Hey
there, how ya’all been? Good, I
hope! I’m doing better now…now that Murphy
has been evicted from our couch! Okay, I
know none of you have any idea what I’m babbling on about, so let me back up
and fill you in on what’s happened. I’m
currently on an extended road trip from Arizona to Pennsylvania, and back again
by way of the scenic route. In short, I
think we are going to hit about 25 states by the time we are done. All right, maybe not quite that many…but
close!
Anyway,
this trip has been a real learning experience for me and the toughest part was learning
to drive a 30’ motor home. Driving 5000
miles isn’t a problem. Staying away from
home for 3 weeks isn’t a problem.
Traveling with a woman I’ve met only once before isn’t a problem. But getting this stinking house on wheels
down the road seems to be a life-altering challenge. I kept thinking if others could do it, I
can. But I might have been wrong. LOL
Okay,
here’s the deal. Within the first week
on the road, I’d broken 2 pairs of reading glasses and a pair of flip
flops. Then I broke the motor home. Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Remember Stupid Girl—my alter-ego that does
all the stupid crap…or at least takes the wrap for it? Well, she’s along on the trip too. I tried to make her stay at home, but the
bitch jumped in the RV and refused to get out…so I had no choice but to take
her along. Who knew she was going to
insist on driving?! And who knew she'd invited Murphy to tag along too.
Well,
the second or third night out, we pulled into a gas station in Oklahoma (with
Stupid Girl behind the wheel). We had
been either behind or ahead of the tornadoes the entire way through Texas and
Oklahoma, so she was a little on edge and still trying to get the hang of missing
curbs. Well, there was this stupid ‘ol
curb at the gas station…one of those things that sticks way out in everybody’s
way for no logical reason at all and serving no purpose? Yeah…you got it…Stupid Girl hit the damn
thing and the RV momentarily became airborne.
Woo Hoo! Who knew she’d need a
pilot’s license to drive the damn thing?!
We all got out and walked around the RV and looked it over and all was
well…only a little curb, nothing damaged, we’re good. We get gas and we head on down the road. It was a huge relief to finally get to the RV
park without having the RV picked up and blown into Kansas like a flying cow. So we parked and got out, hooked up the
utilities, and then noticed one of the 4 tires on the back was flat as a
pancake. Crap! Stupid Girl!
So we call the RV rental place and they dispatch a fix-it guy to the RV
park. I’m imagining a long night going
from place to place trying to get the tire fixed. But we lucked out. We got a smart guy who realized the absence
of a hubcap on that wheel meant the valve extender thingies were hanging outside
the rim. So when Stupid Girl hit the
curb, she took a little chip out of the rubber valve and all the stinking air
leaked out. Voile…flat! So our clever fix-it guy just pulled the
valve extender off, put air in the tire, and we were good as new. Yeah for smart fix-it guys!
(smart fix-it guy)
Now,
you might think that was the extent of Stupid Girl’s idiocy…but you would be
dead wrong. She got us to Pennsylvania
right on schedule and we picked up our third passenger and set about visiting
family. Now, anyone who has ever driven
in Pennsylvania knows the roads this time of year are either crap or under
construction. They are rutted and torn
up everywhere. It’s a mess! So here comes Stupid Girl still learning to
drive a 30’ RV into a town with teeny tiny narrow streets that go up hills and
down hills and the straight roads only have 6 curves per half mile. Holy hell…we need Batman to drive these roads
and all we’ve got is Stupid Girl.
So…first
couple of days she does good. She makes
every turn, doesn’t hit anything going forward or backward, and life is
good. Then we head to the park for a picnic
and this is where Stupid Girl really earns her reputation. We make it down the incline on a very rutted dirt
road into the park just fine. No
problem. Then it’s time to go home. Uh-Oh!
Going down the incline wasn’t a problem…crawl and take the bumps very
slow. Going up is a different story
because you have to go at least fast enough to maintain upward motion. So she is doing good until we come to the big
hole where the entire RV seems to be swallowed up and spit out like we’d fallen
into the belly of a whale. The motion
causes all of the upper cupboard doors in the RV to fly open and the little
gremlins that were hiding in the cupboards started throwing everything across
the RV. This is where the flying vodka
comes in. Now…just to be clear…no one
had had a drop to drink. This was a
totally teetotaler picnic. The vodka was
just inappropriately stored in an upper cupboard and the little gremlin living
in that cupboard had a terrific arm.
