Heading South: Tales from the RV Trail

Incoming, one semi, I warned Mike. I was riding shotgun.

I can’t move over. I hope he sees us.

If I hadn’t been so nervous I would have snorted. How could anyone miss Clifford, the big red truck, pulling a twenty-three foot long recreational vehicle? I grasped the door handle, ready to bail. The semi merged behind us.

I leaned forward and stared out the side view mirror. The semi lurked just behind us like a hungry shark. First its windshield, like unblinking eyes, filled my side mirror. Then the shiny grille, like gigantic teeth. My heart pounded. The moment before it swallowed us, the semi drifted from sight. With a whoosh it blew past in the next lane. I fell back into the seat.

The semis were out in force. As each one passed, our rig tried to fill the vacuum by drifting into its lane. Mike’s hands coaxed the truck first one way, then the other. Mine were clasped rigidly in my lap. My eyes swiveled between my side mirror and Mike’s, scanning the road as intently as a traffic cop. I watched as the semis approached, passed, and roared out of sight. I glanced at the dashboard clock, praying that we’d be in camp before rush hour, before dark, before a truck crushed us.

And this trip was supposed to be fun.

It began with Mike backing Clifford into our driveway to hitch the trailer. Mike has the uncanny instinct to know right where the hitch ball is even though he can’t see it. Hitching the truck and trailer was the easy part. The two are also connected with long rods, metal hooks and clips and several chains. We hadn’t hooked all these components together enough to do it smoothly. Or to remember how to do it.

Mike had a sketch, but we couldn’t find it. With difficulty, for the trailer was jam packed, we searched among the puzzle books, paperbacks and magazines. We unlocked the house and searched through desk drawers and travel materials and piled newspapers. After an hour of searching, we found the sketch stuck in a notebook on trailer maintenance. Oh, that might be handy. We grabbed the notebook and the sketch.

We relocked the house, plopped the notebook by the hitch bar and tried to decipher Mike’s doodles.

You did this in pencil? I asked.

It’s all I had at the time, he said defensively.

Following Mike’s sketch, we hooked up the rods, the hooks, put in the metal clips, and connected all the chains. Mike double-checked everything. The whole operation took another hour. At last we climbed into Clifford. We slowly pulled forward and turned wide out of the driveway. The trailer followed in our wake like a dinghy bobbing behind a boat.

Our journey, and my nail-biting, had begun.

On Eight Wheels and a Prayer

It was past noon when we pulled into the church parking lot. Father Bill stood in his coat in the rectory’s doorway, a bowl of holy water clutched in his hand. As we drove up, he hurried out. I apologized for our lateness. I didn’t explain that we’d forgotten how to hitch the trailer; it sounded too hopeless. Father Bill strode around the vehicles sprinkling holy water and mumbling prayers. I was pleased that he sprinkled the tires liberally. I worried about the tires.

Please don’t open the trailer door. The trailer was crammed with boxes. Displayed prominently just inside the door were two last-minute necessities: a case of beer and a case of toilet paper. I couldn’t picture him blessing either.

Father Bill stepped back, his supply of holy water exhausted, the trailer and truck dripping moisture into the brisk November afternoon.

Good luck, he called, turning back to the rectory and his cooling lunch.

I eyed the gentle slope that led from the rectory’s parking lot to the highway. I hope we can make it up this hill, I said to Mike.

Father Bill called over his shoulder, If you can’t make it up this hill, you’re going to have a short trip.

He didn’t ask where we were going or when we’d be back. We had only a vague idea ourselves. This was our first vacation in our first RV and the first full winter of my retirement. Mike and I would be together 24/7 for four or five months in a space twenty-three feet long by eight feet wide, with no slide-outs to add to the roominess. Could we live in an area that small? Would our thirty-five year marriage survive? Would we enjoy traveling? These were the questions that nagged me that cold winter day.

Oh, and would the truck make it up the hill?

Sixty miles later, we continued to hurtle down the highway. I glanced at the speedometer: 65 mph. I was sure the maximum recommended speed for hauling an RV was 55 mph. I wondered if I should mention it. If I started babbling about the danger, I’d never shut up.

After a tense hour and a half Mike suddenly asked, Are you hungry? It’s a rhetorical question; I can always eat.

A Wendy’s loomed up on our right and Mike decelerated to exit. Several semis were parked in an empty dirt lot beside the restaurant. We felt like one of the big boys as we pulled in among them. I slid proudly to the ground from Clifford’s high seat, as if I’d been the one driving. As we ate, we studied the road map and our two campground guides. Caesar Creek State Park, near Dayton, was close to the highway. I’m not good at reading maps, but I was motivated to get us there quickly. The tension of the drive wasn’t lessened, but now that we had a goal and only an hour’s drive left, the afternoon went smoother. At three we left the freeway, made a wide turn onto a country road and followed it north. We drove through residential areas, past fields and farms, and finally into the park.

No ranger or volunteer manned the check-in booth. The posted price for a night’s camping was $11.50, not the reduced winter rate of five dollars that we expected. Fuming, Mike paid it. Only one camping loop was open and only one other site occupied. It was crammed with campers and a truck. No one was around. Hunters, we decided. We took the site at the end of the cul-de-sac, where the wide curve gave us more room to maneuver.

