Retrospective view of Wild camping

Brian and I celebrated our 16-year anniversary in July and I am always a little retrospective around this time of year.  I had a revelation recently; I should have known I was headed for a life of “trailering” way back in the early days of our courtship.  When we were dating, Brian brought me down to Disney World to meet his parents, who were on a trailering trip from Denver. 

Brian was so incredibly nervous on the plane to Orlando,  I realized at that moment he was sharing a side of him that most girls never saw.  His parents’ approval was vital for this relationship to go further.  He prepped me about trailer life for the entire flight and explained that they had a 30 foot trailer and he would be sleeping in a tent outside while I got to sleep on the kitchen table that converted to a bed.  He was so excited to report that the trailer pad (the area where the trailer is planted) at Disney was the “Ritz Carlton” of camp grounds because it was paved and very level so his dad would not have to worry about using boards to level the trailer when they unhitched.  I smiled and let it all roll over my head – leveling, unhitching were beyond my comprehension.  All I thought was,  “wow, Brian is so cute when he talks about his parents!"

We arrived and Sue and Jerry picked us up from the airport and headed for Fort Wilderness campground.  I recall thinking, this was cool and the campsites were perfectly manicured and the “trailer pads” were very nice.  Upon arrival, I met Brian’s sister, Jenny, who had also flown in for the long weekend.  It was announced while Jenny and I were shaking hands that we would be “bunking up” together on the kitchen table.  My smile froze on my face and I began to think, this is a bit odd. 

The weekend ended up being great and we had a ton of fun.  We got in a routine of showering in the public restrooms and on the last day, Sue offered for me to shower in the trailer.  Brian leaned over and whispered, “that means she really likes you!”

I learned a lot about the Wilds that weekend, mainly that so many of their family memories were tied to trailer trips.  Brian and his three siblings had traveled to 48 states and mapped out every small town they visited.  I should have had an inkling about the need for him to continue this tradition.  Living up to the Wild name was definitely going to be an adventure.  

     Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be heading down good ole Route 1 South with the intent to help my husband, Brian, hitch up our 31 ft. (actually 34 ft. hitch to tail light) to the back of our Suburban . Did I mention that it was pouring down rain?  The first hour of hitching and towing the “beast” always entails yelling, swearing and white knuckling it down the highway.  It’s hard to get use to towing sure a huge monstrosity and acting like it’s no big deal.  I have to mentally switch from being the Athleta wearing, Starbucks drinking, stay at home mom of four and wife of Mr. Washington Lobbyist to red-neck Nelly who prides herself on being able to raise the stabilizing jacks, front and rear, pull the chocks (bet you don’t know what those are) and back the Suburban right up to the hitch with just a 1 inch margin of error - all in less than 10 minutes.

     It is the path to destiny that takes us in many different directions, I just never imagined that it would take me via a second home on wheels to KOA s (that’s Kamp Grounds of America to those non-camping readers)  and private camp grounds up and down the east coast.  While my D.C. friends were all buying vacation homes on the Chesapeake Bay, St. Michaels, the beach, Brian made me travel to RV shows every year until I finally gave in and in Richmond, VA in 2011 we walked away from the Richmond Speedway with one big ass land yacht.  We were the definition of “city slickers” as we wrote a check for a down payment and the family waiting to buy their dream come true asked us what were we trading up from and we looked at them and said, “we’ve never owned a trailer before” and “Pa” just smirked.

     We had a whirlwind tutorial on all functions of the traveling beast.  Brian followed the salesman around for two hours as I took copious notes because I knew Brian would hardly remember a thing. The kids were so excited and wanted to drive away with it that day.  I on the other hand was reminded of the day we purchased our Honda mini-van  and still needed to sell our red Volvo turbo wagon,  I left the van at the dealership for a week until they called and insisted I pick it up off the lot.  I wasn’t too anxious to completely loose my identity by driving the car I despised most on the road (actually, maybe I hate those Smart cars more).

     Well, back to the trailer, which I hope you are not picturing a sleek silver Airstream design, with an art deco interior – no, we purchased one of those boxy fiberglass specials that has tacky pictures of some anonymous mountain range on every side.  The exterior is bad enough but the interior is out of 1982.  Brown upholstery with brown flowers and little brown curtains on every window.  The frosted plastic storage doors on the tow cabinets practically sent me over the edge. It’s like the Brady bunch compacted into 33 feet of space – it was only missing Alice. This is what trailering Americans call style and why would our needs be any different – I realized I was going to be doing a lot of assimilating.