After the kids grew up and began to leave the nest, I had an epiphany. I am not exactly sure what an epiphany is, but I definitely had one. Judy and I were spending at least $1500 a year on cabin rentals, mostly to go X-country skiing. Now that we were down to fewer kids, I reasoned that we could buy a used RV which had all the amenities of a cabin. After a couple of years when it was paid off, we would be saving money and could go to places where there were no cabins to be had. In Oregon there are literally dozens of snow parks where you can camp for free and the ski trails are right out the front door. No more packing your food and booze up the icy trail to a drafty old cabin. No more waiting for an hour or two in the lodge while they “cleaned” the cabin from the last folks that had overstayed and overpaid. We could go anywhere, anytime, without reservations and save bundles of money. Brilliant!
For the summers, I had visions of unrestricted road trips. As our youngest, LoriAnne, was still living at home, we had three drivers. This presented the possibility of driving non-stop with one driving, another being blissfully rocked to sleep by the gentle rhythms of the road, while I was relaxing with a movie and a beer. No need for time consuming potty breaks at rest areas and if we got hungry, why Judy could just whip us up a gourmet snack in the galley. I could just picture the look of disbelief and envy on the faces of my co-workers when asked what I had done over the three day holiday weekend; “Oh, we spent Saturday at Disneyland” or some other resort location which was not in typical weekend driving range. Looking back on this vision, I have come to the realization that I should have just treated my epiphany with preparation H till the swelling went down and my sanity returned. However, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I began researching RVs.
There are several types of RV’s. Class A’s look like buses, but were too expensive given our budget at the time. The gas guzzling seven mpg did not appeal either. We had tried Class B’s (the VW camper) before and found them lacking. We really wanted a fully self contained RV (i.e. having a flush toilet) and the only option with a class B is a port-a-potty. When Judy wanted to know what that was, I told her it was sort of like a mini-vault toilet without the snakes. I don’t think she heard the without snakes part. There are trailers which we might have considered if we had a large enough vehicle to tow one. There were also pick-ups with cab over campers. These require full sized trucks, are top heavy, have these tiny entrance doors in the back and not a lot of room inside.
This left us with Class C’s. Class C RVs look sort of like a pickup with a cab over camper which cannot be removed. To some this might seem to be a disadvantage, but to us it was a plus as your friends can’t ask you to bring your pickup over to help them move. In class C’s and also in A’s, all of the accoutrements of RVing are right there with ease of access by driver and passengers.
We soon found a 20 foot 1979 Class C Field and Stream RV with only 40K miles. It was love at first sight. The price from the old couple we bought it from was only 6K and it appeared to be in really good condition. I was assured that it got 10 mpg with enough power from the big Dodge 360 cu V8 to go over the steepest of Cascade passes at 60 mph. The old couple really did not want to give it up, but as they were both nearly blind, their RVing days were over. You could sense the love they had put into the RV. For example the woman had reupholstered the whole thing with these brown little fuzzy fringe balls. They put in a CB radio so that you talk to the truckers to find out where smoky was to avoid getting tickets. The RV came equipped with factory air conditioning and the couple had put in cruise control, both items that I really wanted. As we pulled away after our purchase, there were tears in the old couple’s eyes. Later I would learn they were tears of joy.
Judy and I like to name our vehicles. For example we have owned a couple of Japanese beater pickups which I used for work cars and to haul off the occasional loads of garbage. One we named the Wonder Bucket, the other the Toxic Avenger. The latter name was enhanced by a black skull and crossbones that my boys had crudely spray painted on the rusted shut passenger door. It actually was not rusted shut, but I liked to pretend it was for if I open it might not never ever close again. But what to name the motor home? Judy and I tried out several possibilities but none seem to fit. Wesley, our oldest, inadvertently named it when he saw the interior and its resplendent fuzzy ball fringe. So it became the “Mexican sex palace”. The name fit, but was shortened to MSP for political correctness, and was retained even though Judy had ripped out all that fringe shit within a week.
Our first few trips with the MSP were without incident; mainly because they were within a few miles of home and it just knew through some sort of mechanical cunning that it should wait till we were miles out before fucking us over. However, even on these short trips I soon learned that my dreams of unrestricted RV travel were not to be. You can move about while traveling down a perfectly straight road if you have the balance of a veteran high wire artist. Cooking is not possible, opening the fridge to get a cold one has avalanche potential, and the TV did not work while the engine was running. Blissful sleep? I was the only one who truly mastered the sleep mode while traveling. This was because I was exhausted. While Judy would drive if I begged her, she refused to let LoriAnne drive at all. I should have expected this as my wife is a very nervous passenger. While I employ techniques learned from years of study under Zen masters to tune out most of her driving advice, which includes the occasional whack to the side of the head, LoriAnne had yet to master the essentials of duck and cover. The end result of this is that if we needed to drive 24 hours a day, I drove 22 of it.
