#17 A WOMAN'S BRIEFS -- RV TRAVEL
A Traveler’s Story: A Beginning, No Middle, An End
I had the beginning of a poem in my head and on my tongue. I said it, and said it again then, caught by cold, I left thought there at a breezy beach, and headed for a warm house. The poem said, “You didn’t suffer for my significance, so I’ve pulled myself from your mind. I’m floating free now. Look for me riding the wind over the waves. Sorry, Barb. You know better than to trust Words that yield to a leash. You know better.”
So now, a week later, I’ve returned to a beach, a different one, to reason with some wandering words. My husband, David, pup, Scooter, and I are crossing Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for a few days snugged to the shore. We travel in a brand new, stunningly outfitted, borrowed, and very small RV.
This was not my idea. That is, the beach is always my idea. An RV, never. However, who could say “No” when the offer of opportunity presented itself to my man of adventure? He chose the mode of travel. I chose the destination.
Who hasn’t seen TV advertisements touting adventure in an apartment on wheels? Those RV ads paint the pleasure of hogging half the whole road while carrying along a kitchen, bath, bed, closet, and a stretchable canopy under which you can sip a drink of choice, and leisurely read about nearby cultural attractions you likely will never visit. What those ads do not show is what I share now.
“What’s the route after you leave Hwy 108?” I asked. We listened to Jazz, not navigation.
“I’ve got it written down,” said he.
“Right,” said I, shifting Scooter. So far, my lap is the only place where said dog has access to a window view. We will work on that.
“Where?”
“Back in the cupboard where I stashed the bandaids and Pepcid. I think,” said he.
As is required by law, we are seat-belt bolted to chairs in the wheelhouse of our diesel-fueled conveyance. This is not like our Subaru, where such things as the slip of paper with the route is likely to be found: a.) In a glove box, passenger side dashboard, b.) In the deep console between the driver and passenger seats, or c.) On the backseat, where front passenger can at least stretch against the seatbelt, make a tortured reach back, fumble through bags and boxes and stuff on the floor, threaten a dislocated shoulder yet loosely remain within the confines of law, and find said slip of paper. While the RV stretches only 25-feet from bumper to bumper, not even with the features of swivel, recline, slip forward and back, up and down, can the slip of paper be reached from my cushy chair. But, what the heck. We know the way to Aberdeen. We are now three roundabouts removed from our house, and approaching the freeway on-ramp.
We did find that slip of paper, after a wrong right turn in Aberdeen, three correcting left turns, and a stop at Jack in the Box to purchase our favorite ‘on the road’ fast food: Southwest grilled chicken salads. The turning errors had everything to do with approaching Jack in the Box from the wrong direction, and that because Brett, the carpet cleaner, was located in Hoquiam we learned once through a thorough search on-line we reached him by phone. If we hurried, he said, he would manage our little emergency. We flew by JITB, over some industrial streets, called Bret as we passed Walmart, met the man, welcomed his carpet cleaner’s long blue hose stretched to our place in a narrow drive, enjoyed a friendly chat, and forked over a relatively small fee. Then we called in our order for salads, circled back, now from the wrong direction, navigated a few maliciously place one-way roads into Aberdeen, to JITB for salads we were given without charge. We don’t know why.
Wait. Have I not mentioned the reason for a carpet cleaner? Let me begin at the beginning, the part one does not see on TV.
The Beginning
We will be away for three full days, and parts of two others. The two others are “parts” because those days are committed getting underway and getting undone from getting underway by transferring items found on lists. These lists take days to compile, hours of revision, and frequent moments of locating if, like my husband, you ignore a single sheet of paper or an iPad screen, and rather, make lists wherever you happen to be on the backs of whatever is handy: business cards, at the edge of a reservation receipt, at the top of the most recent receipt for diesel fuel, or on the heel of your hand if nothing else is available. This practice is not mentioned in TV ads.
