The trip that shall live in infamy…
I once saw a show on TV
where a group of people was making a getaway in an RV. This was a fantasy show
and the group of runaways ended up being chased by knights on horses which they
fought off the roof as if it were an old western with the Indians attacking a
train, and ultimately crashing the RV. Some vacation. But then their point
wasn’t to have a vacation. Ours was. The following is my attempt to avoid any
more patronizing looks upon recounting the tale of my family’s trip last summer
in an RV. The plan was to drive a rented RV down to Midland, Texas to visit my
mom’s mother. RVs are a great concept. A house on wheels, travel ready …and
anything with a self-contained bathroom is just fascinating, period. Of course,
the theory of said bathroom is that fewer stops will be needed. But let’s
ignore the practical side and deal with the idyllic for now.
I spent most of the
trip reading my current book, writing epic letters to my best bud Hollie, and
generally being grateful for a reprieve from a world with deadlines on way too
many big decisions. It was the summer after I technically graduated high school.
I had already been gone or busy for most of the month before, and my mother had
only been home for a day from her previous week-long trip to Texas – Dallas/Ft.
Worth Texas that is, which had included a delayed flight, loneliness on her
end, and a lot of stress on ours. My 2 brothers, Nathaniel, 11, and
Christopher, 10, are self explanatory, and my dad is just plain compliant.
The first sign of
impending doom was possibly my mother’s hysterical episode the moment we left
our driveway. The stress was wearing thin. Or possibly the less determined
would have been put off by the test drive to the gas station the day before,
which proved that RV rides are simply not smooth and the cats simply were not pleased.
Who can blame us for
getting carried away by the whole house-on-wheels concept? Our vision of
‘house’ is perhaps a bit different from the RV rental company’s (they sure
thought it was funny upon hearing about it when we brought the RV back a week
later). In our home you would find 4 cats and a dog. Let me convince you of my
sincerity for a moment. Our main trouble when it comes to traveling is pet
care. We take our dog, Buddy, who loves to go anywhere with us (in the back of
our van where he has his own window and enough space to be comfortable) as much
as possible.
Our cats have a
running feud that suffers from a lack of supervision when we’re gone. Being
able to personally keep track of all the pets seemed like a perfect solution.
We took 3 cats and let our oldest cat have the run of the house (her freedom
ended up being limited a bit by the flood, but, ahem, I’m getting ahead of
myself).
The cats weren’t
convinced by the house mirage and Buddy wasn’t impressed with the cats as
traveling companions. Buddy was having his own problems as it was. We have told
him all his life that he’s a Labrador, and now we think he’s partly Great
Pyrenees. He’s having a bit of an identity crisis. He spent the first day
staring at the wall of the RV while crunched up under the table and trying to
ignore the continuous howling of 2 of the cats (the smallest remained huddled
in a corner under the bed for the majority of the trip, both ways).
I believe I’m the
only one in my family who has had much experience with RV/trailer camping
before. I’ve been on several camping trips with other family. I’ve never ridden
in the trailer itself, however. But helping to tie down any and all semi-loose
objects before moving doesn’t give one the impression that it’s an easy ride.
The upside, for me, was not getting carsick while reading. That was unexpected.
The rental RV, we
were told later, was a C-class. To put that into perspective, we learned that
my mother’s idealist vision of our family house-and-home getaway would likely
have been of an A-class, and that the B-class is the worst of the lot.
According to the RV company, our rig slept 9 (obviously they cater a lot to
midgets). There was a double bed in the bedroom in the back end, separated by
the hall between the tiny shower and the equally tiny bathroom (read that:
toilet and a sink) from the tiny kitchen (sink, stove, and fridge). There were
about 3 inches between the steps down to the outside door and the kitchen
counter, followed immediately by a couch/bed and the table/bed, then the cab
(or, as my brothers liked to call it, the cockpit). I slept on the table/bed
the first night, as I would have had to cut my legs off at the hips in order to
fit into the couch/bed, which my young brother Christopher was happy to
experience (sleeping in it, not cutting off his legs).
Our first experience
with an RV park, in Wichita Falls, Texas, was soothing. I was awed by the fully
tiled, individually private bathrooms, and more than a little concerned that
the family would be lulled by the unusual luxury, so I spent the first night
playing Cautious Somebody and warning everybody to not take the conveniences
for granted.
