October 03rd, 2019

Sooooo, another thing we did over the weekend (it was a very fun weekend) was go to an RV show!!  Remember how yesterday I said that we did things like look at boats and houses and cars just for fun?  Yeah, well we do that with RV's too.

Ok I'll be absolutely honest.  There used to be a saying in our house.  "Sam don't camp".  I know the grammar is incorrect but I stand by it.  It was just a given.  I had ABSOLUTELY no interest in camping.  None. Zero.  But of course, when the boys were young, they wanted adventure.  They wanted to pitch a tent in the wilderness, by a campfire with wild animals roaming around and, with any luck at all, an alien attack (or something, who knows what little boys are thinking).  

All I know is that to me, that sounded awful.  I did buy the middle boy a tent for one Christmas.  It took an act of God and a lot of other people helping but we finally got it set up in the backyard.   The dog loved it.  At the time we lived on 20 acres so I thought, perhaps, if we took the tent way out to the back of the property, out past the pond, past the fields and pastures and into the wooded area, maybe that would be "camping" enough to make them happy. 

So one night that's what we did. The boys and I schlepped tents, sleeping bags and whatever else they felt necessary down the path and into the woods on our own land.  They all slept in the tent like puppies, I laid on the rocky ground outside the tent, slapping bugs and trying to find a spot with no rocks, mentally calculating how far it was to the bathroom in the house, jumping at every strange sound and seriously Not Sleeping all night long.  The was the end of Sam Camping.   

​When Tim and  I got married, he was still in the Marine Corps Reserve which means that one weekend a month and two weeks every summer,  he had to join his unit to (and this is my version of what he did, not his), "Play GI Joe in the woods with his friends).  He left wearing his cammo uniform and returned bringing the boys MRE's and they were envious.  If the subject came up, I said, "No thank you very much please". 

At the time, my Dad had an RV. A really old monster of bus RV and he offered it to us many times. I politely thanked him and turned it down each time.  The idea of all of us being crammed into that thing for, let's call it "vacation" just didn't appeal.  My head kept saying things like, "Wait a minute, I'm still having to cook and clean, just in a much smaller area...how is this my vacation?"  Yeah, I know, that sounds horribly selfish.   But it just had zero appeal for me.  If Tim and the boys wanted to go camping, that would be fine with me, but no, that wanted us all to vacation together. 

I do want to make one thing crystal clear here. I am not a fancyschmancy kind of girl.   Oh,  I like nice things and I like pretty things, but I also don't mind getting dirty and working hard.   And I love being in the woods. I absolutely adore it. But at the end of the day, I want plumbing and electricity and a hot shower. So our vacation always included a hotel and restaurants.  Sometimes even room service. Ahhhhhhh.

So I was shocked when we lived in Colorado and were visiting Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park for the very first time  and  while hiking, we came across what was obviously an RV campground and I heard myself say, "We should rent an RV and stay here for maybe a long weekend".  Tim may have fainted.

I was thinking rent rather than buy, just to try it out and see how we like it and long weekend just to experiment for a brief period of time.  If it works, great then we could consider doing it more often and possibly buying.  If it doesn't work on the other hand,  it's just for a few days.  And I was moved specifically by Rocky Mountain National Park because well, it's just an amazing place. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  The campground is literally in the park and situated so that there were trees between the parking spots.  So in the morning, we could get up, grab our cameras, walk out the door and boom we are already there.  I found that VERY appealing.

I have seen lots of RV parks over the years.  The ones that look like giant parking lots are of NO interest to me at all.  If I am going to RV it's going to be in a beautiful setting. Just sayin'.

So it was something we were always going to get around to doing the entire time we lived in Colorado and some how we never did it.  But we did look at RV's now and again.  My one and only requirement is that it have a bathroom.  That's it.  Tim can drive literally anything so the choices were many and varied.

Ultimately Tim was having a hard time deciding which he liked better, the big old bus kind (I think that's a Class A type) and the Fifth Wheel type.  There are positives and negatives to both. So when we visited RV places (just to visit because we weren't actually ready to buy anything at that moment you understand) we would go back and forth, back and forth between the two kinds.

Then here in Florida, just for fun we went to a small RV show and saw a "Sprinter Van".  It was the Tommy Bahama sprinter van actually built on a Mercedes chassis.  And suddenly an entirely new option was in the pile. 

It was just freakin' adorable to start with.   Not boring, basic, neutral at all.  It had STYLE.  It was small, but it didn't feel like a sardine can.  It had very comfortable seats.  It had a teensy little kitchenette.  In a desperate emergency the possibility exists that I could drive it (only in dire circumstances you understand) because it was closer to an actual car in size and shape.  It had a surprising amount of storage, a place to lay down and...most importantly...a bathroom.  Small but functional.  

Kind of the middle ground.  We could sleep in it of course. But we could also drive it to a hotel and sleep there without feeling stupid about it.  I would feel really ridiculous driving a big old Class A to a hotel to sleep and shower.

It could also be used for long day trips.  We wouldn't have to stop for lunch or drinks or pee breaks for that matter.  BUT the vehicle nips through traffic with no problems at all and again, we could park anywhere.

By George, I think we have it. The perfect compromise.  When and if the day finally comes that we decide to get an RVish sort of thing.  This is most likely the direction we will go.  The complete opposite of what we thought we were going to do.  Go Small!  Small Rocks!  

We are so strange ;)