, I was seated next to a very green country boy, about 19 I'd say. He had on the hat and boots, and called me Ma'am. We conversed the whole way down, he was very polite. When we got to K Falls, he escorted me off the train and waited to see if my friends were there. They weren't. That boy waited over 2 hours until they arrived. (They had a late start and no way to get ahold of me) I told him I would be OK, he needn't spend his time waiting with me.. "No ma'am...It just wouldn't be right to leave a lady standing here alone at nite like that".

[Donna R]

Hi
These past messages have brought the biggest smile to my face ... there is no smiley face large enough to add here.
All my own feelings have been better expressed by you(s) in these messages than I could ever verbalize.
Thank you all.
I too, am getting ready to go solo..hopefully across Canada slooowly.

With full support and encouragement from my partner of 25 years, I will be exploring MY dream of travelling solo....just to see if I can after years of illness... and now betterness.
I, too, am not bored by myself (although I must admit we travel very well together and will miss him sometimes when there is beauty or a laugh to share)

For good or bad, I speak to everyone and trust most while on the road alone.
This does NOT mean I do not pay attention when those little hairs stand up on my neck warning of some danger. Or does it mean that I am totally naive. It means that I don't want to travel "in fear"

People are always sooo good to me when I am on my own and truly believe that most people are good...and helpful....and kind. And with my pure white hair everyone speaks up and does all kind of extras for me ( maybe in case "i'm losing it?) Who knows, but it works for me.

The excitement of being on the open road makes me speechless, or like a dog drooling over a streak. And one either feels that.......or just doesn't get it at all.

So, it's still a while till I hit the road. Shake down trip to Newfoundland or the Gaspe first.

And I have to admit I'm a bit of a turncoat here because I'm using a (mostly) fiberglass rig that is 30 years old (a classic is a nice way to call this old, quite ugly van front, fiberglass back unit named by me- "Vanish")
But since it is 85 % fiberglass and we still have our ALL fiberglass trailers....I felt I could I could talk about solo travelling too!
After all, in the 1930's, my Mother flew a plane..........what's a drive across Canada???

You all made my day sparkle. Thank you.

[Raya]

Donna!

You may have thought everyone else "said it so well," but that was a great post. Can't wait to hear the trip reports

Raya

("Vanish"... hee hee )

[Pat Goodwin]

You're alone? How many times I have heard this. My normal response is to point to my dog(s) and say "No, I'm not alone". Perhaps part of this curiosity about a woman's camping "alone" is due to the image we see in the ads - the big happy smiling family enjoying their Coleman products beside the lake or the couple - always a couple - hiking into the Sierras.

My dog and now dogs and I have camped and driven about 30,000 miles over the U.S. west of the Mississippi and to every state in that section. First it was in the PT Cruiser for which I made a foam mattress for the back (take out back seats), then with a teardrop trailer, now with a 1973 Compact II - still with same aging PT Cruiser.

At a coffee shop in Kansas early one Sunday morning, friendly woman invited me to come to her home to use her shower and the number of times helpful people have directed my backing in to campsites too many to count. Curious children who are asking questions I know were heard inside their own luxury RV's - interesting how these children would come over in the morning, ask their questions, return to their RV. The camping fulltimers and regulars who would offer suggestions and help and coffee were a great addition to our trips.

It isn't until I write something like this that I realize how much time I've spent driving and camping and how much I enjoyed and enjoy it. Lovely surprises like finding I had boundless energy and stamina near the Pacific Ocean where my allergies weren't dragging me down and big dog Rug and I could walk and walk without my being breathless. National Park, Forest, and Corps hosts have some fascinating stories and lives and getting acquainted with them helps in the campgrounds; particularly when I've let the dogs out without a leash and nothing is said.

Now I've seen the places I learned about as a child; Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Black Hills, Lewis and Clark's travels, deep ruts in rock from the pioneer wagons, buffalo, herds of elk, sod houses, Donner Pass, the seemingly endless vastness of the prairie and the travails of the pioneers, Native American sites and Custer's last battleground, the Platte River, the Missouri, the Columbia, the Snake, the massiveness of the Sierras and the Rockies (and the trials driving up them), and the Chief Joseph Highway, and unfortunately, also have seen the detritus of the visitors to these places. The United States is so huge and so beautiful. While my dogs are alive, my travels will be in the U.S. Before them, I went abroad and will again. For now, camping "alone" and sitting by a river with a cup of coffee and a book and binoculars is good. Watching the dogs in the river is good. Being self-sufficient and taking care of myself and the dogs - good.

For any woman interested in seeing the U.S., go camping! If you don't try, you won't find out you can.

p.s. Yes, I've driven cross country totally alone and with children - driving all day with stopping for interesting sights and historical markers and then motel at night. I've done lots of that but camping is better. You still get where you're going but have much more fun getting there. Besides, where you're going may be not where you thought and with your own little home with you, you're free to change, to stop, to not care if there is a clean motel in that next town when you're tired.

