Moving On By Land and Sea

She is fickle. I asked if she could be anywhere she wanted to be right this minute, where would she be?

“I’d be on a freighter going around the world. Or, I would have won the lottery and have a boat big enough for captain and crew to take me wherever I want to go. True escapism is by boat.”
But then again when I asked her why she spends six months each year RVing, she said, “The adventure. If I had known RVing was so great, I would have started at 22.”

Lynn Stanaback is 65 and traveling solo. Boating and RVing are the two major loves of her life.
Lynn attended Arizona State University and worked as a commercial artist in Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix. She eventually settled in Port Townsend, Washington, doing freelance catalog illustrations.

At 49, she sailed with friends and met a 50-year-old retiree. “He could fly a plane and sail around the world. He knew how to do everything or go anywhere. No matter what I suggested, he said, ‘We can do that.’” They spent winters sailing the Sea of Cortez and the old Mexico coastline as far south as Zihuatanejo.

“We sailed the boat into the San Diego area and kept it there until we sailed to Hawaii and from Hawaii to the Northwest. For the next five years, we explored the San Juans and the Canadian Gulf Islands.”

RVing in Mexico
Lynn continued to maintain the Port Townsend house, but wanted an RV for winters in Arizona and New Mexico. Ultimately, this included RVing into Mexico four months at a time. “My first rig was a 21-foot Toyota Dolphin, which is still the best way to travel Mexico, with a small rig.

“We once parked on the beach near Los Varas for two months. We piled into the decrepit, door-less, community Volkswagen bus and sat on the floor for a trip into town. We shared the return trip with groceries, bundles and chickens. We RVed to small arts and crafts communities and colonial towns like Alamos, Zacatecas, San Miguel Allende, Ajijic and Guanajuato.

“Speaking our limited Spanish, at Teacapan we made friends with a private campground owner. After a week on the beach, we went into his park and paid him for a day, recharged batteries, emptied our tanks, filled with water, and went back to the beach.

“We visited ghost towns, such as Real de Catorce that had its beginnings with the discovery of silver in 1775. We entered through the one-mile Tunel de Ogarrio. We asked the locals, and they brought horses to lead us around the 9,000-plus altitude. We saw people doing penance, crawling on their knees to the Church of the Immaculate Conception.”

Medical Ordeal
Lynn’s idyllic life acquired a kink. A mammogram was dismissed as fine. A year later she was diagnosed with breast cancer that had advanced to the lymph glands and required not only a mastectomy, but also chemotherapy and radiation.

“My sister died of breast cancer so I figured I had two years of life left. I walked around Port Townsend thinking, ‘I belong out on the sea. I don’t want to be here dealing with this.’” Lynn says of her partner, “He was terrific. He did personal ministrations, shots, and tempted me to eat. During chemo, he was just there, a living, breathing, comforting body. I had terrors in the night. His just being there helped me to survive.

“I joined a cancer support group but they were all men. How could they possibly help me, a woman who had lost a breast? Those men helped just by listening, and I learned as well.”
I asked Lynn what advice she would give others going through the same situation. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she said. “Share your feelings.

“Just before my last chemo treatment, I bought this 21-foot fiberglass motorboat, designed around WWII. I had waited months for someone, anyone, to tell me that I would survive and that the treatments had been successful, and no one did. This strong, seaworthy little workboat was my epiphany, a sign that I had a future.”

On Her Own
Lynn and her partner went their separate ways. I asked Lynn if she minded being by herself. “I like being alone because I am so focused then. I miss my life style with a partner more than I miss the partner. I’m social to a point, but people zap my energy level. I need alone-time or I would snap.”

How does she spend her time? “I like to read, hike, and beach comb. I draw, paint, sketch and photograph. I’m always out there with an artist’s eye, absorbing everything. I’m a treasure hunter and an assemblage artist. I use vintage photographs to create wall hangings by adding treasures and relics I find in flea markets, secondhand shops, and antique stores.”
While Lynn admits to being mechanically inept, she has confidence to cross the country and wield her little boat in the sea. She made a 3,000-mile trip deep into Mexico about three years ago by herself.

Her advice to single RVers: “If you’ve enjoyed your life style, don’t quit because you’ve lost your partner or spouse. Don’t step backwards. Be confident in doing what you want to do and build on that. Get a rig that is in good working order and go. Join groups and learn from other people.”

I found Lynn parked on her quarter-acre RV lot near Congress, Arizona. She has a charming studio with a front porch surrounded by hollyhocks and mesquite trees. The walls and old furniture are filled and decorated with her unique treasures. Little by little, she is planting and planning for the day she no longer wants to travel, which by her itinerary is a long way down the trail. As I walked away from her desert Eden with the 21-foot Chinook motorhome at the ready nearby, I heard a still, small voice say, “If I had my druthers, I’d still be at sea.”