Maiden Voyage

School was out at noon on Friday. By three, we were frantically packing our “new” travel trailer. Frantic because we were planning to leave the VERY NEXT DAY. Not a big deal, one would think, but with a work Christmas party, five loads of laundry still to do, and transferring the entire contents of our house and porch into the trailer and truck, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Tom was on the roof installing a new leakproof sun-roof. Helping him from the inside, I checked another one to get a clue about how to do it and find that it’s broken.

Broken. We may need to christen our travel trailer Broken, but I’m wary to hit a bottle of champagne against it’s hull. Something else might break.

Our travel trailer adventure began about a month ago: we borrowed a friend’s pop-up trailer for a camping trip in Santa Cruz, deciding whether we wanted one of our own. After putting a 30” tear in the canvas and having a crank cable break, we figured that pop-up after the first few years means big repair expense and so we started looking for the real deal. Such a process proves a good way to rediscover the differences between your priorities and those of your spouse. We spent a week and a half feverishly checking Craig’s List, comparing notes, poking holes in each other’s picks for one reason or another. Finally, Tom headed to a middle of nowhere even more remote than our middle of nowhere to look at a small trailer advertised as ‘in great condition, everything works, price firm”, armed with a wad of cash and our checkbook and my voice ringing in his ears “You can get it if nothing’s broken and it doesn’t smell like mildew.”

Tom’s not the negotiator in our family. Not that I’m a lot better, but he can find a way to pay for free stuff. He came back with a trailer about perfect in many respects – size, bunk beds for the kids, clean, no overwhelming mildew smell (I can smell it anywhere and I’m sure there’s a touch in the bathroom but nothing that seems to threaten the health of my children). But everything works? Not hardly. The tail-light system jury-rigged to the trailer was clue number one that showing up in camp with a fridge full of cold beer and a working stove was unlikely. The random handles falling off cabinet doors opened once too often are ubiquitous. When we were finished packing and ready to head off (the Clampetts have nothing on us – if we had tin cups tied off the sides with twine we’d look no more special than we already do.), Tom fastened the door closed with a screw and screwdriver. VERY special. We smile as often as possible from the right lane, big toothy grins to prove we have all our teeth. (Speaking of which, Tom just rolled down the window as a friendly random bearded man was signaling us to roll down our window to tell us our rear lights aren't working).

How we came up with the moniker Trailer Community is pretty fitting. When Tom brought the trailer home and we all climbed in, Jordan said after a while (in a mostly happy voice, perhaps tinged with a bit of confusion), “It reminds me of our house.” That hurt just a little bit. Our house is a 30 year-old 2000 square foot “manufactured” home. We’ve been known to refer to it as “triple-wide paradise”. We painted over the dark wood paneling and the avocado and rust wallpaper, but the original feel must not be completely diminished given Jordan’s comment about it’s similarity to our new travel digs. Definitely a lateral move. Our kids are Montessori educated and so we talk about things like treating each other with kindness and respect, etc. When a tired Sawyer chose to hit his sister during a cramped game of travel hide and seek during the packing frenzy, Tom lectured him with “ You need to get out of the trailer until you are ready to treat your sister with kindness. You can go back in when you’re ready to be a part of the trailer community.” At which point I burst into laughter. Part of the trailer community indeed. Never in the wildest dreams of my youth did I envision this as a part of my future. When Sawyer was out of earshot Tom confessed his satisfaction at having been able to work those two words into the same sentence.

Tom and I are very different travelers. I like everything to have it’s place, to know exactly where everything is. Tom is a get it in and go kind of a guy. Somewhere in the middle is our nirvana – which is why we didn’t make it out f the house until 11:30, but when we did, we only had to go back once for Christmas cards, crayons, and a longer screw for the door that was flapping open by the time we got to the mailbox. We stopped at the gym to ensure a little parental sanity, the library for our children’s drug of choice (books), ice for the cooler (the refrigerator in the trailer is holding a few non-perishables) and coffee – the parental drug of choice.

It’s been slow going on the 80 through the long tract of retail hell from Dixon through Vacaville and Fairfield (what recession?). The kids are their usual sublime selves although the clamoring for an early In N Out dinner is just beginning to gain momentum. We’ll pull into our campsite in Santa Cruz later than we would’ve liked, but after unscrewing the door, the beds are made and we’ll be able to go straight to sleep in our little home away from trailer. Every night our stash of firewood will go down, and we’ll be driving a little lighter down the road. In three days on our way to Morro Bay, the tin cups will be stashed a little lower in the bed of our truck, and the load on our shoulders will be lighter in as the responsibilities of school and work and home repair projects recede in the glow of our taillights (Tom got them working again at our pit stop). We have every piece of outdoor equipment (except rafts and kayaks) we own stashed in the truck or trailer, enough firewood for ten days worth of beach bonfires, a guitar a dug, and two of the gamest kids on the planet. In a half an hour when it’s dark, the never-ending line of red brake lights in front of us will look like so many Christmas decorations. We had our white Christmas adventure last night driving up to my Christmas work dinner at 3000 ft, it took five tries to get our of the snow covered driveway so we could head home. “Go Papa, go!” the kids screamed from their car seats. The adventure begins!