Chapter 15: A Stroll in the Park

Birds chirping filled the air with the music of nature. Dexter paused to watch a sparrow flit from one branch to the next. It appeared and disappeared from view within the foliage of the tree, in pursuit of whatever was keeping it moving. Landing upon a branch, it would pause, look around, and then take off again for another branch three or four beats of its wings away.

Dexter understood. It was anxiously seeking something, without knowing what it was. He understood, because he felt the same way. He was seeking something, hoping that he would know what it was when he found it.

He turned from the tree and headed along the road that circled through the campground. He had never realized that there were so many different types of tents, campers, and RVs. It seemed to him, that times had really changed since he was a kid.

Families relaxed in their campsites in chairs of a variety of flavors. Kids were riding bikes. There were a few places where the smell of food cooking filled the air ... others had finished eating, and were cleaning dishes.

Dexter paused to study a silver camper. It was large, and had a slide that extended out, so that a third of the trailer was basically a double wide. He hadn’t seen one with a feature like that. There were a couple of antennas on the top. One of them looked like a satellite television receiver.

An elderly couple was seated by a silver camper. They waved to him. The man looked to be nearly seventy, and the woman just a little younger.

Dexter greeted them with a simple, “Hello.”

The man said, “Howdy, beautiful day isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“Where you campin’?” the older man asked.

Dexter answered, “I’m not. I’ve been thinking about making a trip with an RV or a camper. I figured I’d stop by a campground and see what I would be getting into.”

The woman said, “So you’re just checking things out.”

“Yes. I’m basically retired with nothing to do. I thought it would be nice to see a little of the country. However, I’m not all that enthused about staying at a bunch of motels,” Dexter said.

“So you thought you see America in an RV,” the old man said.

“Yes.”

The old woman said, “We chose to do the same thing when Ed retired. We’ve been traveling around during camping season for five years now.”

“So, how has it been?” Dexter asked.

“Well, pull up a chair, and we’ll tell you all about it,” Ed said.

Dexter took a seat at one of the many lawn chairs scattered around their campsite. It looked like they entertained a lot of visitors.

“By the way, my name is Dexter.”

“Told you, didn’t I?” the woman said while shaking a finger at the man.

“Gale said that you were that Dexter guy, on the television,” Ed said. “I told her that she was full of hot air.”

“She’s right,” Dexter said.

“I knew it!” she crowed.

“All right, I’ll do the dishes, tonight,” Ed said while patting his wife on her arm.

Dexter laughed. Ed sounded grumpy, but it was obvious that it was a common bet between the two. They exchanged the kinds of looks that couples who were in tune with each other, often gave. He noticed that they sat close together, and touched frequently. They belonged to a different generation. They didn’t see anything unusual with casual physical contact.

Dexter said, “So you’ve been living out of this camper for five years?”

“No. We had an RV, but it was kind of a hassle and ended up being a financial drain. Maybe we had bought a lemon, but it was like something was always breaking on it. After two summers, we sold it and bought this camper trailer,” Ed said.

“So you recommend a camper?” Dexter asked.

“Mechanically it’s a whole lot simpler,” Ed said. “Getting something fixed on a pick-up truck is a whole lot cheaper than getting something fixed on an RV. You can get an oil change on a truck, anywhere. You can’t say the same for an RV.”

Gale said, “To me it’s just a matter of whether the car is in front of the camper, or towed behind the RV. It seemed like every time I drove the RV we nearly had an accident. I kept forgetting the car was behind it. You can’t forget that a trailer is behind the truck.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Dexter said.

Ed said, “That’s just our personal preferences. There are folks who love their RV. I prefer the camper.”

“We prefer the camper,” Gale said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dexter said.

Ed said, “We got the deluxe model with everything on it. It has the extended side that gives us a nice dining area. It has auto-levelers, an emergency generator, and satellite television. We’ve got plenty of room and all of the modern conveniences.”

“Except a dishwasher,” Gale said.

“Except for that,” Ed said.

Gale said, “It’s just like having a one bedroom apartment. For us, there’s no need for more than that.”

“Sometimes the grandkids join us for a week. The couch and table turn into beds, so we have room for them. It can get a little tight at times, particularly when it rains,” Ed said.

Gale said, “It still has more room than that first trailer we had when we used to go camping with the kids.”

“That’s true. I guess I’m turning into a grumpy old man,” Ed said.

“Grumpy, yes; old, no,” Gale said swatting him on the arm.

Dexter said, “I’ll be traveling alone.”

“Oh. That’s a shame,” Gale said.

“It’s always better to share some of the beauty of this world with someone else,” Ed said taking Gale’s hand in his.

Gale said, “Do you remember that hike in the Shenandoah Valley where we came across all of those wild orchards in bloom next to that waterfall?”

“I’ll never forget that sight,” Ed said nodding his head. “Or how about that sunset in the Painted Desert?”

“I’ve never seen so many colors,” Gale said.

Dexter was listening to the couple exchange reminiscences about sights they had seen. He could just imagine an exchange with Janet about their vacation to Hawaii. Do you remember the hotel telephone? Yes, it was a standard hotel telephone. That’s right dear, if you’ve seen one, then you’ve seen them all. He shuddered at the pretend exchange.

Ed said, “The thing about camping is that it puts you right in the middle of everything. I’ll admit that the parks are laid out so that you’re basically trailer to trailer, but you’re still surrounded by nature. You don’t get that in a hotel. To get out and smell the trees in a hotel, you’ve got to go down an elevator and through a lobby. Here, we just step our front door.”

“Since my heart problems, I’ve got to stay on low salt diet. You can’t get that in a restaurant,” Gale said.

Dexter said, “Well, I’ve been eating in restaurants a lot, lately.”

“That’s not good for you,” Gale said.

Dexter asked, “So what’s it like traveling around so much? Don’t you get lonely?”

“You’d think we get lonely, but we don’t. We run into the same folks over and over. There’s some folks three campsites over that we see about five times a year at different parks. We get together and talk about what we’ve seen and where we’re going next. We’re expecting another couple to show up in a day or two,” Gale said.