Nor is it recorded that while he vacuums the tiny rig, she does laundry, waters plants, grooms the pup, plans and pre-cooks meals (Ready to warm in the gorgeous combination microwave/convection oven/grill that required twice viewing a ten minute video before operating), while she bags up fresh fruits and snacks, contacts neighbors about mail, and makes necessary calls. That, at least, is the opinion of the writer.
That was Tuesday, March 23rd — the last of Preparation days. Consult lists:
Dog list: food/treats/toys/raincoat/extra leash/brushes/bed/blanket (nah, leave the blanket/change of mind, bring the blanket);
Loose Food list:
Meals list: Mon-Sat
Necessary Supplies list: (like sharp knife, dish soap, a variety of (not too many) towels, etc.
Make calls list:
Personal items list: you know, stuff like iPad, phone, chargers, books (limit three), knitting, recorder and music book, toiletries, sunglasses, a real mug
Necessary purchases list: done
Remind David list: and where the heck is David during all this? Oh, right. Spiffing the RV.
Before leaving list: make bed, stop clocks, slant blinds, feed birds, etc.
Not seen on TV: Run across the drive in the rain, transporting all “Once Listed But Now Packed in Totes & Boxes” items. Ignore the discomfort of arms pulled nearly from their sockets by the weight of said items. Fortunately, I’m reading Dr. Roy A. Meals book, “Bones,” and I am assured that cutting cones in my bones see to it that I benefit from all this. At least, I think I read that part correctly. Tread this path a number of times, three steps up into the rig, store stuff, smile at husband busy polishing polished sink fixtures.
It was a smart thing to do—read instructions for using the Onboard mini-Keurig coffeemaker before our morning departure. A colorful pamphlet with helpful arrows pointed out places for water and pods. I followed carefully, I thought, before racing to the nearby bathroom where I ripped a hand-towel from its rack to mop up water that suddenly and seriously spread from the machine across the galley’s granite counter top. Not pictured in TV ads, this frantic mistake, this hop-skip-jump towel maneuver, nor the non-poetic language I used to express my surprise.
Windy Wednesday’s Departure day!
The spill sponged, the stuff stashed, the neighbor’s waving goodbye, and we were off; later than originally planned, but no problem, this is leisure. As a first time RV passenger, from the get-go I was startled by frequent and unfriendly sounds of stuff shifting and settling in cabinets and drawers being drawn along with us. By the second of three roundabouts before reaching the freeway, I confessed my discomfort.
“Normal,” said he. “Not to worry.”
“Not to worry” began to work on me just as we left roundabout #3 with one sharp turn to the the freeway. A sharp turn, a sharp crash.
“What the heck was that?!” I asked, not calmly.
David pulled to the access road shoulder. Scooter jumped from my lap to the messy floor. My metal travel mug, rolled on the floor through a slick of Starbuck’s French Roast, its thrown off lid slid along like a shameless floozy dancing on-stage. Coffee dripped off walls like stage curtains coming down.
This. Is. Not. Good.
This is a borrowed vehicle. A small one, with one single strip of taupe colored carpet about eight inches wide, stretching (What, seven feet?) behind our cab seats. There now, was a salad-plate size stain.
Ten minutes on the road, about that number of swear words, and at least that number of towels needed for proper cleanup, but ours is a brief journey. We packed light. We have two small towels for showers, two towels for Scooter’s post-beach romps, and two dish-towels.
Ours was not the most companionable communication about what to do next along our leisurely way but we mopped, sponged, blotted, dabbed, and decided to forge ahead. We will find a carpet cleaner along the way. Hence, Brett, of Wood’s Cleaning & Restoration, Hoquiam, Washington, and the fiasco of finding Jack in the Box.
Even with stops for messes and messages written on a scrap of paper; with wrong turns and returns, and with a carpet cleaning, we made it to Pacific Beach State Park, RV slot #34, with the sun still shining, and an unobstructed view of, trail to, the broad beach of the broad Joe Creek pouring fresh water into the salty ocean; the perfect place of radical romping for Scooter Sublime. TV perfect.