We did make a real
impression on that RV Park, actually. There were numerous signs posted warning
that dogs were only to be walked in certain areas (and only on a leash, of
course), under threat of death, apparently. Our dog is just about the
best-behaved one you’ll ever meet, but that night he had a need to go out to
take care of business. I was happily snoozing (okay, truthfully, it’s almost
impossible to sleep in a small area with 4 other people and 4 restless animals,
but I must have been out at that particular moment) while my mother took him
out in her nighty (my mother does tend to wear skimpy little costumes to bed,
as she is naturally hot a lot, but I prefer to hope she was in something a tad
more modest at the time). Naturally, she didn’t want to walk ALL the way across
the park, but Buddy didn’t warn her what a large “business” he was going to
deposit behind the RV. Mom and the dog slunk back into the RV and woke my dad
so he could help them watch, paranoid, for searchlights and the Poop Police to
notice the rule-breakage.
The next morning,
still enjoying our freedom as the dog’s mess was taken care of first thing, we,
or rather, I enjoyed not having to wear shoes to shower in the phenomenal
bathrooms and reluctantly, we eventually got back on the road.
The cats mostly
remained in a comatose-like silence for the rest of the trip, contenting
themselves with grudging glares and fasting from water and food, which they of
course knew would be of great concern to us. Buddy, however, seemed to have
been convinced by the moving-house image, for he was swigging water regularly
without any concern for his next potty break.
In the meantime, we
of course had discovered the joy of using the toilet in a moving vehicle and
were entertained most of the trip by the noises emanating from the tiny
bathroom whenever we took any kind of miniscule turn (don’t even get me started
on clover leaf exits, as everyone in the RV was forced to hold on tightly when
attempting one of these) while someone was using it. Things got particularly
interesting when the cats decided the bathroom was a safe spot and started
huddling on the floor together, acting very quiet and almost happy. Of course,
we couldn’t close the door on them, as our largest cat, Thomas, filled the
entire bathroom floor and spilled off the edge as it was. Thus we were forced
to not only hang onto the counter but step around the animals to use the pot.
You can see how it ended up being easier to stop for a bathroom break.
It turns out, I like
Texas. George Bush really whipped a lot of things in that state into shape. No
wonder they say “Don’t mess with Texas”.
The RV Park in
Midland wasn’t quite as nice as the other. We ended up not really staying in
one spot more than one night at a time, anyway, so it didn’t much matter. I did
manage to plug into the rest of the world on my laptop with the office internet
line, but as one feels in these situations as though no one else can really
understand the unique situation one is going through, I felt oddly aloof as
though my friends were hopelessly inexperienced and would never understand my
current point of view. Perhaps it was just the fatigue.
I abruptly remembered
the whole point of the trip when my aunt and uncle brought out my grandmother
to see us. This was about the time I was introduced to Texas weather, as well.
It was looking extremely ominous outside, but apparently storms simply blow in
and out in Midland, which I found absolutely delightful. We all squeezed into
the RV’s (I say with a straight face:) living room, Uncle Pat telling jokes
that shocked my young brothers, Aunt Janice scolding and encouraging him at the
same time, and Grandma asking questions that make me feel awkward and silly no
matter how mature I have become.
My uncle tried to
convince us to make some unscheduled stops for our planned excursion to Carlsbad
in New Mexico so we pacified him with the promise to cross the Pecos River on
our drive there and made him leave. He offered to take the 2 boys away with him
so he could be an even bigger influence on them, and they were immediately
thrilled with the idea. I bravely insisted on staying to help control the cats
for the night, as I was still engrossed in my book and in denial about
preferring to travel without my kitty. I slept in the bed above the cab, where
there is a curtain and a light. I shared with the cats and several of my
brothers’ bags because it was just too much trouble to put them elsewhere. The
quaintness of the loft-bed is that you must hoist yourself in and out of it,
gymnast-style, if you don’t wish to crowd the supposed-hallway with the ladder.