I slid out of Clifford and positioned myself at the edge of the site’s driveway so Mike had something to aim for. He couldn’t miss me. Mike drove forward, braked, and hesitated. I watched his face in the side mirror. His dark eyes looked off into the distance. Deep thoughts flickered across his face, as he analyzed which way to turn the wheel to reverse the trailer. I waited impatiently. The temperature was thirty degrees. Mike slowly backed up and the trailer lumbered away from me, in the wrong direction. Mike pulled forward, looked off into the distance as if seeking inspiration, and reversed again. The trailer jack-knifed. Slowly Mike straightened out, reversed, pulled forward, and reversed.

I ran around gesturing and frowning and hugging myself for warmth. Finally I reverted to yelling, Wrong way! Wrong way! Like Mike couldn’t figure that out.

Right! Right! I yelled. Mike couldn’t hear me. His window was rolled up. I insisted that he roll it down so we could yell at each other.

On the next pass, Clifford cleared the road and the trailer was in the site. Mike threw the truck into Park and jumped out to inspect his job.

We need to come back more, he said. When we put the stabilizers down, they’ll hit the back stop.

I had forgotten the stabilizers. These four little feet, front and back on either side, are jacked down to the pavement to steady the trailer, keep it from rocking, and to ensure the appliances work properly.

But then they’ll be in the mud, I said, gesturing at the wet ground.

We’ll put a board under them.

Mike reversed again. Then we noticed that we were parked so far to one side that we’d be standing in the mud outside the trailer door.

We’ll put a board down, Mike said.

My RV motto: When in doubt, a board put out. If I could embroider, I’d add it to our couch cushions.

Purgatory: Leveling an RV

Before we put the stabilizers down, we had to level the trailer. Leveling the trailer meant putting boards under the tires, to keep the trailer level and steady, non-rocking, appliances working properly, that whole drill. While Mike searched the truck for the four-foot level, I amused myself by blowing puffs of frost from my nostrils. Then I calculated the time it took to fill out a motel reservation and get those tricky room key cards to work. I estimated how far the ice machine was from the room, how long it took to sprint to the ice machine, fill a bucket, sprint back, insert the pesky key card, open two bottles (one liquor, one wash), and mix a cocktail. I’d be drinking and channel-surfing before Mike found the level.

Naturally, we had to raise one side.

We need to raise the right side, Mike said.

Is that your right side or mine?

This side, this side! Mike cried. One board.

Mike unlocked what we call the basement, a compartment that runs the width of the trailer behind the hitch, accessible by small doors on either side. Piled on top of the boards were our lounge chairs, a tool box, a jumble of ropes, cans of oil, bottles of antifreeze, 24-packs of Coke. I grabbed the items and trekked them through the mud to the picnic table. With the boards exposed, I tugged out several and dropped them on the pavement. These weren’t the usual colorful plastic levelers. These were Mike-made 2x4s cut to three-foot lengths, sanded and planed on one end to form a ramp.

Mike pulled forward. I placed a board against the back tire on the right side and yelled at Mike. Slowly Mike reversed. The tires caught the board at an angle and hung half on, half off. I waved Mike forward and readjusted the board.

As Mike reversed, I marveled again at his uncanny ability to hone in on his target when he can’t see it. He was dead on. I would have reversed into the next campsite.

Stop! I yelled

Mike hopped out of the truck, checked the level and frowned. We had put the board on the wrong side. With martyred silence I carried the board to the other side of the trailer and knelt in the mud to re-position it.

This is so Mickey Mouse, I grumbled. Obviously designed by a man. That’s my explanation for anything that is impractical or poorly designed: restroom towels that are placed on the wall opposite the sinks, toasters with non-removable crumb trays, bathroom scales that don’t weigh five pounds light. Don’t get me started.

Mike drove smoothly onto the board and we were done. Well, done with that part. Now we had to unhitch. This was a slow, cold process as we tried to remember exactly how to disconnect everything we had only four hours earlier connected.

What do we do? I asked hurriedly. I longed to be inside and warm.

Let me think, Mike said, his euphemism for I have no idea.

I stood silently while he looked over the hitch.

Don’t we just take these rods off? I asked.

I need to remember how everything goes on again, he said.

The mud-encrusted knees on my jeans were stiffening. I imagined my whole body slowly turning into one solid ice block. Finally Mike started unhitching. I knelt awkwardly in my stiff jeans to help. Daylight faded as we finished. I rested the hitch on a pile of boards and jacked down the four stabilizers.

Mike plugged in the electricity while I unlocked the trailer door. As I squeezed through the boxes to get inside, Mike came up behind me.

A beer! he cried in delight, as if the case of beer had been purposely stowed there for just this moment. He was lucky the load hadn’t shifted. He could just as easily have cried, Ah, toilet paper!

Beyond the cases of beer and toilet paper, boxes tilted haphazardly. Suitcases blocked the bedroom. Puzzle books and newspapers stacked on the couch had scattered over the floor. Baskets filled with small items that had been wedged under the dinette table had become unwedged, the items lost in the debris. I