Off To A Great Start

We got all packed and ready to go the day before. This morning it was all a matter of putting the cold stuff in and lock up the house. I went out early to fire up the refrigerator so it could start getting cold. Usually this takes a couple tries as air gets in the propane line, only this time it wouldn't start. I went outside, took the side cover off and saw the fire was going but the igniter kept going too thinking it hadn't lit, then everything shut down. Great! No refrigerator, no leaving. Well, as I told the neighbor when he walked by while I was fiddling with it "The good thing is, being retired I have all the time and not like my limited vacation time is being taken away by this. Plus, good this happened at home rather hundreds of miles into nowhere." I drove into town to an RV store, lucked out by them having a dust covered package sitting on the shelf with the correct thermo-coupler. I installed it in the parking lot and BINGO, we have ignition! I called my wife and told her it was fixed and we're going. We were rolling by noon.

We logged in 213 miles and stopped in 103 degree Redding at an RV park along the Sacramento River. When the lady checking us in asked if we had any dogs I mentioned no, just my pussy cat. "Could you set us up in a spot away from dogs if possible?" Sinbad likes to sit outside you know. So she made the effort and gave us #64. We pulled in, hooked up and the two of us sat on the step in the shade of the View drinking a beer while Sinbad sprawled out on the cement. Just then an RV a bit larger than us pulls in two spots down in direct line of our view. The middle-aged lady rolls out the driver side door and all Hell breaks loose as she beats back several barking and yapping dogs trying to follow her out. Great. We sip our beers and watch the show.

She plugs in the electrical cord, connects the water line and hooks up her poop tube, bare handed I might add. Then she brings out this short-legged hugely overweight belly dragging-the-cement dog for a pee. The poor pooch. She returns that dog to the RV and emerges with a large black poodle and a miniature black poodle that literally drags her at a jogging pace across the road. They do their peeing, she returns them to the RV and comes out with ANOTHER even larger black poodle, taking it over to the doggy area. By now this has become beyond merely amusing to us. As she brings back the second large poodle my wife says to me "If she comes out with another dog I'll pee my pants." I said no way. Unbelievably though, she does. This time it is an ankle-biting Pomeranian that after it does it's business she carries it back to the RV. Five dogs! We finished our beers imagining what it must be like inside that RV. The smell, scratched woodwork, torn and chewed cushions, dog hair everywhere, and...oh, my wife held it. She didn't pee her pants.

Later, on our way to the pool we mentioned the story to the RV park lady in the office, in a nice way, not complaining. She couldn't believe it. "She told me she had two dogs and a cat plus her mother." I told her I couldn't believe a cat could tolerate the mayhem inside that RV. That poor cat. The RV park lady apologized and offered us a spot along the river in the high-rent district but we stayed where we were. It was too hot for the dogs to be outside. They stayed inside with the AC chugging away.

And so, this is why I love road trips.