The Shake Down Trip

For my husband’s first mid-life crisis, he bought a tractor. But that was several years ago and now, it seemed, it was time for another – mid-life crisis that is, not tractor.

This time, he wanted an RV. And not just any RV (cue the Tim Allen grunting) but a 36’, diesel-guzzling behemoth of a thing.

He pushed and pulled at my resolve, answering all of my concerns with slick well-practiced answers. Overnight, he had become an RV expert, talking about classes and basements and black tanks like he’d been dealing with them for years. I’m still not exactly sure how it happened, but several weeks later I found myself driving him to Wyoming and the next day driving behind him as he piloted the beast towards home.

“This isn’t so bad,” I tried to tell myself as I watched another wind gust sling him to the far side of his lane. “Heck, even the semis seem to know to get out of his way.”

My daughter called a few times from the co-pilot’s seat to ask if the tail lights were working and to request I drive ahead to check the headlights. I swung past as quickly as possible and saw her waving enthusiastically from the passenger seat while her father sat beside her, a death grip on the steering wheel, not taking his eyes from the road.

He spent the next few months making the brand new RV better. Naively, I figured we’d slap some sheets on the bed, store some food in the fridge and be ready to go. Not true. He installed a tire monitor, a central vacuum, a brake pedal for the engine brake. All good things, but why weren’t they there to begin with?

He caulked all places the “basement” might leak and even drilled a hole so the cat could get to the litter box in one of the basement compartments.  Did I mention the cat? Did I mention I hate cats? Did I mention the cat was going to come on our big RV adventure?

Speaking of our big RV adventure, as with the RV itself, Bill doesn’t do anything small. Rather than a long weekend jaunt for our maiden voyage, he had in mind a multi-week, multi-state cross-country adventure. Not quite sea to shining sea but there is a lot of country in the middle. At least we agreed on a quick over-night shake-down trip before heading into the great unknown.

We chose a state park about an hour from home and made a Friday night reservation. We had big plans – archery practice in the nearby range, a campfire complete with s’mores, paddleboarding in the lake, followed by a leisurely drive home.

Friday after work, the three of us, along with the unwilling cat, piled into the RV and started the drive. We made it about ten feet before the trouble started. The cat yowled at the top of its lungs, pacing back and forth like a deranged, potentially rabid animal. I pictured it pouncing into Bill’s lap and gouging his eyes out, causing the RV to spin out of control, killing all of us except the cat, who would prance away from the wreckage with a smug twitch of its tail.

Instead, after a few yowls, it hid in a dark corner and sulked. Meanwhile, we turned into a street full of roadwork and low trees. A branch scraped the roof, a road cone disappeared under the front tire, but we pushed on. The interstate proved some relief. In spite of the traffic, the road was wide and people seemed to be giving us a wide berth. 

The vehicle heated up, so Bill reached over to turn on the generator. It started and stopped and started and stopped again. Sweat poured down his brow and the cat started up again with the yowling.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The generator won’t start. I’ll look at it when we stop.”

We drove in silence for a few more minutes before he turned on the blinker for an exit.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m stressed. I’ve got to stop.”

This after less than thirty miles. In less than a month, we were planning on trekking thousands of miles across the country.  

Callie tried to calm down the cat while Bill fiddled with the generator. He determined it was completely broken, although still under warranty. We got cold drinks out of the refrigerator and continued on our way, soon arriving at the state park. I laughed when I saw we’d be parking in the shadow of a Home Depot. If the generator wasn’t under warranty, I imagine we would have walked over there several times while Bill worked on fixing it.

Instead, I jumped out of the RV, taking my walkie-talkie with me to help with the backing up. It was a nice wide space with lots of room and we quickly got settled. As Bill hooked us up, a neighbor came rambling over.

“Backup camera broken?” he asked.

“No,” Bill replied.

“Then why the hell is your wife out there with a walkie-talkie?”

Bill’s answer was too quiet for me to hear, but the neighbor’s laugh echoed throughout the campground. On a normal day, it might have wounded Bill’s ego, but he was too distracted by the non-working generator to worry about it. Instead, he spent the rest of the evening with the hood open, his gaze fluctuating between the generator and its manual.

The sun set as we missed the window for the archery range and watched campfires appearing in the sites around us.  When it got too dark to see the generator anymore, Bill and Callie took marshmallows over to the neighbor’s fire and borrowed the heat. The neighbors probably figured that someone who needed a backup to the backup camera couldn’t possibly be trusted to build their own campfire anyway.

In the morning, after a night of cat pacing and meowing, Callie and I went paddleboarding while Bill used the dump station and continued to fret. Early afternoon, we started the drive home, stopping for food and Ikea. Things seemed to be looking up until we pulled into the homestead and opened the door. The overwhelming stench of propane hit us along with a fast hissing sound. Turns out the generator wasn’t the only thing broken. The propane regulator had decided to quit, too, taking out a fair amount of the propane with it. But at least we hadn’t blown up.

We pulled the RV into the barn and I escaped to the house. The cat went and hid, not knowing this wasn’t the end of its travels. Because, we’d signed up for our vacation days and bought Callie a one-way ticket to South Carolina. The clock was ticking. We were going on this trip whether we wanted to or not.