Accidental RV'er - Part One

This photo from Big American Night.

I do not recommend RV'ing if you're afraid of traffic and big vehicles. Which is why I am not an RV'er. I just happen to live in a home which can be moved from place to place. (Well it could be moved if its tires were all in one piece and not spontaneously combusting but that's another story.)

Malia is an RV'er. That woman takes her motor coach all over the damn place - from Alaska to Michigan which is where she is as of this writing. Malia has a passion for exploring new places. Like Michigan. I've not thought much about Michigan but Malia can spark an interest. She's the igniter. However, the likelihood of me ever towing my trailer to Michigan is not slim to none but just plain old none.

A wanderlusting friend who lives in Austin (who's started her own blog) sent an email suggesting I check out Pecan Grove RV Park which is where Malia stays when she's there. Yep, that looks like my kind of place - a trailer park full of eccentric people, a lot of them living in Airstreams. The best part is that the park is in the city, close to music venues and all the stuff a city has to offer. All the stuff I've been missing for six years.

The worst part is it's in the city.

Which means traffic. Traffic and a city I've never been to before are two things that scare me when it comes to driving a normal-sized automobile much less a one-ton van with my home attached to it. But if I really, really wanted to go to Austin, I'd make it happen. I'd take a deep breath, call on my road angels, and head out. From here to Austin I'd have to deal with two cities - El Paso and San Antonio. Okay, I've driven through El Paso before so I think I could do that. Can I skip San Antonio? There's a road from I-10 to Austin through Fredricksburg. I wonder what that road's like. I'd stay outside of Austin in Dripping Springs or some such place, leave the trailer and head to the city on a recon mission. I'd find Pecan Grove, map out my route, go back and get the trailer, leave Dripping Springs before the crack of dawn so as to miss rush hour traffic....

Whew. What a lot of work. The thing is, I've gotten lost on backroads while towing and it wasn't fun. I got lost in some California suburbs the day before Thanksgiving, pulling my trailer through Albertson parking lots and that wasn't fun either. I've had to slam on my brakes in freeway traffic and that was even less fun.

What was fun was towing my trailer on Hwy 82 from Nogales to Tombstone, a two-lane road with minimal traffic. A two-lane road through some of the most beautiful desert country I've ever seen. That was my image of my new life before I left Portland in November 2004. That image of a lonely desert road, sun bouncing off the shiny aluminum trailer (which is no longer shiny but that's another story too).

So in a way I became an accidental RV'er, someone not interested in visiting every state in the U.S. but someone looking for a place to rest - a place that could change every year or two or three when I became bored, when the newness wore off, when my adult ADD kicked in.

There are lots of other reasons why I don't consider myself an RV'er but those will have to wait for another time. Right now I have to rescue the rock guard (the big plexiglass thing that protects the trailer's front window from rocks) which is de-riveting itself from the trailer.