Oh, that would be another thing I shared the bed with: the ladder. I hit my
head a few times on the low roof just that first night, and I put the blame on
my restless mother, who must have had the hardest time sleeping on that trip of
all of us.
The next morning,
after sorting out the van rental problem (apparently there was some kind of
women’s golf convention in town that made it difficult for us to even get our
van, which was necessary for Grandma’s convenience), we eventually got on our
way to New Mexico. We stopped for gas somewhere or other and had the big Carbon
Monoxide scare. I was in the RV with my brothers and all the animals when the
extremely obnoxious (of course) alarm started going off, so I made them hop
outside in their bare feet and dashed across the parking lot to tell my mother,
who had me opening windows and then closing them because that was the whole
source of the problem. We couldn’t get the alarm to shut off (naturally) for
some time, but I gave it the patented Good Whack and it shut up. Obviously we
all survived and once again were on our way.
We made the great
crossing of the Pecos River (a small trickle with a big sign) and found our
hotel. It was raining, and we had some trouble finding an RV park for the RV
(which the guys and the animals would be staying in for the night). It was
difficult to be too unhappy, from my point of view, as I had the luxury of
stiff hotel pillows, ice cold dry hotel air, and heavy hotel donuts to look
forward to. Plus, we had TWO TVs. My family had brought a TV/VCR with us in
hopes of actually getting to watch something, but it’s actually a lot more
convenient to entertain oneself with movies in our Mark III van than in a small
RV. The TV spent most of the trip tied down and unable to find purpose in it’s
existence.
I should note here
the trouble we originally had in finding RV parks in TX and NM from home in
Kansas. The Texas Campers Assoc. were very friendly, they even enclosed a
brochure on a nudist colony in their information packet. My mother went with
dad to get him settled and left me with Grandma, who asked me about my love
life and then took a nap.
Later, Mom returned,
and I got settled in with my computer, my book, and my HBO, Grandma changed
into her skimpy nighty and my mother turned down the heat. My mom and grandma
are both hot blooded, I guess, so I knew I was in for a very cold (I mean that
very literally) night. I knew I should have brought my pajama bottoms! I
watched the end of the intellectually stimulating The Heist and started learning about James Dean on TNT,
intermittently talking to my mom, writing Hollie, and discovering Grandma’s
dentures on the counter in the bathroom (my mom located her misplaced denture
cup on the floor later) as Mom and Grandma picked beds and decided together on
the lowest temperature they could set. My mother was thrilled by all this
common ground, of course, and helped Grandma throw her covers on the floor, as
Grandma insisted she “certainly wouldn’t need them!”
I’m a night owl, of
course, and my mom isn’t really used to going to bed that early herself, so she
came out to see what all the fuss about James Dean was, until we were
interrupted by Grandma’s shivering voice calling “Nancy, you’re about freezing
me out in here!”, whereupon Mom had to go help Grandma change beds so she was
farther from the cold air and get her extra blankets.
I went to bed before
midnight, as one can never keep the same hours one would at home when on a
trip, and discovered sleeping between my mother and my grandmother is like
sleeping between two lawn mowers. I knew my mother was a symphonious snore-r,
and it seems having two snore-rs in one room is unconsciously encouraging. When
one of them would get louder, the other would get louder as if in competition.
Fortunately, having a real mattress seemingly compensated for all the noise,
and I didn’t feel I slept TOO badly.
The next day we went to Carlsbad Caverns. I’ve never understood what the big deal is about a cave, myself. I was more interested in checking out Roswell, which was an hour or so away. The whole alien kitsch was impulsively appealing. We didn’t get to go, however, so I will spend the rest of my life saying I “ALMOST visited Roswell, New Mexico”. I got an alien ring from the tourist trap store out of my nixed idea, anyway. By the way, to set the record straight, Carlsbad is NOT right by Carlsbad Caverns. The closest town is White City, which is really just a horrible tourist village and is also where the RV Park they finally ended up in was located. Along with buying way too many silly souvenirs, we gleefully tried out the White City photo booth where we paid money to have our heads inserted in pictures that were supposed to resemble a background of the caverns, bat sightings….or alien landings.
Out we drove to the
caves. We ate at ground level, which was the most interesting part of the trip,
as I saw a couple of Ryan Phillippe-lookalikes at the next table and
experienced the shuffle-walk when helping my grandma to the bathroom.