[Raya]

You're alone? How many times I have heard this. My normal response is to point to my dog(s) and say "No, I'm not alone". Perhaps part of this curiosity about a woman's camping "alone" is due to the image we see in the ads - the big happy smiling family enjoying their Coleman products beside the lake or the couple - always a couple - hiking into the Sierras.

Good point. And if they do show people "alone" it's usually a man, or a man with his male buddies. That's one reason I don't go for the disguise; I don't want to take special efforts hide the fact that, hey, I'm female, and I'm out doing things. (Of course I am careful when I need to be, and I'm not out to prove anything, especially at the expense of my own safety.)

My dog and now dogs and I have camped and driven about 30,000 miles over the U.S. west of the Mississippi and to every state in that section. First it was in the PT Cruiser for which I made a foam mattress for the back (take out back seats)...

You too? I've "camped" hundreds of nights in the back of my station wagon. The bed back there is probably more comfortable than the one I have at home! And it's always there at the ready, so I can pull over whenever I feel like it (or not, if I'm still awake and just want to keep on trucking).

Besides, where you're going may be not where you thought and with your own little home with you, you're free to change, to stop, to not care if there is a clean motel in that next town when you're tired.

Yep, yep . Noisy partyers in the room next door? Uncomfortable bed? Check-out time? Bedbugs? -$125 when I wake up? Problems finding a place that takes dogs? I don't think so!

[Karalyn]

I am reading these messages as I was going out solo this week for the first time. Yep, I'm still home and paranoid.
Hubby decided not to go (he does not like to camp) and I am sitting here depressed and afraid to try solo. I have another week off work, and need to get over my fear of being alone. I thought about Joy traveling all over with her Lilly. I keep telling myself if she can do it, I can.
Am I more afraid than the rest of you when you started out for the first time? I keep thinking "what if"
and then I am home another day. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow, but I do want to take off for the weekend. Wish me luck and safe camping!

[Raya]

Karalyn,

I can only speak for myself, but when I'm contemplating something that I'm a bit nervous about, I often find that thinking about it as a whole concept ahead of time is a bit paralyzing, and I can think of all kinds of potential scary scenarios.

But then often once I'm actually doing the thing, well, its just one moment at a time, and time doesn't really rush ahead any faster than ever, and so I'm just taking things step by step, and it's not nearly as overwhelming as I thought it might be.

As I was reading your post I found myself wondering whether there was some "easy" or safe-feeling place you could go to start out. Even if it's a good friend's driveway! You can sit in the camper and giggle and have coffee or something, then when night falls you'll be camping in your own rig, but you'll know a friend is right there. Then you just plan for the next night, then the next....

Or maybe there is something you've really been wanting to do, but haven't, and you can combine that with your first trip?

You could just go out for one night and then see how it goes. If it's fun, or even if it isn't perfect but you want to stay out another night, great. If not, also great. You're soloing and you can just make decisions as you feel like it

Bring a cell phone, maybe go someplace with Wi-fi and log onto FGRV if that makes you feel less alone. Or just close the drapes, read a book or watch a movie, and have some snack that you usually have to share but can now wickedly have all to yourself

Or, if you are nervous about the night, how about getting an early start and going someplace nice just for the day (with the camper). If it's a campsite, you can wander around, do whatever you want, maybe make supper, and then toodle on home afterwards..... unless you feel like staying over, in which case you just tuck in and hit the sack

Remember that if you do go out solo camping, we're all here rooting for you, and waiting to hear about it --- the good, the bad, and the embarrassing



Raya

PS: I can't remember whether you have a pet, but I find that they make great camping companions, if you have one you can bring along.

[Pat Goodwin]

Karalyn, Raya's suggestions are great. Read them again.

In projects I've done like law school, looking ahead to the end and just DOING it day by day the best I could worked. For less long-term projects such as a day of being in the woods, NO NEED TO WORRY.

Karalyn, I'm not really certain what your fear is about. Friends of mine have said "I NEVER go alone" and proudly grip their husband's arm. That's about one-upsmanship over me since they seem to think because I'm single, there's something wrong with me. The other kind of reaction is more like yours - almost as if she cannot imagine going out into the world all by herself. What will happen?

For this second kind of fear, sympathy and understanding are appropriate (and which Raya has given you). However, some strong words also are appropriate - YOU CAN DO IT. Next, 1) Are you afraid of car's breaking down? 2) Are you afraid of someone's breaking into your camper? 3) Are you afraid of being bored all by yourself?

I think you need to decide exactly what it is that you fear in this situation and analyze that. If it is the car, have car INCLUDING TIRES checked out by mechanic you trust. If it is someone's breaking in, check all locks, etc. If you are thinking of tent camping, then don't do that - rent a solid camper for a weekend to help avoid a break in. If you fear being bored by yourself, how do you know if you haven't done it?

Once you have run through a complete checklist and taken care of preventions, go to a nearby (meaning within 100 miles preferably within a few miles) campground and get a site near the camp host's site. Bring your charged cell phone. Bring a book or sketch materials or camera. Make sure before you arrange campsite, it is a place with something you want to see or do or be in. DO NOT attempt to hitch and unhitch that first weekend. Just be there.

