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Prime Times Weekly publication of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon Photos from AP Campers and recreation vehicles bring roaming retirees to Slab City, which has sprung up at the site of an abandoned military base on 640 acres of desert in the southeast corner of California Welcome to Slab City Ben Preston and Irma Ruth greet each other as they join fellow members of Loners on Wheels for morning coffee at the Slab City, Calif., desert camp. Thousands of free-spirited seniors are flocking to an abandoned military base, determined not to lead a 'humdrum' life By RENE SANCHEZ The Washington Post SLAB CITY, Calif . -- The skies are bright, the beer is cold, and the doors of sand-swept motor homes and trailers strewn all over this baked and barren desert outpost are creaking open. Here come the Loners on Wheels, all gray-haired, all single, shuffling over to another afternoon happy hour in the middle of nowhere. By the dozens, club members gather near clumps of tumbleweed as drinks and tales start to flow. They are one brigade in a growing army of retirees who spend their time roaming highways across the West, and this is their latest stop. An American flag the gang raised high over its makeshift camp when it pulled up snaps and twists in the stiff desert wind. SLABBERS EMBRACE UNWANTED LAND Slab City sits nearly on top of the San Andreas Fault. It is not a city at all, just an abandoned military base on 640 desolate acres of desert in the southeast corner of California. It is miles from the nearest speck of a town, Niland (pop. 1,042). Troops trained here for battle during World War II, but not a scrap from the base is left -- only the cement slabs on which it once stood. Hence, the name. The military still drops bombs at a test site a few miles away. Years ago, a couple of foolhardy Slabbers, as old folks here are called, sneaked on to that restricted range hunting for scrap metal and came back with injuries. Others climb atop their rigs some nights and watch tracer fire streak across the coal-black desert sky. Some explosions are close enough to shake and rattle the camp. "People almost get their false teeth knocked out sometimes," said Phil Koursh, 75, who has been driving his camper here for 13 years after a career remodeling kitchens. "This is not the Riviera." California has tried to sell the land, but no one wants it, so few officials pay much attention to it anymore. No one even seems to mind what Leonard Knight, 68, a retired mechanic from Vermont, is doing. For over a decade, he has been pouring buckets of wet clay down the side of a ridge in Slab City. He lets it dry, then paints biblical verse and multicolored images of children and flowers on it. The mural is three stories high and can be seen a mile away. "I've been doing this full-time since '91," Irma Ruth boasts as she and two friends, all in their sixties, lean against the back of a muddy rig. "There's such freedom living this way." "You realize you don't need all your stuff," chimes in Josi Roth. "And there's so much to discover." "You think we just want to sit around rocking a hole in the floor?" Elwood Wilson asks. He takes a long swig from a dented beer can. "Hell, no." They are rebels and lonely hearts, misfits and wanderers, Beats on Medicare, wrinkled Easy Riders. And every last one of them is out to defy what getting old in America often means. Retirement homes, days and nights in the haze of television, playing host to endless Sundays at Grandma's -- who needs it? All they long for is the open road. And especially the majestic highways that wind through the West. There is no firm count on how many seniors are on the road year-round passing through campsites like the one here, but academics studying the culture suggest there are well over a million. And their ranks are swelling, fast. Memberships in national clubs for elderly roadsters -- the Loners on Wheels, the Wandering Individuals Network, Birds of a Feather -- are climbing. Another group, the Escapees, has twice as many members, 30,000, as it did a decade ago. There are now health insurance plans, Web sites and campgrounds for seniors living behind the wheel. The rise of early retirement, medical advances helping the elderly live healthier longer and new rigs as comfortable as Florida condos are making the lifestyle an easier choice. "It really is becoming a way of life for more of them," said Diane Harlan, who edits the Escapees' national magazine. "They're retiring with more vitality and need something in place of work. And this is so different." Many are selling their homes, storing their belongings, cashing their nest eggs and kissing their old lives goodbye. In Land Yachts and Winnebagos, in ramshackle buses and old trailers pulled by even older pickups, they ramble across vast western deserts in the winter and roam lush forests in the Pacific Northwest in the summer. Then they turn the wheels of their RVs and do it all over again. They