Someone had been
telling Grandma horror stories about the cavern tours, and she decided she’d
rather stay in the restaurant with the nice staff to torment so we went on
without her. We had to pass on the steep-walk-down via the natural entrance as
it would have added an hour to the tour, but we handled the singular experience
of taking an elevator 750 feet below the ground very well.
Grandma was right,
she wouldn’t have been able to get around in the cave very well, after all, and
besides the church-like atmosphere of the cave formations was spoiled by all
the chatter and the odd flash of camera bulbs behind every turn. We returned to
ground level, made the obligatory “my how heavy the air is up here!” comments,
and left the caverns and New Mexico without so much as one bat sighting, much
less the thrilling breakfast-with-the-bats experience.
We fell in love with
truck stops while in Texas. Well, perhaps that’s too strong a description. We
developed a definite attraction for truck stops while in Texas. We went to one
for dinner when we got back to Midland, where Grandma decided not to eat (she’d
had a previous experience with a chicken fried steak the size worthy of a Texas
stereotype), as they didn’t have what she wanted, and ended up eating half of
my meal and some of our appetizers instead. We took her home afterwards amidst
more rain and I discovered she had two friends in neighboring apartments named
Effie and Cookie, which I found hilarious, as evidence of stereotypes always
are. We cried a little and said goodbye, since we were leaving the next
morning, then took the boys to Uncle Pat and Aunt Janice’s so they could escape
another night in the RV, where we met our cousin and her kids, and I made pals
with my aunt and uncle’s cat Apricat and discovered my aunt is a painter.
The next morning, we
went to pick up the boys and found Grandma at Uncle Pat’s house. She had
smuggled in (and then concealed by the infamous sitting-on trick) a clandestine
present for my mom and I. We were living dangerously, as we had parked the
rental-sticker plastered RV outside the house and didn’t think the neighbors
would appreciate it, but before we left I had some leftover pancakes that Aunt
Janice had made for the kids earlier, played with their “demon dog”, Bandit,
and then we took off and went as far as the gas station, where we stocked up on
fortifying junk for our big trip home, although our bravery wasn’t helped along
by the disinterested cashier. After Christopher pointed out the bobbing dogs by
the cash register, my dad commented that they would likely get a concussion in
the RV, whereupon the tough lady burst out laughing and had to agree. After she
heard our situation I’m sure she had a story to retell for anyone interested
the rest of the day.
We left Midland and
drove back the way we had come, my dad bent over the wheel in determination
with the hope of making the whole trip in one day, my mother calmly applying 4
lipsticks to different areas of her lips to pass the time, me still reading, my
brothers finally unpacking the package from another aunt who had taken our trip
as a perfect learning opportunity and made us a trivia game on things like bat
dung and the date Carlsbad Caverns was declared a national park, and the cats
enjoying their new hiding place under the tiny couch, an empty space Thomas had
discovered which he could crawl into from the opening on one side but had to
claw at everything in sight in order to haul himself out of. We stopped at our
Abilene DQ, hit rush hour (again) in Oklahoma City, and passed a crew of
white-not-orange suited men cleaning up the highway by a sign reading
“Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates” which launched a whole round of imaginary
scenarios in my overactive imagination. We also came across yet more rain,
which I think was following us our whole trip, as Texas hadn’t had any rain for
quite some time before we got there. Unfortunately, this was a quite heavy
storm -so much so that we had to pull over at a gas station where we discovered
our RV leaked –badly-- and we didn’t have nearly enough paper towels on hand.
We waited out the worst of the rain on soggy couches and enjoyed a communal
cry.
We did make it home,
at 2 in the morning, to our cats joy (we’d almost forgotten what their true
personalities were like) and our shock at finding most of our downstairs had a
soaking wet carpet, apparently from a water softener malfunction (a situation
which would last for a month and a half and result in us replacing our entire
downstairs carpet). All in all, it was a very memorable trip and we’ll never do
it again, but as my mother said in the early stages when we were simply joking
about renting an RV and taking all the pets on a jaunt with us, “It’ll be a
family experience we can remember the rest of our lives!”
This is a true
story.
