Living on the Oregon Coast means that during the camping off season, we do not have to winterize our RV. State parks, county parks, forest service campgrounds, and private RV parks are mostly empty, often at reduced rates with no reservations required. This means that we can go RV camping (aka glamping) on a whim. Just throw in a few clothes, grab some groceries out of the fridge and go. As long as we stick to the coast where winter temperatures rarely dip below 40, we don’t have to worry about snow, ice, and frost bite. Sure, it might get a bit windy and rainy, but that is part of the appeal. Snuggled in a queen-size bed, a gentil rain on the roof with the wind rocking you as your dear departed mother used to do. Nothing lulls you to sleep like that. Sleeping in till 10 followed by coffee and breakfast while still in our PJs. Playing card games, reading books, watching beloved movies from our DVD collection. Things that we never seem to do when we are home. Such were our expectations as we pulled out to the nearest Thousand Trails, just 10 miles from our still Christmas decorated home. And yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
Arriving at the park in pouring rain did not dampen our spirits even though back in sites are a bit of challenge even in good weather. While I have many skills, trailer backing is not one of these. I need help from Judy. She stands behind the trailer and directs me using subtle hand and finger signals reminiscent of “Jazz hands”. My Navy lifer son, Marty, on observing this and having served on carriers, tried to teach her the NATO approved hand signals that are used to move aircraft on a flight deck. It didn’t take. First, they were not exactly lady like and as jazz hands have worked for her for 20 years, if it ain’t broke why fix it. The problem is trying to decipher finger twitches through rain-soaked windows and droplet covered side mirrors becomes an issue. We have had this problem before which I tried to solves with hand held walkie talkies, but as she needs to move both her arms while she talks, that is not a practical means of communication, making me wonder if she is of Italian rather than Irish ancestry. Eventually our lack of communication leads to the both arms up in the air followed by the folding them across her bosom signal, then total lack of any signals at all. This one I can clearly see in the side view mirror. It is a well-known fact that wives backing up their husbands is the leading cause of divorce in the travel trailer community.
I have to wonder if even the great Sir Issac Newton could have explained the ins and outs of trailer backing to his wife. In 1622, with the black death once again ravaging England, Issac’s university was closed, and he was sent to his childhood home for his own protection and that of others. There he invented calculus and gravity rather than bitching about masks and government mandates. But what if he and his wife decided to isolate themselves in their Renaissance travel trailer instead. After several attempts, Issac eventually and reluctantly dismounts and tries to explain the physics of trailers backing to his full bosomed mate, only to fail miserably, leading to frustration, anger and divorce. Newton becomes so depressed he moves back to London, checks into a seedy one room flat, gets the plague and dies, being a minor footnote in history. No calculus and no gravity. What a tragedy. Well only partially.
Calculus has no practical use. Did paleolithic man need it do kill off the mastodons? Did the Qin dynasty need it to build the great wall? Did the Egyptians need it to construct the great pyramids OK, they had help from space aliens. But they didn’t need calculus either. How do I know this? Cause Issac Newton wouldn’t invent it for another 3000 years! Did I need four terms of it to become a marine biologist? Oh, hell no!
While my calculus education was a bust, the single term evolution class has served me well my entire life. Knowing things like natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow has helped me explain to some of my MAGA friends why Covid became a pandemic without the help of the Chinese, and that evolution not big pharma’s greed was the reason why the vaccines needed to be changed every few months just to keep up. Yep, I failed to convince them. I guess I could have tried “survival of the fittest”, but “I told you so” was much more satisfying. And no, the evolution class did not have a requirement to swear allegiance to Satan. It was optional. But I did learn the secret handshake.
While calculus can be lived without, life without gravity is much more problematic. Just as those poor Boing astronauts stuck without it on the space station. We just got lucky that the travel trailer was still 300 years In the future for Sir Issac. Then I was informed that Newton was gay, so the backup direction giver would have been a guy who would have used the Renaissance equivalent of NATO hand signals, thus saving us from the lack of gravity regardless of the pre-invention of the travel trailer.
For Judy and I, it took us only four tries to position Boldly Go so that we could level, put out her slide and the awning. Judy only displayed the up in the air and over the bosom sign twice which I took as a win for me. Then the fun really began. I attached the sewer hose and pulled the shitter valve open as we had not drained the black water tank since our last trip out in November. Never do this valve first. Always start with the grey water tank. That way if the plastic sewer pipe has a hole in it, you can ignore a bit of spillage. My bad. Lucky for me I pack extra sewer line links. Except that the first of these replacement links also leaked. Not to worry as the rain will wash away the evidence and smell is a day or two. Next the water hose. It also leaked at the spigot and at the inlet into the RV. Nothing, a little Teflon tape wouldn’t cure.
I have two water hoses. A ten-foot plastic one and a flex hose back up. That’s the kind that you see advertised on TV that when empty you can store in a shoe box but will expand to a full 75 feet when under pressure. After the flex hose to water spigot and trailer, I turned it on, only to find a sizable leak at the trailer end. No problem that a little Teflon tape wouldn’t cure. However, I didn’t pack it. A quick trip to the nearest hardware store and I am back at it. The problem with flex hoses is that after turning off the water and opening a tap in the trailer there is still a lot of water in the pressurized hose. This sprays out when you take it off either the trailer of the spigot end in a fine mist that reminds me of the cooling mist stations on a hot day at the Vanetta Country Fair, only I am already wet and cold and there are no bare breasted women around to encourage me to do my manly plumbing fix. But the Teflon tape fix works. No leaks. Then Judy tells me that we have no water pressure. Back to step one, remove the hose from the trailer. But this time there is no stray and the hose is still pressurized. ???? Next, I removed it from the spigot end. Ah, there is the wet cold spray I expected. When fully removed a steady flow shoots out about six feet, still no water out of the trailer end. Perhaps it is blocked by the tape? As I eye the trailer opening, it lets loose right in my face. Fuck! Now soaking wet, I reattached the hose but still have to attach the electric and open the rock guard over the galley window. Then there is the mud. The black and stinking kind that sucks the life out of you. I have never been to the La Bra tar pits but I think I know how those poor stuck mastodons felt being eaten alive by saber tooth tigers who were also soon going to die. After doing mud flat research for 30 years, I have learned a few tricks for walking on mud. The best one is, don’t do it. Baring that option, the next best is to walk fast, or it will suck you in like the quick sand in those old Tarzan movies only filthy and smelling like a skunk’s ass.
Cold and soaking wet, I make into our warm and cozy home away from home only to find that the propane furnace has not ignited. Next on to plan B, our trusty electric heater, only when it is this cold outside it will only manage to warm it up to about 65 and will take atleast two hours to reach that chilly peak of comfort. On to plan C, Scotch! I forgot to pack it.
At 3 AM the dog woke me up in our chilly RV to finally to to potty. As we are in an RV park, this requires that I have to walk her on a leash of less than 6 feet and she takes her time. It was at this point that I realized I could have been home it our warm home and only having to open the front door to let her out into our fenced yard. I could have watched watched the Buck Eyes stomped the vile and despicable Duck sback into the swamp they pulled their ugly butts out of while enjoying an adult beverage of my choosing. Fuck winter glamping and we had four more nights to go.