On the plus side, the bathroom was usable while moving if you don’t mind a little spillage; a little mild bleach solution in a spray bottle soon sanitizes and the odor wafting forward through the RV when the cab windows are open, is not, as any pig farmer can attest, that unpleasant once you get used to it. The aftermarket cruise technically worked if you set it while going downhill on a perfectly straight road and you did not pass anyone. That was no problem as the RV was incapable of passing anything anyway. We also never got the promised 10 mpg. If conditions were ideal we got about 7 mpg. Judy kept meticulous mileage notes and was ecstatic at 7.2 and delirious if we got 7.5. In retrospect I don’t believe the old couple who sold us the RV were lying. They probably did get 10 mph on a descent into Death Valley while coasting in neutral with the engine off. Years later when I sold the MSP I claimed 9 mpg, which I was legally able to attain by a NASCAR-like feat of drafting a semi while being pushed along by a hefty tailwind and then not topping off the tank at the next fill up.
Our real problems occurred on long trips. It started subtly with the AC. It was a hot day driving on Highway 101 near Salinas, CA when I turned it on for the first and only time. After a bit of time some cooler air did begin to take some of the edge off the heat. The engine of MSP sensing my semi-contentment, began to over heat then added to the insult by disgorging a pint of ice water on my foot from the floor vent. We had no choice but to turn off the AC and open as many windows as possible. When the engine temperature did not drop I used a technique I commonly used with the Toxic Avenger to increase the engine’s cooling capacity: turning on the heater. This did decrease the MSP’s discomfort at our expense. Soon I was driving in nothing but my boxers and Judy was down to her bra. Our poor cat, not having the option of removing its fircoat tried to cool off by constant yowling which only added to the white trash ambiance.
Winter trips were not better. While driving the cab heater did manage to keep the windows defrosted while the coach froze. We resorted to turning on the propane heater which is not recommended as evidenced by the occasional burnt out skeletal remains of an RV on the side of a country road. However, as I have never seen roadside crosses associated with these, it is probably worth the risk. Outside the risk of a conflagration, running the heater sucked up propane like an alcoholic on a bender, requiring fill ups about every other day. In extreme cold, the propane heater was grossly inadequate. If the outside temperature was in the 20’s, we were lucky to keep the MSP at 60. Below 20 and the pipes began to freeze and the toilet became unusable. This was probably a safety feature as my butt would likely have frozen to the toilet seat.
On one memorable winter trip everything went wrong. Wesley was living in Pocatello, ID and we were heading to his house for Thanksgiving. We put on studded tires which turned out to be one of the few smart things we did on that trip. We expected a bit of snow and putting chains on the MSP was a two hour nightmare as there was little clearance between the tires and frame. As Christmas trees were expensive in Pocatello, we bought our son an Oregon U-cut tree and tied down on the top of the MSP. This turned out to be not such a smart idea.
It was damn cold in the Bend OR, Costco parking lot the first night out. The pipes on the MSP froze and did not thaw till we got back home a week later. From Bend to Boise where we picked up Marty (our middle child) at the airport was mostly uneventful even though at least 150 miles of it was on ice. Marty’s plane was delayed so we did not leave Boise till midnight and as we did not look forward to another frozen night in a parking lot, we decided to drive on through the night. Judy said that she could drive for a couple of hours so I climbed up in the cab over bed to take a nap. About three hours later I awoke to Judy screaming “I can’t do this!” Marty, who was copiloting, managed to keep his cool, probably because of his military training. After leaving Boise, the ice on the freeway kept getting thicker and Judy correspondingly kept going slower. Somewhere past American Falls a semi truck passed her. Under normal circumstances when passed by a semi, the bow wake of the truck tended to push the MSP toward the fog line which is easily corrected by a slight turn of the wheel. After the semi passes, the tailing vacuum pulls it back toward the centerline which is also easily compensated for. Judy had competently corrected for this effect many times. However, in the American Falls screaming incident, this correction did not work exactly as planned, as the MSP continued drifting over the fog line and onto the shoulder. We might have continued drifting off the freeway and rolled if it had not been for the vacuum effect at the ass end of the semi which sucked us back into the slow lane. Somehow we managed to make it to Pocatello that night without further incident or additional underwear changes.