Because he hurled the damn vodka bottle across the interior of the
RV. Stupid Girl heard the pans hit the
floor and the horrific thud of the vodka bottle. So she stopped dead on the incline which now
looked like Mount Everest!
Everyone
else in the RV scrambled to make sure no one had been hit and to retrieve all
of the projectiles from the floor and stow them safely in the lower
cupboards. When everything was once
again stowed, Stupid Girl was still shaking from the commotion that had scared
her half out of her wits. So when she
started to again pull out of the park and onto the teeny tiny little street
made for mice pulling garden carts, she didn’t see the curb on the passenger
side. In her defense, she was sitting
with the front end pointed in the air and she was shook up from the near-miss
with the flying Smirnoff. So imagine her
surprise when she hears the bottom of the RV scrape the curb! Maybe it only scraped the bottom, huh? Noooo.
Then someone says, “I think you caught a post.” Noooo!!!
Okay, let’s stop right where we are and let’s get out and see what happened.
It
is not pretty. We get out and look and there
we are…we are off the curb and there are no steps to get into the RV. Huh?
That’s not right. What’s all that
metal crap hanging down under the RV? Oh
crap…those are the steps? Maybe we can
just straighten them out, but first we gotta get out of the road. So Stupid Girl jumps back in the RV and pulls
it straight across the highway onto a side street where we can better assess
the damages. Then we get out again and
this time we notice the odor. Definitely
not good! Sewage is now spilling from
the bottom of the RV onto the street. I
think I actually recognized last night’s dinner as it floated past us on the
street. We stared, dumbfounded, as our
black water tank emptied itself on the streets of Wrightsville,
Pennsylvania. Residents of Wrightsville…we
are soooo sorry!
Now
what? Let’s open the door and see how
badly damaged the steps are. No…let’s
not! We open the door and there is a 2’x2’
hole in the floor. Where there used to
be steps inside the entry door, there is now a drop to the pavement. That’s not good. Oh, and under the steps…that’s where the 2 house
batteries are stored. We are screwed! We have a 2 foot hole where our steps used to
be, the batteries are wedged in sideways about 6 inches off the pavement,
sewage is pouring out of our black water tank, and the broken pipe is hanging
about 3 inches off the ground. Holy
Crap!
But,
Thank God, we are not without resources.
We have a wonderful friend named Debbie who manages to come up with a pair
of pliers and some wire. She fearlessly
crawls under the RV and manages to wire the pipe up so we have a good 6 inches
of clearance now. Yeah, what a woman! We have called every RV repair shop in the
county and no one is willing to come out and look at it. Did I mention this all happened at 4pm on a
Friday afternoon? Well, of course it did…because
Stupid Girl was driving!!!
Long
story short, we limp back to our camp in the next town over where my friend’s 3
wonderful, amazing, resourceful brothers all show up with blow torches and hazmat
suits…okay, maybe a slight exaggeration.
But they did show up with tools and know-how and they took the steps
out, found the backup shutoff valve for the black water tank, put a temporary
patch over the 2 foot hole in the floor of the RV, and straightened the door
out enough that we could open it in case of a real emergency. Then the next morning we make more phone
calls and find a wonderful repair guy in Dover, PA who comes up with an
ingenious temporary way to put another fitting on the black water tank so we
can use the toilet and dump it at the parks.
Yeah again for smart fix-it guys and good family!!!
(those were our steps)
(that's where the steps used to be)
So
how, you ask, are we doing now? Well, we
can’t use the door so we have to enter/exit the RV through the cab by climbing
over the seats. But we can use the
toilet. Yeah!!! We have to crawl under the RV to dump it and
often have to get creative on where/how to park so the drain tube will reach,
but we’re getting pretty good at that.
Stupid Girl seems to have finally figured out how to miss the curbs, so
life’s been pretty good for a few days.
Now we just have to deal with the rental place when we return the
unit. Of course, we have been good
doobies and kept them appraised of the events and progress, but I’m certain
they are sitting there holding their breath and expecting Stupid Girl to return
their RV as a convertible. It could happen,
ya know. We have 3 more days to go, so
cross your fingers that Stupid Girl is done being…well, STUPID.
That’s
my story, stupid and stinky, and I’m stickin’
to it. Hold on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast.......(and Stupid
Girl is driving)!
Love ya,
Kayce
(Thanks to Peg for the pictures...check out some of her pics and quotes on Facebook at "Humans I Meet".)
