Any trip is fraught. Whether you’re packing for the weekend, or a month in Upper Volta (“should I bring extra Chapstik?”) or two weeks in an RV, in which you can conceivably overpack beyond all imagining, the experience can be troubling.
Friday dawned clear and complicated, as I pondered the long list of crap we were certain to need on our little excursion. Bringing the dogs added to the list – food, various tethering gear, beds, crates. And half the fun of RVing is the moveable feast – literally – of the traveling kitchen. So we threw in half the kitchen – pasta, canned things, what was left in the crisper drawer, a few pounds of coffee (and grinder), truffle oil, a zester, stuff like that. Then weird things started showing up. Microwave popcorn! In our seventeen years of marriage, my wife has never once bought microwave popcorn. RVing brings out the freak in you.
Okay, so we loaded up, and after many, many, many trips to the driveway, we finally pushed off at 2:30…and literally made it a quarter of a mile. After all that build up, we were getting peckish. So we made our first pit stop down the block from our house, at In-n-Out Burger, which is the only burger chain on the planet that mixes a double entendre name with helpfully suggested Bible verses on the bottom of the soda cups and French fry holders. I may suggest some new verses – “Blessed be the Lipitorites, for they shall keep our customers alive.” How about “Blessed be the double-double animal style, for it sounds amusing in a beatitude.”
Duly fortified by our double-double Jesus Burgers, we finally, finally, really pushed off.
Our first true destination was Las Vegas, to see my dear mother (for more on visiting family, please see the first post). I happen to love Las Vegas – it’s kitchy, it’s unapologetic (sorry), and the food’s good. Time was, you felt ripped off if you spent more than $3.99 for a steak – now you’ve got Thomas Keller and Hubert Keller and Michael Mina tripping over each other to open snazzy new places. But it’s a good nine hours from Palo Alto, so we picked a halfway point – Tehachapi, California – to make camp the first night.
I have fond memories of halcyon days in Tehachapi, which was sort of why I picked it. Way back when, when I was playing in pseudo celebrity golf tournaments (“On the first tee, please put your hands together for Irving Osmond!”), I had a real live hole in one, and I try to take advantage of any opportunity to relive golf and pseudo celebrity glory, so Tehachapi it was.
This was also the place where in a semi scuzzy golf course bar Glenn Ford (yes, THE Glenn Ford) regaled me of tales of the ghost that lived in his house. So Tehachapi it was.
We rotted in traffic south of San Jose, but rotting in traffic in a twenty five foot long RV is different from the clutch-first-second-first gear silliness of my Mazda. Family members can wander about, make a sandwich, or take a nap, and the captain (that would be me) could sit high above the fray, languishing in the freedom of a two week vacation, caring not a whit that he had left the house three hours before, but still hadn’t made Gilroy.
Undaunted by the helpful suggestions of my loving wife (“that lane over there looks pretty good”), I pressed on, and eventually things loosened up, and we were on our way for realsies.
We came loaded for bear, sort of – two honking big RV atlas books – and Janine started working the pages, calling the various Tehachapi RV parks, when the second call bore real fruit. The first sounded dodgy “I’ve got a few spaces near the office,” but the other woman gave Janine a warm feeling, so we decided on the Mountain Valley RV Park. Normally, an RV park next to an airport might give one pause, but we were undeterred.
We finally pulled up at around 9:30 at night, found a nice, quiet little hookup, and dragged our little camp chairs out to hoist a beer and take in the light show – a bajillion stars in this dead quiet setting. This, my friends, was what we signed up for.
Friday dawned clear and complicated, as I pondered the long list of crap we were certain to need on our little excursion. Bringing the dogs added to the list – food, various tethering gear, beds, crates. And half the fun of RVing is the moveable feast – literally – of the traveling kitchen. So we threw in half the kitchen – pasta, canned things, what was left in the crisper drawer, a few pounds of coffee (and grinder), truffle oil, a zester, stuff like that. Then weird things started showing up. Microwave popcorn! In our seventeen years of marriage, my wife has never once bought microwave popcorn. RVing brings out the freak in you.
Okay, so we loaded up, and after many, many, many trips to the driveway, we finally pushed off at 2:30…and literally made it a quarter of a mile. After all that build up, we were getting peckish. So we made our first pit stop down the block from our house, at In-n-Out Burger, which is the only burger chain on the planet that mixes a double entendre name with helpfully suggested Bible verses on the bottom of the soda cups and French fry holders. I may suggest some new verses – “Blessed be the Lipitorites, for they shall keep our customers alive.” How about “Blessed be the double-double animal style, for it sounds amusing in a beatitude.”
Duly fortified by our double-double Jesus Burgers, we finally, finally, really pushed off.
Our first true destination was Las Vegas, to see my dear mother (for more on visiting family, please see the first post). I happen to love Las Vegas – it’s kitchy, it’s unapologetic (sorry), and the food’s good. Time was, you felt ripped off if you spent more than $3.99 for a steak – now you’ve got Thomas Keller and Hubert Keller and Michael Mina tripping over each other to open snazzy new places. But it’s a good nine hours from Palo Alto, so we picked a halfway point – Tehachapi, California – to make camp the first night.