Karalyn, my first long trips began as a child with family, then with my own family, then with some of my children, then alone. I learned very quickly when alone that being alone could be wonderful; I'd never been alone. When alone, if I had a car breakdown, someone would come along and help and with a cell phone, help is available (be sure you have emergency road service with your insurance or AAA) and you can stay locked in your car if you want, if I got a little panicky in the middle of nowhere while looking at something, quickly got back in car and moved on. My point is, if you really want to do this, you will.

Perhaps you feel I'm too trusting of strangers and new situations - then do as Raya suggested and begin in your driveway. I think you'll realize as Raya does that isn't REALLY camping. Maybe you should try a cabin rental first at a lake or park you've admired. I've done that and it can be great. The cabin rental would take care of being alone and being in the "outdoors". Then you could graduate to a camper or trailer by yourself.

If you already have a camper and think renting a cabin would be excessive, think positively that renting a cabin could mean security and combating fears. Cabins come in tiny and large sizes at state, national, and local parks as well as private ones. Go online and find one overlooking what you like; river, stream, lake, mountains, desert. Then go. No, I don't mean taking your husband with you since after all it is a cabin. This is your trial run for being alone and camping; you deserve it and you need it to prepare for camper aloneness.

I so hope you go ahead and try any or all of camping varieties; the pleasure of sleeping when sleepy, eating when hungry, making a fire and sitting by it in the cool of the evening or early morning, answering to no one other than my dogs, doing nothing in beautiful surroundings can't be measured. Pat

[Karalyn]

Thanks Raya and Pat.
I have dogs and puppies to travel with. I have cell phone, I have AAA and good sam insurance also on the trailer. I am all set except for mace.
If the weather is nice I am going to go somewhere close by next week. The only way to get over the fear is to hit it head on. I have camped in my drive way, camped with family members that have tents, but I have never gone anywhere all by myself in the camper without meeting a friend at the campsite. I have even looked at mini motor homes as I could just pull in to a site, and no one would know I was all alone. (too expensive for me to buy a good one though). The idea of parking close to the host camper sounds like good advice (if the campground has a host camper). I know I have got to get brave, but then it is a scarry world out there with more and more weird-o's out there all the time.
Hubby won't go so I have got to do this. I want to winter in the south, so I need to get over this fear.
Thanks for the advice!

[Pat Goodwin]

Thanks Raya and Pat.
I have dogs and puppies to travel with. I have cell phone, I have AAA and good sam insurance also on the trailer. I am all set except for mace.
If the weather is nice I am going to go somewhere close by next week. The only way to get over the fear is to hit it head on. I have camped in my drive way, camped with family members that have tents, but I have never gone anywhere all by myself in the camper without meeting a friend at the campsite. I have even looked at mini motor homes as I could just pull in to a site, and no one would know I was all alone. (too expensive for me to buy a good one though). The idea of parking close to the host camper sounds like good advice (if the campground has a host camper). I know I have got to get brave, but then it is a scarry world out there with more and more weird-o's out there all the time.
Hubby won't go so I have got to do this. I want to winter in the south, so I need to get over this fear.
Thanks for the advice!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Karalyn's going camping. If no campground host, there's always sections of the campground with sites close together and children, etc. If you are worried about backing in, do what I did at first, drive in forward as far as you can (hopefully a site well off the road) and DON'T TOUCH THE STEERING WHEEL WHEN YOU STOP. That way, when you are ready to leave, let the tow vehicle back out exactly the way it drove in. I did this with the teardrop quite a lot after I screwed up trying to just back it out and struggling with it.

Not sure how it would work with bigger trailer - I began backing in the Compact II in the beginning. Took a while that first time(boy did it take a while; needed a shower and a nap when done) and sometimes since but mainly I learned to just keep my eyes focused on the outside rearview mirror and SLOWLY slowly make adjustments. My biggest problem was "slowly, slowly" :). I have stick shift and for a while was afraid I was going to burn out the clutch.

Having the dogs with you is going to keep you busy and entertained and acquainted with others since most people like a puppy. My dogs are one reason why I now park way away from others if I can - can let them off leash to swim or poke around for a while; can't do that next to host site or in the middle of crowds.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. This is wonderful. You won't be "alone"; you're with your dogs. Pat

p.s. not sure if the "mace" remark was a joke or fear showing?????

[Joy A]

Here's what I could never figure out is, "Why people don't seemed to question a man who travels solo"

We many be danty little ladies but we are just as capable as any man. In fact, we are the epitomy of multi taskers. Think about what most women do in the course of their lives. Certainly more than just going to work and back. There are children, the house, cooking, jobs etc. etc etc. We do these things inconjuncton with one and other on a daily basis.

There is nothing we can't learn to do.

So why aren't we capable of going campiing, full timing etc., solo!!!!

[Raya]

:raises hand: I know, I know!

We ARE!!

(But I completely hear what you are saying; no one ever asks a man (or men) out on a fishing trip "Are you alone!?" with that incredulous, slightly frightened tone.)