For two days we walked beaches, toweled and brushed Scooter, and enjoyed easy meals. We slept well through rain-pounding nights in a queen-size Murphy bed. I get it, this RV thing. We left Pacific Beach Friday mid-morning, driving through the Quinault Rainforest North Loop where we looked for but didn’t find the “World’s largest Western Red Cedar tree,” through the famous but forgettable town of Forks, along the southern shore of Crescent Lake where signs warned of Highway 112 “Detour” and “Road Closed.” Flirt signs, I call them. Promising so much but never putting out.
We arrived unhindered via Hwy 112 at Salt Creek Recreation Area, tucked in tight among other leisure vehicles on a bluff above the wide Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Not fit for TV: Picture the woman (me) who stands inside a just-parked little rig, engine off, brake on, wondering if she might pour a glass of wine, when the rig itself thinks better of its situation, and without consulting passengers, begins noisily arranging its automatic leveling feet, four of them stretching to the ground, jigging, jogging, jolting right and left, apparently working to get some internal level’s bubble in the middle of whatever liquid it floated in (usually alcohol, and I could have used some). Suddenly, unexpectedly, we occupants were rocked by grinding sounds and serious motion. There it was, I could see it—my fate, visible through the windshield: land’s edge and the strait below. I stood in a rig tipping me to it.
“Not to worry,” said he.
This was not fit for TV.
Saturday
“Dave,” I said, glad that our phones connected, he being near the top of Striped Peak, on a late afternoon mountain hike.
“I think you need to come back. We might need to leave tonight.”
“Huh? Thought we were going tomorrow.”
“Look at the sky.”
“I can’t see the sky. I’m deep in the woods.”
“Ah. Well, it’s not looking good. I checked the weather and there’s a Puget Sound gale warning posted for tomorrow. We might want to leave tonight.”
We are old enough, active enough, to be tired enough to realize the hour was late enough for wisdom to prevail. He needed an hour to return; we needed sleep but should be underway before predicted winds closed bridges (two will be required). We need to get home in time to relieve the rig of personal items, to clean said vehicle, (not demonstrated on TV), to board a ferry to an island, and deliver it to its rightful owner all before Gale’s Sunday noon arrival. We notified Salt Creek Park neighbors that, sorry but, tomorrow at 3:30a.m. we would pull a power-plug, run a slide in, and drop the RV back to four wheels. There may be a bit of noise. We meant to honor Wind’s disdain for objects prone to roll over when she blows hard.
“We will be doing the same,” said neighbors six, occupants of a massive trailer pulled by a muscular red truck. “We will be right behind you.” There is something comfortable about shared wisdom.
4:00a.m. Sunday. The End
That’s what we did, folks. So, darn. We would miss Sunday’s suitable times for beach and tide pool explorations, we would miss the many trail walks we hoped to have taken. Off we went. One can see it in TV ads, a sleek recreational vehicle rounding gentle mountain road curves on a bright spring day, the happy couple inside sipping hot coffee from matching mugs, watching the Nav system’s screen as they listen to a Baroque concerti in surround sound.
Only this departure, hours before any ad-worthy run, required David to expertly squeeze our exit between the too-close tail of a red pick-up and land’s edge. Hear his wife’s quiet but tense, not-made-for-TV, “No, no, no. . .” But, safe and unscratched we were, traveling Route 112 east through wind-whipped rain. Undaunted we were when we pounded on a service window at 5:03a.m., and with a coupon, scored two Egg McMuffins (ugh). Impressed we were with windshield wipers that independently applied proper pressure and swipe speed depending on the amount of rain we encountered, and we definitely were encountering. Glad we were to run ahead of predicted wind, seeing an already angry wall of waves slamming the south side of Hood Canal’s bridge abutments, and absorbing gust punches to the RV’s side, a warning to prepare for wind war. Happy we were to reach home early Sunday morning; to get undone from getting underway (a sight not made for TV), to do necessary cleaning from a parked place, to wisely wait another day before delivering the RV to its Island home. No poem retrieval. No words worth a rhyme found on those distant sandy shores.
