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Not All Fun, Rving Without Sun

A recreational vehicle a.k. RV is by definition meant for recreating, having fun. But there are factors that can dramatically affect the level of frivolity. Probably the most important is the weather. After all, a large part of RV life is meant to be spent out of doors.

When one lives in a real house with many rooms, miserable weather is often just a mere annoyance. One has only to set the thermostat to trigger the furnace or air conditioner, and can curl up in front of the TV with a good book. While these options are actually available to us, it is the closeness of 400 square feet that becomes the issue. If one gets sick of the company in a house, you can simply move to a different part of the house. Some privacy for awhile does wonders for morale during a stretch of below zero weather, constant rains or stifling heat. But in an RV, Oh Boy!!!!!!! It has been raining in Maine since we arrived seven days ago. I don’t mean an occasional sprinkle or a few sudden downpours. I am talking about day after day of torrential downpours, morning, noon and night. And it is really getting close. When we arrived at the RV park in Bangor, Maine our assigned site required back up over a part of the lawn. I was assured it would be no problem. It was. Even with four wheel drive on, the truck soon was buried to the axles in thick, gooey, brown, Maine mud. With the RV attached, we were blocking the road into the main camp area.

The campground caretaker appeared with a large tractor and a logging chain. “We well jus dhrugg ya ahl aut,” he drawled in true Down East fashion. As he moved toward the back axle of the 5th wheel with the chain, I intervened. There was no way in hell he was going to pull a 15,000 lb RV and a 6,000 lb truck from the back axle. Visions of an axle looking like a hair pin flashed through my mind. You can go through a hell of a lot of new tires with a bent axle. Oh, and the tires only cost $300 a piece. By the way, how do I know an RV tire costs $300? More about that later. On to plan B. Several bucket loads of gravel were brought in and spread around and under all 10 tires, and somehow we miraculously moved everything on to the site pad, all in a continual downpour.

It has continued to rain for 6 days and is sprinkling as I write. We do not just have lake front property, we ARE lake front property. With water all around us, two wooden skids and sheets of plywood were located so that we could exit the RV to the car without sinking in mud up to our knees. Occasional checks of the water depth below the RV yielded a duck swimming by (I am not kidding), frogs taking up residence under the RV, and a flat tire. Assuring Sara that the 50 amp electrical cord under a foot of water would not render us in the same condition as that famous chair at San Quentin has been truly a challenge. I secretly hoped, however, that the frogs would get fried as their constant croaking at night has become one of the many irritants facing us but not quite as bad as the clouds of black flies.

Now for the flat tire. We will not be moving from this site until it dries up enough to jack up the rig to remove the tire. We know that, because as I jacked up the back left side, we noticed that the RV was not going up but the jack was going down, straight down, as was I, kneeling in a sea of mud. The tire had been ordered from Portland, Maine, as a Goodyear 235/85 RS16 G rated is not a real high demand item in Bangor, Maine, and should arrive someday if they can find one. Visions of a new roof on his cottage danced in the head of the tire salesman as we discussed the cost of the tire and its installation on an RV stuck in the mud. Enough said. Based on the present percolation rate, assuming it will stop raining, we figure the RV will be moveable in about 3 weeks, which hopefully is about same time the tire should arrive.

In Wisconsin, the term, “cabin fever” refers to a condition when two or more individuals are getting really sick of one another due to very close living. Would you believe “RV fever” has many of the same characteristics but with an intensity that is triple fold?

The condition first began to surface when Sara placed a white bucket filled with water in front of the step and proclaimed that no one could enter the RV without first standing in the bucket. One would assume without footwear. All shoes, sandals, and socks had to be removed and could not be brought in. The situation continued to deteriorate as the power vacuum was permanently positioned in the center of the living, cooking, computing, dining, TV room.

Several arguments developed over whether it was wiser to run the air conditioner to try to remove some of the humidity in the RV but freeze, or run the furnace to be warm but make our RV seem like a Finnish sauna. Sara's only diversion seemed to be clothes washing in a campground laundry whose driers never seemed to get stuff dry. Gee I wonder why? Now layers of wet clothing hang from very hook in the place, somehow thankfully blocked all the window views of the rain and adding to the humidity.

Then the steamer came out to remove the occasional mud spots in the carpet. Comments like “this is really close living” quickly led to, “I am sick and tired of cleaning this damn place up” to “Don, you are such a god damn slob,” to the ultimate threat “I want to go home.” This last comment was made without remembering that the last time it was uttered, the response was “You are home!!” a reference to the fact that we are full time RVers and had sold our lovely home in Wisconsin. Not wanting to risk the same reaction as the last time, I sucked it up and refused to use it. A reaction that unfortunately brought the same response, cascading tears and wails of despair. All we needed, more water.

In a final act of desperation, a line was drawn down the middle of the RV. Sara got the bed, main closet, shower and dining room table. Don got the kitchen; an area Sara has little use for, the hide a bed, one chair and an obstructed view of the TV. The use of the bathroom was based on a schedule developed by Sara with an urgency clause so strict that it was guaranteed to make the prostrate gland of even a middle aged man swell, let alone Don’s. This was really getting ugly.

Repeated attempts at diversion were minimally successful including Scrabble, Sara always wins, Texas Hole Um Poker; Don always wins; and Yatzee both of us can win due to the chance factor. An 1000 piece puzzle ripped off, from the RV club house always resulted in no one winning because there are always some pieces missing.

Occasional car rides were more soothing and surprisingly, eating Chinese in Bangor Maine, seemed to help the most. It appears that just now a small sliver of sunlight, yes sunlight, is breaking through the clouds………..Oh my God, the sun. Morale is suddenly zooming. We can feel it, We think………………

On the road with Sara and Don