call it "hitch itch." Some have been on the road so long they can hardly fathom living any other way. Peggy Webb, a retired nurse, has been driving ever since she and her husband, who is retired from the military, sold their house five years ago. "I never thought I had the nerve to do this," Webb said one morning in the desert here as she practiced painting on canvas. "But our kids had grown up and we were in an empty house saying, `Now what?' So we took off. And now I don't think I ever want to go back." Some rattle off their favored destinations in a kind of spiritual chant: Aguanga, Yuma, Quartzsite, Mammoth Lakes. In those spots and others, there are RV camps that require reservations and limit stays. There are camps that charge fees and post rules. And for the true believers and free spirits, the geriatric gypsies who want a taste of the West where it's still wild, there is Slab City. There are no fees or rules at Slab City, no running water or electricity -- just hundreds of humble trailers and campers scattered in every direction. The place empties in the summer because temperatures make it a furnace. This time of year, it is packed with about 5,000 people. Most are on their own and in their 60s and 70s. They stop in for a few weeks or months, reunite with pilgrims they have met from their travels, then move on. Some carve out turf at Slab City by slashing old tires in half and lining them in the dirt around their rigs. It does not draw the country club set. Most roadsters here are retired factory workers, war vets or tradesmen, usually living on fixed incomes. They have few expenses: gas, food, medicine and more gas. Many are restless widows and widowers searching for full lives without their spouses. They all preach the glory of the road, yet some voices also betray sadness and loss. "I guess I needed something to take the place of my married life when my wife passed," said Irv Himelberger, 85, a former carpenter from Washington state who travels with a mutt he named Freddy. "I didn't want to sit around looking at the walls or have to start depending on my kids, either." Life on the road and in the camps can be hard. But to many, roughing it is half the thrill. Some Slabbers shower in a ditch that has a warm desert spring. Some wash clothes in tubs of soapy water and trim each other's hair. There are other sacrifices: Trips to see doctors can take hours. Keeping in touch with relatives and children is not easy, and not always pleasant. Doris Vande, a widow, took to the road in her camper 11 years ago. She said she tried staying put after she retired from assembly-line work at an automotive plant in Michigan, but she grew bored. She is now a devout member of the Loners on Wheels, but she also sounds estranged from her adult children. "They don't approve of my lifestyle," said Vande, 71, who was wearing a sweat suit and a beret. "At times they just want me to have a humdrum life. But their mother isn't like that. I don't want to give up yet." Still, the road and the camps eventually wear some of them out. Some return home after a few years or begin living with their children. Others join traditional retirement communities. "It is tempting to go back sometimes," said Irma Ruth, whose teenage grandchildren keep up with her on the Internet home page they made her create on her computer. "This life," added Josi Roth, "is definitely not for everyone." Those who stick to it get by with grit, ingenuity and more than a few six-packs. Many have come to Slab City so often over the years that they have created a community. They share tanks of water and cut deals in nearby towns to have trash hauled out. They know so many trades they can fix anything that breaks. A retired barber has strung red and blue tape on his trailer and gives haircuts. For power, some Slabbers use generators. Others rely on solar panels they buy from Mike Gohl, a mainstay here since the mid-1980s. Back then, he was a middle-aged social worker in Oregon. But he grew disenchanted with budget cuts -- "Reaganomics, man" -- and took off in a transit bus the city of Eugene, Ore., didn't want. It still runs, barely. Gohl has put about 500,000 miles on it traveling, as he puts it, "everywhere beautiful." By day, Slab City bustles with card games, horseshoe tournaments, even dances and talent shows -- all outside in the desert. A few clubs have converted trailers into libraries filled with tattered paperbacks. The Loners on Wheels group uses a trailer as a moviehouse and shows tapes on a VCR. In the evenings, many seniors nestle in folding chairs and bask in panoramic desert sunsets. Around 6 o'clock most nights, a hush settles over Slab City. Regulars switch on their CB radios and tune in to Linda Barnett, a retired X-ray technician who has been coming here for a decade. Inside a camper covered in camouflage netting, she broadcasts a scratchy half-hour report on camp doings and holds trivia contests. So much to do, so little time. Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA