When I was a little girl, my best friend’s family would take me on camping trips with them as company for Nancy.
I didn’t love the camping experience, but I loved getting away from the crammed house I lived in with all those people. For Nancy’s mom, it seemed to me to be a lose-lose situation with her having to pack half the house to go live in the woods for a week. As a frequent guest, I was treated like family and required to participate in chores. Early on I figured out that pumping your water, heating it, pouring it into a tub, scrubbing the dishes, rinsing them in another tub of water that you had to pump from the ground and then drying them seemed stupid when there was a perfectly good dishwasher at home.
I knew I wasn’t cut out for the camping life but I married somebody who was.
When the kids were little The Big Daddy started to entertain the idea of getting a camper. A Winnebago. Are you kidding me? Do you know how much those things cost?
“But it’s the perfect solution. Everything you need is right there. It’s not like your roughing it.”
I wasn’t on board. Ever. When he said the RV Show was in town and that we should go take a look……”you know to see what’s out there”……..I told him I wasn’t participating.
The years passed but his interest never waned until the summer we were driving through Idaho. Going up a mountainous road we were waved over by another driver who was FA……FA…..FA…..FREAKING out. It smelled like smoke and within a few minutes you could hear the wail of the fire department sirens.
The Recreational Vehicle doesn’t much like those steep climbs, and what seemed to have started with smoking brakes turned into A Smoking, Flaming Winnebago up yonder. Everything in the traveling home burnt up real good with the stunned owners helpless on the side of the road.
We sat on the shoulder for nearly two hours surrounded by the most picturesque scenery you could imagine. I read Tuesdays With Morrie and boo-hooed and blew my nose all the while we were stuck. The Big Daddy said, “Pass the Kleenex,” and wiped away a few tears of his own.
With the smell of pine all around us, I fell in love with the charming Morrie Schwartz while The Big Daddy was watching his ongoing plan to seduce me with the pleasures of a Winnebago go up in smoke.
