The Beginning

Friday, February 27, 2010.

After a hectic morning during which my O/C wife drove me nuts (we're actually both O/C, but in different areas -- makes life interesting) she went out leaving me alone to indulge myself. Which I did, by looking at various options for van living/camping. I ended up on E-Bay where I found three ads for Class C RVs that I put in bids on. Not expecting to win, mind you, just messing around knowing I would get outbid. And so it went -- on two of the RVs. The third? Oh no. And so it happened that on March 1st I found myself the winner of a 1978 Chevy C30 Class C RV. Yeah old, but pretty inexpensive. I saw it as toe-testing the waters of RV life: minimal investment in (what I hoped was) a solid vehicle.

My ever-supporting, long suffering wife was appalled, but agreed that I couldn't renege on an offer accepted in good faith, and so we found ourselves planning a 1300 mile round trip to pick up the RV. My middle daughter and her two kids (boy 11, girl 4) went along, mostly so we'd have a driver to bring our mini-van back and the kids wanted to see it. We set out from Memphis (TN) on Friday afternoon -- the soonest we could all get free, and, after an overnight in central Illinois, on Saturday, as the sun was setting, we found ourselves near Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the seller's door. The RV was parked in his driveway and it looked just like the pictures.

Now I know that so far we (I) had violated every rule ever written or contemplated on buying anything used, and especially a used vehicle. But he (the seller) seemed so honest.... He showed us over the RV and explained how (nearly) everything worked. I knew from the E-Bay description that there was a small leak in the transmission and that the A/C needed a charge, but I wasn't too worried about the tranny and central Michigan in early March is no time to want air conditioning anyway. We took the RV for a drive around the (figurative) block, paid our money, collected the title, and set out on the return trip to Memphis, just as the gloaming surrendered to darkness.

We drove (the grandkids, daughter, and me) until about 2140 (9:40 p.m. for civilians), when wife in the mini-van started to pooh out. In the four-or-so hours of driving I learned: (1) the RV rode like a semi and every bump in the road was amplified to the point of rattling the windows; (2) at 55 mph one the miles roll by like the slow-motion kicks and punches in an action film; and (3) that driving without cruise control was a return to the 70s that I hadn't missed at all; (4) that if I wedged my right foot between the accelerator pedal and the engine cowling I could control the throttle by a slight rotation of my foot; (5) that if I held this position too long the entire lower right side of my body became paralyzed. Thus, I was not unhappy that we had to stop for the night.

A restless night, as it turned out, in a brand-new motel (so new that when you got into the elevator you could smell the concrete curing). Wife got up during the night and shut off the A/C-heat fan. I need moving air. So bright and early the next morning (oh, say 0630), I was up, showered, and headed downstairs for the ubiquitous "continental breakfast." By the time wife got up and showered and we got the luggage and people reloaded  it was approaching ten, and we really needed to get back to Memphis that day. I have to insert here that wife said we could spend Sunday night in the van, but, as my Dad used to say, "The horse was smelling the barn," and I was determined to get home.

By the time we rolled up in front of "home," it was 2315, and the entire lower half of my body had gone to la-la land. It was all I could do to get out of the RV and hobble up the driveway to the house. And by that time I had learned to curse RVs, all those who made them, and those who advocate their use. What had I gotten myself (and, by default, the rest of the family into? It was then I named our new (to us) RV, "The Beast."