Our RV Adventure

June 25, 2015

We had such a wonderful time on our RV adventure.   I took notes as we traveled, and my notes morphed into this (kinda long) post/essay/journal.

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Thad and Rachel retrieved the RV from Labadie RV on Thursday afternoon.   Thad found the RV orientation/explanation lacking, but we muddled through the few hiccups we encountered.  I think Thad also found the width of the vehicle difficult to adjust to, but he was a professional RV driver by the end of the weekend.

I spent exactly twenty four hours packing, minus the six hours I slept between Thursday and Friday.  I constantly balanced “do we really need that?” with “oh, just throw it in there.”  In the end, I’m really glad we took our electric griddle.  I’m also happy I took an abundance of laundry baskets.  Actually, my obsession with all-things-baskety came in very handy.  On the flip side, I wish I would have known we could just pack our clothes in the closets (and not put everything in suitcases first). 

The trip to Hocking Hills was uneventful.  In fact, the drive down was a bit anti-climactic.  It turns out that sitting in the passenger front seat of an RV is EXACTLY LIKE sitting in the front seat of a van.  Plus, I didn’t even have to use the bathroom during the drive!  What is the benefit of a mobile potty if you don’t use it?  Add that to the momentary panic I felt as we exited the highway in Logan – WHAT EXACTLY ARE FIVE ADULT-SIZED PEOPLE GOING TO DO IN THREE HUNDRED SQUARE FEET FOR THREE FULL DAYS???

We pulled into our campgrounds and I felt like I had been transported to the set of the movie Deliverance.  Long-term residents housed rusty campers on teetering cement block.  The view of the pool through the fence slats revealed hues of brown and green that should really not exist in a chlorinated pool.  The word “brackish” comes to mind.  We found one of the two pull-through campsites reserved for large RVs.  Only one of them had working water and electric, so we got our beast situated.

Have you ever been on the BGSU intramural soccer fields after a heavy rain?  We once set up our sports chairs on the sidelines in four inches of water; there were tadpoles navigating blades of grass… and our ankles.

This describes our campsite. 

We knew southern Ohio had been rainy, and we knew the forecast was for more weekend rain.  We also have lived much of our lives in Bowling Green, Ohio, so we understand “swamp.”

But.  Gross.

It got better.  And, I mean this in all snarkiness. The “office” was mostly empty, except for a few shelves sparsely stocked with miscellaneous camping stuff.  There were also many spider webs.  Clean was not a priority here.  We did find a $1 pair of flip flops for Connor, so that he did not have to wear Rachel’s backup pair of fluorescent, tangerine-colored water shoes.  We had that going for us.

At nightfall, we managed a soggy fire, mostly fueled by a neighbor’s pine wood that he insisted we take.  Now, I felt like I was in the movie Fargo. We finished our first night to the blaring sounds of Neil Young, which lasted long after one am.

We departed this first campground, with no intention of returning, and headed out to hike Hocking Hills.  The state park is stunning and well-run.  The trails are marked dirt paths; bridges and walkways constructed of natural materials improve the safety and ability to navigate the forest.  The trees hang paternally, creating a protective canopy.  Our mantra for the weekend became, “Don’t forget to look up!”

This is an excellent mantra on any day.

The predicted rain fell, but because Thad is Thad, we were covered in plastic.  Our garage sale ponchos were the perfect attire for the summer precipitation.  It never stormed, and the continuous drizzle only magnified the verdant lushness.  Gorges, waterfalls, caves, and hills.  It was spectacular.

Those of you with multiple children can relate to the challenge of accommodating various hiking preferences.  While Rachel can continue…um….continuously, the boys are inclined to the indoors.  This is fine.  Instead of doing the six mile trail, we walked a four mile loop, drove the RV to the far end of the park, left the boys with their books and air conditioning, and headed out to Crystal Falls with Rachel. 

We were amused to find a wedding party taking pictures at the waterfall.  The bride hitched her dress, revealing cowboy boots which got soaked in the calf-deep creek.  The groom and his men were in full military regalia.

It was cool.

We eventually left the forest and quickly found a lovely new campground with dry grass, working utilities, and a real office.  I was no longer living in an imaginary movie.

We had a delightful conversation with our kids about how, apparently, campsite pricing is analogous to hotel pricing.  In the same way there is a difference between a $60 hotel and a $120 hotel, $30 campsites are not the same as $60 campsites.  Go figure.  I loved Rachel’s reasoning about the experience.  Even though the three-day cost of the first campsite was non-refundable, we were really only out $30, if you compare our total expenditures to what it would have cost for three nights at the nice campground.

She is awesome that way.

We were able to build a nice, arid fire, which did not eclipse the light of the fireflies.  En masse and from a distance, firefly bellies glow white.  Their twinkling luminescence appears like descended stars.  We looked up.

Sunday dawned sunny and hot.  Again, the forecast was gloriously wrong, but the local rivers had crested at flood stage.  We ended up canoeing and kayaking on Lake Logan.  We explored the coves, enjoying the families of swans, geese, and ducks we encountered.   After our water fun, we headed to the buffet restaurant recommended by the canoe people.  My teenagers definitely get our money’s worth out of those placesJ.

We headed home on Monday morning, got the RV in tip-top shape, and returned it in plenty of time.  Unpacking took less time than packing, but the laundry still lives on, unfolded.  I cannot do laundry while “looking up” so it will just have to wait.

Some other random thoughts from the trip.

Our kids don’t bicker very much – at least not compared to the seemingly constant antagonistic conversations I remember during our bi-yearly travel as a child.  I recall Christopher Darden saying in his book, In Contempt, that unless you grow up in it, you cannot understand the “claustrophobia of poverty.”  I suspect much of the positive nature of our kids’ relationship is because they don’t have to be “touching each other” during a non-air-conditioned, three-day drive in a compact Subaru.  RV travel is luxuriant.  Everything is within a step’s distance, except your siblings, but including the bathroom.  Yes, I used it during our non-stop trip home.

I read a lot.  In an effort to gain a modicum of insight into what my older kids read, I finished John Green’s Looking for Alaska.  In my opinion, this book glorifies teenage drinking, smoking, and sex as a solution to contemporary teenage angst.  Still, it describes THE BEST PRANK EVER, which was hilarious, despite my objection to pranks in general.  And, the dialog is witty, the characters complex enough, and the plot compelling as the first person narrator divides the story into “days before” and “days after.”  I had fun talking to Connor about the nature of adolescent drama - whether it is a modern construct or truly inherent in human nature.  He quoted Socrates as evidence of the timelessness of adolescent anxiety.  I questioned his memory of the quote, and recalled it (indeed more accurately) as an adult’s lament about the behavior of youth.  Here is the quote:

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”  (Socrates)

Traveling in a recreational vehicle IS a luxury, and my kids DID love it.  But, they displayed decent manners, and no contempt or disrespect…that we saw or heardJ.