Sleeping in the MSP in Pocatello those few nights were barely tolerable even with the addition of a portable electric heater and the propane heater running non-stop. In the MSP’s defense it never warmed above zero the whole time we were there. Even the Christmas tree we had lovingly brought to Wes all the way from Oregon did not fare well as all of the needles fell off as soon as it warmed up in his house. I had no idea that fir trees could freeze. Things that don’t kill you are supposed to make you stronger, but they forgot to mention the frostbite.
A day or so after Thanksgiving we were on our way home. We had completely enjoyed our visit with Wes, and Judy and I have never found a place prettier than Pocatello, ID when viewed in our rear view mirrors. We dropped off Marty at the Boise airport, said our tearful goodbyes and were soon on the road home. Although the weather warmed some after reaching Oregon it was still damn cold. There is not much to see on the road between Vale and Burns, there is even less to see at night, especially as the road was being worked on and they had not painted the center line or fog lines, nor was there a shoulder. After about 150 miles of this and well after midnight, I was nearing exhaustion, when at the top of a pass we saw the welcoming lights of Burns in the distance, a shimmering oasis in a desert of darkness. Five more minutes and we would be at a rest area near the top of the pass where we could spend the night. Then I saw the closed sign. Seems like more than the road was under construction. We had no choice but to continue on to Burns where we would find a grocery store parking lot, City Park or some other place to stay for the rest of the night. It couldn’t be that much farther as the lights were just ahead. But just like water in the desert, the lights were a cruel mirage. The night was crystal clear and the lights were so bright that in the distance they appeared to be clustered into a city. It turns out that Burns is located at the far end of what was once a huge ice age lake, which is now a totally flat and featureless void, populated only by isolated mobile and modular homes of the poor but proud ranchers eking out a living in this dry and God forsaken place. Each of these homesteads was illuminated by single halogen flood lights which were hundreds of yards apart. From a distance they merged into the appearance of a city, each slowly separating out as we approached and merging with the ones behind the RV into another phantom city in our wake.
When we finally made it to Burns it seemed like hours later. We stopped at the first gas station, an old three pumper, to get fuel and ask if there was a place to spend the night. The attendant said to pull around behind, blocking the back garage door. The mechanic would not be on duty the next day so that we could stay as long as we needed and to go ahead and plug into the electric outlet there if we needed power. As it was in the low teens, we took him up on it to stay warm with the electric heater adding a few BTUs to our inadequate propane furnace. We slept-in to well after sunrise the next day. I went into the service station office and tried to give the morning man some money for letting us stay the night, but he would not take it and added an additional kindness with a couple of free cups of coffee. Although the coffee was not the best, with a little half and half and a lot of sugar it was drinkable. Judy fixed us a light breakfast; we unplugged, and waved to the attendant as we pulled back on to the highway for the rest of the long drive home.
That kindness was almost 30 years ago yet I still remember every detail. We have been though Burns six or seven times since then, always stopping for a fill up, even though the price was always few cents more than its competitors. As the years passed the station became more run down. The last time we came through the place was boarded up, missing its pumps. Perhaps the owners died, the fuel tanks were leaking, or most likely it just couldn’t compete with the twelve pumpers equipped with credit card readers and “quicky marts” where you get a free 42 oz Pepsi with the chicken and jo-jo meal deal.
I am not one of those people who think that progress is a bad idea. I have never protested a Wal-Mart and I have actually prayed that a Home Depot soon fills that empty acreage 15 miles north of Waldport so that I need not worry about getting plumbing parts if one of my many home improvement projects that Judy dreams up runs later than 5 PM on a Sunday. I am also quite sure that the town of Burns is chock full of nice people and that given the same circumstances where in the wee hours of an icy morning the attendant of the quicky mart/gas emporium would kindly let a road tired couple in a beater RV spend the night in the back of their parking lot. I am as sure of it as I am sure that pigs could fly if they were not so lazy.
Sometime in the last few decades we have lost our faith that people are basically good and that kindness to strangers is a virtue which will be rewarded if not in this life then the next. Today we lock our car doors at stop signs, have to have a code number to get into our houses, and fear that the guy with the dark skin is going to slit our throats with a box cutter if we let down our guard for a millisecond. And that change my friends is a whole lot worse than the closure of a run down gas station in Burns, OR.