My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

RV There Yet?

An RV is a very, very big vehicle, except when you are inside it with your husband Ed, his daughters Lily and Phoebe, his sister Doris and her ten-year-old Alisha, and your in-laws. Then it is very, very small. RVs are interesting that way.

We are headed for the Grand Canyon, taking the route of a family road trip 40 years ago, when Ed and his sister were about Alisha’s age and 31-foot RVs were just a twinkle in a madman’s eye. The RV, which we rented in Las Vegas, was Doris’s idea. “It’s just like a regular car,” she assured us. “Only long.”

Ed is trying to maneuver out of the RV parking lot. This is not easy to do when the rear of your vehicle is in Las Vegas and the front is already pulling into the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. Ed’s mom puts a hand on his shoulder. “How you doing?”

“Great,” says Ed, without unclenching his jaw. “It’s really fun.”

An hour out, just past Hoover Dam, Ed finally begins to relax, and a tire blows. He pulls into a parking lot, and a bunch of us pile out to look at the damage. A piece of rubber the size of a playing card has been ripped from the tire. We call the RV company, who promise to send a tow truck to fix it. They call back to say that he won’t be there for at least an hour.

Alisha sticks her head out the window. “Hey, what does RV stand for?”

Ed looks at the sky. “Ruined Vacation.” Just then, a bighorn sheep runs across the parking lot, 20 feet away. “Wow!” says Alisha.

“And we wouldn’t have seen it if the tire hadn’t blown,” says Doris. She is determined to make the trip live up to her memories of the last one, which of course she can’t really remember.

The tow truck man arrives and changes the tire in less time than it takes Ed to change lanes. Ed shakes the man’s hand. “You wouldn’t want to come with us to the Grand Canyon, would you?”

Because of the flat, we’re two hours behind schedule and won’t make it to the RV park where we have a reservation. Doris starts calling random campgrounds in the guidebook. “Hey, they want to know how long our RV is,” she calls out.

“About 30 feet too long,” yells Ed from the driver’s seat.

Doris secures a reservation in an old mining town named Chloride. “The lady says just take the I-40 all the way there.”

“But we’re not on the I-40,” says Ed.

Around 9 p.m., we pull into Chloride, a name that suggests an obsession with hygiene uncorroborated by actual conditions. Phoebe looks out the window dubiously. “This reminds me of that movie where the family in an RV pulls into a little town and the mutants come out at night and eat them.”

“It’s adorable!” This, from Doris.

We pull into the town’s one RV park. The attendant comes over and asks us which side our electrical, water and sewer outlets are on. He calls these “hookups,” but we all hear it as “hiccups.” The RV park attendant fails to find great humor in this.

After a dinner of refrigerator-baked chicken, it’s time for bed. Ed pushes a button, activating a motor that causes one side of the floor to slide outward, doubling the vehicle’s width. It’s like something James Bond’s gadget guy might have come up with after he retired from the spy trade and took up RVing in his dotage.

Ed oversees the sleeping arrangements. Nana and Poppy get the bedroom in the back, which is where the toilet and shower are. This is separated from the main room by a stiff beige curtain that you pull closed behind you, as in a voting booth. The bedroom is minuscule. It would be easier, though possibly a federal offense, to get undressed in a voting booth.

The other two beds are in the kitchen. “For this one,” says Lily, “you just drop down the dining table and cut off your feet.”

Doris and Alisha take the sofa bed. It appears to be stuck in the shadowy limbo between sofa and bed. Doris appears unconcerned about her impending spinal deformity. “This is the life,” she says, speaking directly into her navel.

It’s impressive how the RV designers managed to fit it all in, but heaven help you if you have to go to the bathroom—or “go vote,” as we now say—after all the beds have been pulled out. Ed offers me advice: “I recommend taking the overland route, bypassing the legs, and then heading west at the overflowing garbage bag. Good luck.”

We arrive at the Grand Canyon the next morning. It’s beautiful, but it seems empty and lonely and way too quiet. We’re all happy to hit the road and get back in each other’s faces. RVs are interesting that way.