RV-ing 101

Some years ago there was a camping trip to Three Rivers, CA. This trip involved a mother & father, three children about 10, 8 and 6 and a baby. Also the father's brother and his two children, ages 11 & 13. Ages are approximate here but you get the general idea. It also involved a rented 13 ft. travel trailer, a station wagon & a 2-seater sports car.

Prior to arriving at the campground, there was a flat tire incident which necessitated that the father & his brother breeze off to Bakersfield in the sports car while the mother sat in the station wagon alongside Interstate 5 on the hottest day of the year entertaining the aforementioned FIVE children and a baby.

Now, get this. Here it is... only thirty six years later... and that mother is...going camping again! However, she has learned a thing or two in those 36 years so this trip involved a rented 25 ft. C class recreational vehicle and fewer people, although it was a much l-o-o-o-n-ger trip (2380 miles).

Here is what we learned: in a C class RV, only the driver & the front seat passenger have access to the view through the windshield. All other passengers get the view from the large side window while they are seated at the table on the bench seats in the 'dining room' of said RV. Those bench seats are quite comfy for about 30 miles (of the 2380 mile traveled); after that, they are simply the dreaded bench seats.

We tried to keep track of 'lessons learned' on our adventure. First lesson: do not place your McDonald's large mocha frappe ON the table while traveling (that's what cup holders are for). We cleaned up that spill about half a block from our house. Lesson Two: be sure to close the refrigerator door FIRMLY... that lesson came some 100 feet further down the road from Lesson One. We had to stop (again) to pick up the rice pudding cups which had spilled out of the open refrigerator door. But never mind all that...here we are at one of our three stops at a KOA campground.

Mr. Ray, ready for another day in RV Land

We ate every breakfast at a Cracker Barrel restaurant; and when we fixed our own meals in the RV, we wished we were eating in a Cracker Barrel.

Our first night out, in Holbrook AZ, we discovered that the RV heater didn't work. We knew that because it was 40 degrees outside & we were freezing our tushes.

We also discovered that it is a rule that each and every KOA campground has a furry, friendly cat to make you welcome. (Ginger was tempted to catnap this one... but reason prevailed).

(I don't think that is a real rule).

Campgrounds... I have limited experience here; however, two of them do stand out in my mind. The first would be the aforementioned Three Rivers. I don't remember much about the grounds as I spent most of my time in the 13 ft. trailer, cooking real food (like a fool) for the nine people who were depending on me to feed them. I do remember one evening (it was hot in that trailer) when I had finally finished cleaning up the roast beef dinner I'd prepared, fixed myself a tall glass of iced tea and walked out to the campfire where all of the seasoned campers were gathered. As soon as I got there, and before I sat down, my beloved informed me that "the baby is crying". So I gave him my iced tea (in the face) and went to get the baby.

Some years after that, (I must have blanked out that first experience), we went camping in MEXICO with a bunch of square dancers who all had nice, self-contained "rigs". We were in a Ford van conversion... meaning it had a couch which would lay flat & a small ice box. Of course our friends were more than generous in sharing their facilities... but I still ended up using the campground bathroom. That would be the one with a dozen toilets... none of which would flush, and all of which were full to the brim. And... showers which didn't drain, meaning you had to step into four inches of someone else's recently vacated water if you wished to even come close to bathing.

But enough of fond memories. Now it is June 2011 and here we are on the road to Oklahoma. The KOA campgrounds were very nice with full hookups and their bathrooms were CLEAN and everything worked in there. I know.. I know.. we had our own traveling bathroom but the shower was a tad on the small side. The toilet flushed fine BUT... if you use the toilet, then sooner or later you must DUMP the 'stuff' (another fact of RV life).

But that is what FULL hookups mean; electricity to run the A/C without sucking up all your gas, water aplenty (if you should desire to bathe in a claustrophobically confined space), cable TV and a place to dump your stuff. To accomplish that, all you need to do is put on your rubber gloves, drag out the 4 inch dia. hose (knowing full well what has recently passed through it), sit on the ground and reach up under the RV siding to connect the hose to the outlet valve, etc. etc. I'm really not complaining here... Ginger did all that.

Anyway, in spite of traveling through the smoke of the worst fire in Arizona history, and in spite of constant winds which forced the driver to maintain a death grip on the steering wheel, and in spite of being pulled over by an Arizona Trooper (for no good reason), the RV trip was... OK. And the two days of family reunions in Oklahoma made every minute of it worthwhile... and then some.