Lizzie and Aunt Laura Rent a Motor Home

Some years ago my sis in law Laura and I got the bright idea to rent a motor home so we could travel to a family function in comfort. We did lots of research before choosing a unit that we thought we could handle. My husband at the time was wary of the idea because he thought he'd end up having to drive the whole way and doing all of the work. Part of the deal in getting him to agree was that Laura and I promised that we would do all of the driving and maintenance (hooking and unhooking the sewer drains, etc.). True to our word, we did all of the driving. We had never driven anything so big, but we figured it out pretty quickly.

We wanted our trip to be memorable so we came up with all kinds of decorations and accessories. We made up t-shirts that said

"White Trash Tours" and they had titles of all of the occupants traveling; Laura was the captain, I was the navigator, our nephew was the entertainment, my spouse was the chief cook & bottle washer. We also decided to decorate the RV by hanging bright pink dingle balls all the way around the windshield. We wanted to look really spiffy when we camped for the night so we invested in some tacky party lights. We also had a token astro turf door mat with a plastic daisy. And of course, we had pink yard flamingos.

We were unforgettable. I'm sure our neighbors were envious.

Things went pretty good but we had one nagging problem...the mirror on the driver's side kept moving out of position. We'd tighten the screw to make it stay put and within an hour or so, it'd slide right back to an unuseable angle. We finally ended up using the worlds greatest repair tool - duct tape. It worked fairly well.

One evening we stopped at a beautiful camp ground and had a lovely dinner and peaceful rest. The next morning when we were ready to take off, the engine wouldn't start. My spouse is a guy who can fix absolutely anything and he deduced that the RV had blown a fuse. We replaced the fuse and it blew again. Aunt Laura and I decided to hike to the park ranger station for help. We must have walked over a mile (in flip flops) before we found anyone. Luckily he took pity on us and gave us a ride back to the RV. He looked at the motor with Mr. Fix It and they deduced that a fuse was indeed the culprit. We finally managed to get the thing running and hightailed it to the nearest town that had an auto parts store and purchased dozens of fuses.

The rest of our trip went pretty well. We had a good time at our destination and enjoyed living in a 28 foot tin can. We even made popcorn while barreling down the road at 75 mph.

This trip was to become one of 3 such RV road trips. Each motor home had it's own quirks that we dealt with. One of the RVs was horribly rattly. You couldn't converse without yelling to hear over all of the rattles. Another one was pretty nice but that time there were 5 adults (one of whom was 8 months pregnant (me)) and a 5 year old kid all crammed inside. That trip was pretty crowded but we still had fun.

It's been a few years since I've rented an RV and gone somewhere but I hope to do it again soon. When I do, I'm sure I'll wind up getting a rattly, fuse popping, mirror swinging coach and I won't care a bit. That's just part of the fun. It's what makes the memories even better. Try it some time, I'm sure you'll have a blast.