I have fond memories of halcyon days in Tehachapi, which was sort of why I picked it. Way back when, when I was playing in pseudo celebrity golf tournaments (“On the first tee, please put your hands together for Irving Osmond!”), I had a real live hole in one, and I try to take advantage of any opportunity to relive golf and pseudo celebrity glory, so Tehachapi it was.
This was also the place where in a semi scuzzy golf course bar Glenn Ford (yes, THE Glenn Ford) regaled me of tales of the ghost that lived in his house. So Tehachapi it was.
We rotted in traffic south of San Jose, but rotting in traffic in a twenty five foot long RV is different from the clutch-first-second-first gear silliness of my Mazda. Family members can wander about, make a sandwich, or take a nap, and the captain (that would be me) could sit high above the fray, languishing in the freedom of a two week vacation, caring not a whit that he had left the house three hours before, but still hadn’t made Gilroy.
Undaunted by the helpful suggestions of my loving wife (“that lane over there looks pretty good”), I pressed on, and eventually things loosened up, and we were on our way for realsies.
We came loaded for bear, sort of – two honking big RV atlas books – and Janine started working the pages, calling the various Tehachapi RV parks, when the second call bore real fruit. The first sounded dodgy “I’ve got a few spaces near the office,” but the other woman gave Janine a warm feeling, so we decided on the Mountain Valley RV Park. Normally, an RV park next to an airport might give one pause, but we were undeterred.
We finally pulled up at around 9:30 at night, found a nice, quiet little hookup, and dragged our little camp chairs out to hoist a beer and take in the light show – a bajillion stars in this dead quiet setting. This, my friends, was what we signed up for.
My peeps in Tehachapi - looks nice, doesn't it?
The next morning, I went for a dawn run, jogging along field after field of lettuce, spinach and cauliflower as I watched a single engine Cessna take off from the “airport.”
We were in the middle of nowhere, and it was really lovely.
The next morning, I went for a dawn run, jogging along field after field of lettuce, spinach and cauliflower as I watched a single engine Cessna take off from the “airport.”
We were in the middle of nowhere, and it was really lovely.
When I came back from my run, I ran into a fellow who appeared to be taking inventory of an extensive wine collection, so I struck up a conversation. As it turns out, he's a home winemaker, and he was indeed finally taking stock of his extensive holdings. He makes the wine at his son's house in Carson City, and he is currently shlepping it hither and yon in this honking big rig that looks like Reba McIntyre's tour bus. He'll be on the road for six months with his wife. The people you meet...
The next morning we pressed on for Vegas, finally rolling up at around 4, where the mercury stood at a mellow 104.
How in the hell can people spend four months out of the year in this kind of heat? Beats the crap out of me, although my mother seems to make do, which is comforting.
We pulled up and parked in front of my mother’s house, plugged in the electric supply, and became the perfect guests.
My mother did not have to make any beds, wash any linens, turn her office into a spare bedroom, buy special coffee – nuthin’. And as for us – well, if my mother’s husband wanted to stay up late and crank up the TV so Wayne Newton could hear it down on the strip, cool. We could get up early or sleep in – who’d know?
And best of all, this is totally guilt free. Normally, if you politely decline your family’s infinite generosity by decamping to the Mirage or Mandalay Bay, you bear the burden for decades. And while our RV doesn’t come with turn down service, it accomplishes so much so elegantly.
Today we went to the barn where my mother boards two, count ‘em two, horses. Maggie went from stall to stall giving each horse a nice handful of hay while my mother worked her Tennessee Walker. (Can you imagine? A seventy three year old woman riding horses? It warms the heart.) Eventually, they tossed Maggie onto my mother’s horse and she walked around the ring – my daughter and my mother, and it was a lovely Father’s Day indeed.
How in the hell can people spend four months out of the year in this kind of heat? Beats the crap out of me, although my mother seems to make do, which is comforting.
We pulled up and parked in front of my mother’s house, plugged in the electric supply, and became the perfect guests.
My mother did not have to make any beds, wash any linens, turn her office into a spare bedroom, buy special coffee – nuthin’. And as for us – well, if my mother’s husband wanted to stay up late and crank up the TV so Wayne Newton could hear it down on the strip, cool. We could get up early or sleep in – who’d know?
And best of all, this is totally guilt free. Normally, if you politely decline your family’s infinite generosity by decamping to the Mirage or Mandalay Bay, you bear the burden for decades. And while our RV doesn’t come with turn down service, it accomplishes so much so elegantly.
Today we went to the barn where my mother boards two, count ‘em two, horses. Maggie went from stall to stall giving each horse a nice handful of hay while my mother worked her Tennessee Walker. (Can you imagine? A seventy three year old woman riding horses? It warms the heart.) Eventually, they tossed Maggie onto my mother’s horse and she walked around the ring – my daughter and my mother, and it was a lovely Father’s Day indeed.
My mom and my daughter on Father's Day
Tomorrow, we’re off to Prescott, Arizona, for part two of family fun – Janine’s side. I have put in a request to take a detour onto the famed Route 66, just for kicks. Eventually, we’ll return to travelogue, but for now, dear reader, I hope I can keep you occupied with family dynamics.
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