Mom asked me to write about our latest camping trip. She wanted to know what my "feelings" were. I could sum it up in a few colorful words but I shall try to leave those kinds of words to your imagination instead.

It was a beautiful morning. . . Don’t they all start out that way? Everything’s packed: the motor home, the truck, and the pontoon boat. We’re only going about 130 miles down the road, a three-hour trip at the most. We leave at 10:00 a.m. on Friday before Memorial Day. We will have to pass through the city of Nashville. We’ve left ourselves plenty of time to beat the rush-hour, pre-holiday traffic jam. We’re going to get there in plenty of time to make camp, visit with my sister and her husband, who are meeting us there, string up the new awning lights, and take the dogs for a long walk. We are traveling with my parents.

We’ve been down this same stretch of highway many, many times. Unfortunately, every time we’ve been down it, we stop at the Dickson rest stop in West Tennessee on Interstate 40. Beware, if you have a motor home, don’t ever stop at this rest stop because it is cursed. We made this same familial gathering last year and both coming and going, my folks’ motor home suffered "the curse." We just knew it couldn’t happen a third time. Guess what?

The caravan was stacked like this: My husband was pulling our pontoon boat, I was driving our 33.5-foot Holiday Rambler, and picking up the rear were my folks driving their 35-foot, wide-body Coachmen. We’d made previous arrangements to stop at this rest stop. As I came to a stop, the Rambler made a little coughing sound. Didn’t think much of it and cut the motor off. When we all got there and got out to stretch our legs, it appeared that the hitch on my husband’s truck was bending with the weight of the boat. Luckily, Dad had brought a spare and he and I put it on while my husband started to make himself a sandwich. When I went in to join him, he was in the captain’s chair trying to start the engine. It would start but when he engaged the air conditioning, it would kill the motor. We puzzled over it for a few minutes so I kept my foot on the gas pedal, ran the AC, and he ate very quickly.

Taking off was a little sluggish but my husband thought there might have been some debris in the fuel filter or some water in the gas. The engine leveled off just fine. Next stop: the campground, right? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

If you’ve ever been through Nashville, you know that at any given time of the day or night, there’s going to be some kind of wreck, some kind of bottleneck, some idiot who’s broken down in the middle lane tying up traffic. We’re making good time on I40. No slowing down, no wreck, no idiot. Then we hit I440 to go around the city proper when someone slows down and lo, and behold, the motor home starts really coughing, wheezing, and sounding flatulent, and I BECOME THE IDIOT WHO’S BROKEN DOWN IN THE MIDDLE LANE TYING UP TRAFFIC. No matter what life-saving measures I performed, I couldn’t revive it. The motor home has died.

A stranger with a chain took pity on me and pulled me to the side of the road. A Department of Transportation truck pulled in behind my parents who pulled in behind me and called for a tow truck. A city police officer pulled in front of me to tell me that there was a Department of Transportation truck behind me that’s calling for a tow truck. It’s at least 175 degrees outside. I’ve lost site of my husband. He’s out of walkie-talkie range. I reached him by cell phone and told him the fix I was in. He went on to the campground and dropped off the boat. My parents wouldn’t abandon me and suffered the heat and humiliation with me. After 30 minutes or so, the tow truck operator came to my rescue. He had to remove the drive shaft and broke a U-joint while doing so. Couldn’t be helped, he said. After the nose of the motor home is pulled up into the air he asked for a drink of water. Trying to get a bottle of water out of a full refrigerator that’s at a 45-degree angle became a feat of dexterity.

As we pulled into the service station that’s going to fix the motor home, the tow truck operator said, "Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good." He can’t even get into the parking lot. Aaahh, I’m with my own kind now: the dead and the dying. Every bay is full; there are three motor homes, trucks pulling horse trailers, semi-tractor trailers, a school bus, not to mention 10 or 15 passenger cars and trucks. We had no choice but to leave the RV on the road, outside the chain link fence. Unfortunately, the mechanics wouldn’t be able to get to it until the next day.

My husband arrived a few minutes later. We unpacked the motor home, loaded up the truck with all our food, bedding, and clothes. My sister and her husband graciously put us up for the night in their travel trailer. It is now 7:00 p.m.

The next day, Saturday, around noon, we called to check on the status of the repairs. They hadn’t even looked at it yet. They had a skeleton crew and would be closed on Sunday and Monday. My husband had a brilliant but expensive idea: bribe a mechanic to stay late and fix it. It worked! The problem: an in-line fuel filter clogged. At 7:00 that evening we were once again repacking the RV.

We had a wonderful time the rest of the holiday with family and friends. We even stayed an extra day. Do you think that was the end of the story? Are you sure?

My husband was concerned that there might be more problems with the motor home and was insisting that I pull the boat back home while he drove the RV. I wasn’t confident enough to pull the boat, so I insisted I drive the RV back home but he needed to be behind me this time because my parents weren’t coming back with us. So on Tuesday morning we start heading back home at 10:00 a.m.

The RV is running great. I can run the AC. No coughing or wheezing. There’s no traffic, no wrecks, no bottleneck. We get outside of the city of Nashville about 15 miles when I get a crackling sound on the walkie-talkie and these words: "I’ve got a flat." Then nothing. The cell phone rang and my husband informed me that he’s blown a tire on the pontoon trailer. We have no spare. Once again, the breakdown occurs in the last vehicle of the caravan. I stopped at the next exit which was under construction and squeezed the 8-foot wide motor home through a three-foot wide bridge and found a garage with a tire service. I waited for my husband to limp in. The garage won’t see him as they only work on semi-tractor trailers. They referred us to a Flying J six miles down the interstate. I went on ahead to see if they had a spare. This particular exit was also under repair, and, once again, I squeezed the RV over a three-foot wide bridge. When I got there I discovered that there was no garage, only a gas station. My husband finally reached the same exit but he went a different way and found a tire garage. It was a one-man operation with no vehicles waiting right next to a biker’s bar with bars on the windows. The mechanic, of course, didn’t have the right size tire but he helped unhook the boat and gave us directions to a dealer 30 miles away that would have one.

We finally got home around 7:00 p.m. Once again, a three-hour trip took a whole day to accomplish. I think I’ll pitch a tent in the back yard and hang a sign on the front door that says, "gone camping!"