Today's Featured Biography

 
Dianne Van Buren Frerichs

You're Going to live in a What?


I am stating this right up front. My idea of roughing it is a Holiday Inn without a Holidome. I don't enjoy sleeping under the stars and a tent is something you use with Vicks and vaporizer. Wild creatures like spiders and wasps and mosquitoes and rattlesnakes do not belong where people gather or where they walk their dogs. I didn't even like the cabins at church camp. Outhouses are icky and washing in cold water is no fun.

So my youth did not include sleeping bags, scout overnights and communing with Mother Nature. I come from urban stock-cliff dwellers, not pioneers and fresh air fiends. No forced marches as a family through the forest; no catching your own food for the fire. Cooking outdoors can be fun as long as S'Mores are on the menu but other than that, I see no great joys. Super markets are an integral part of this nation's economy and must be supported, so purchase what you need. It is the patriotic thing to do.

George, my husband, on the other hand, was a Boy Scout, Scout Master, was in ROTC and Civil Air Patrol, and went to YMCA camp-lots of tent camping and outdoor stuff. He knows how to keep a Baker's tent warm even in sub-zero temperatures and can cook for twenty out of his backpack. He thought I would enjoy a camping life.

George was smart enough to keep this concept hidden for the first five years of our marriage. We would fly places or drive and stay in resorts or at least in good hotels.Then he began to sneak roughing it into our travels.

His mother lived in Florida so we would visit over Christmas. After a few flights, he suggested, "We could drive this time." It would save money on tickets and a rental car, and Florida at Christmas time often finds rental cars scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth. I fell for it, "Drive down? Sure."

He enjoys driving and, as usual, I fall asleep. He would drive into the darkness and continue until he got tired, About 2 or 3 A.M. On our first trip, we stopped at a motel.But soon, that became an "inconvenience". It was easier to pull into a rest area and sleep in the car for a few hours. Being tall people, this wasn't the most comfortable way to go. Down and back from Florida in the winter was bad enough, but this idea was spreading into summer vacations as well.

I finally drew the line when we drove through five states in one day, searching for a motel. We were headed from Chicago to Mount Rushmore. Every motel where we stopped was full. It was summer and Sturgis week. At that time I didn't know what Sturgis was-I have learned since then. We ended up sleeping in the car again. I told George that this kind of automotive vacation behavior was not going to continue; we had to get a van.

We got a van and George created a platform seat that converted into a bed. We had sleeping bags rolled up to serve as cushions for the seat. It was charming and comfortable. I even enjoyed sleeping in the van on the platform, all snuggled in my very first sleeping bag. This became my rest-place of choice.

We did the Florida runs and several summer vacations in Spot, the Wonder Van. It was fun and then we drove up to Canada through Minnesota. The drive was beautiful. Mother Nature was showing off her best stuff-deer watching you as intently as you were watching them, a black bear and her cub bouncing along the highway heading straight for the van, and a mountain lion peered on a rock projection. We drove on until the sun set, it just drops out of site. No lingering twilight, just light one moment, darkness the next. We were heading for Thunder Bay in the pitch dark with no motels. We kept driving. It was becoming another Mt. Rushmore fiasco when we saw a sign for a Provincial campground. George turned in. Since it was past midnight, the gate was down and everything was closed.We drove around the gate and headed for the camping area and parked the van. I was uncomfortable because we were Poaching a space in a foreign country and I heard all the horror stories about foreign prisons. My dear husband was getting settled in, not nervous a bit. He said, "Don't wake me unless there is a bear."

Well, that did it I got about twelve minutes sleep that night-just listening for bears. I still haven't forgiven him for that. There were no bears that night. In the morning, I looked like a woman who went without sleep and without a bathroom. I was tired, grumpy and grungy. I never wanted to do that again. I got a promise, under penalty of death, that we would not drive into the wilderness without motel reservations for the night, prearranged.

I was content and this contentment lasted about six months. He began to slip RV shows into our weekend activities. He kept asking me what I liked about each various units we explored. We spent most of our time checking out the used units. The Trading Times began to be a constant companion to the TV Guide at home.

A few weeks went by and he found an ad; this one was only two miles away. He made an appointment to see it that afternoon. George said he thought he recognized the voice on the phone and when we pulled up to the house, we realized that the owners were friends from church. We never knew they had an RV and they never knew we were looking for one. It was a Leprechaun-24 feet long with sleeping for six. The bathroom, one of my personal hang-ups, was unique, at least unique to me. There was a drain in the floor for the shower, a totally self-contained unit. You could sit on the closed toilet seat and shower. I thought that was neat-a room shower.

I chatted with Betty and George talked to Bob, the owners and when we left, we had our first RV.
If I were Irish, I would blame it on the little people. But that motor home made me feel comfortable, secure and happy. My first camping trip was fun -even our dog loved it. That was ten years and four motor homes ago. We have extended our travel time from two weeks to over a month last year. We have practiced full timing, which is our plan.When I retired we sold the house and took off. I am telling you this so you will understand. I now have my future, a COW-a condo on wheels-a 42 foot Safari motor home with a ice maker, convection oven, washer/dryer, TV antenna, cable connection, and satellite dish with home theater surround sound. One step for my husband, a giant leap for me. And as my mother says, "You're going to live in a what?"

Dianne L. Van Buren Frerichs

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