Chapter Six
By the next Thursday, Frannie had the cupboards and refrigerator stuffed with everything she could think of—possibly a little beyond the basics.
The forecast was all over the weather map, so to speak, and after packing several pair of her shorts and tees neatly in one cupboard above the bed, she crammed in two pair of jeans and three sweatshirts. Heavy socks could be stuffed in the corners.
Frannie assigned the kids each a cupboard, but when she checked to see if they were adequately prepared, a Walkman and several sports magazines fell out of Sam’s cupboard with no sign of clothes. Sally had enough makeup in hers for a movie set.
“Kids,” she said, when she returned to the house, “you need to get some clothes out there. A cold front is supposed to come through Saturday night so you need to take a few warm weather things. Also jeans and sweatshirts.”
“I thought we had a furnace in that thing,” Sally said.
“We do, but you’re not going to sit inside all weekend, are you?”
“Um, no?”
“Right answer.”
Food was another issue. Mickey and Jane Ann would be with them and Mickey was always prepared for any culinary emergency. But if she and Larry were going to camp on an ongoing basis, they couldn’t always depend on the Ferraros to provide a full pantry.
Between phone calls with Jane Ann, she came up with menus for three main meals that she thought were doable. By the time she loaded the necessary ingredients in the little fridge, there was barely space for sandwich makings, eggs, and sausage. And she had no milk or other beverages in there. Those would just have to go in coolers. Even so, she had to push much of the food into the fridge and close the door with force.
On it went. When they had looked at the units at the RV show, and even at this smaller trailer at Glen Hanson’s farm, it appeared that, compared to the old tent, space would be no problem. But it was.
Every category of equipment was a decision. How many pans and what kind to put in? How many dishes? What could they get by on in cleaning supplies? She smiled at her fretting. They weren’t life-or-death questions. They would not be camping anytime soon in the Alaskan bush or along the Amazon. But still, it didn’t hurt to be prepared.
Larry assembled a small tool kit and filled two big plastic totes with firewood. He stowed fishing gear and grill utensils in one of the outside compartments. He drained the antifreeze that had been in the trailer through the winter and flushed out the water system as Glen Hansen had directed. When he went to put his clothes in the cupboard that Frannie had reserved for him, he found a stack of VCR tapes including The Lion King and Dumb and Dumber.
“Sal!” he called when he entered the house, tapes in hand. “What are these doing in the camper?”
“Welll, I thought if it rains…”
“We don’t have a TV or a VCR player in there.”
“Maybe we should get one before we go.” She smiled.
“And maybe not. Find some games and a book. And put them in your cupboard.”
“I was going to, but there’s no room.”
“And how do we solve that problem, my dear?”
“Um, assign me an extra cupboard?” She batted her eyes at her father.
He swatted her gently on the behind. “You’re not too old to spank. Get out there and reorganize your stuff.”
When the time came to leave, Frannie felt she had half her life crammed in the little trailer, but still worried that she was forgetting something.
Larry had arranged Friday as a day of vacation and wasn’t on call for the weekend, so Frannie looked forward to a few days away from the phone. Larry had started carrying a cell phone but kept it switched off when he wasn’t on call. The whole family was ready to go by nine A.M.
As Larry finished his breakfast, he said to Frannie, “I’ll load the kids’ bikes and the lawn chairs in the pickup. The next challenge will be hooking up the trailer. Are you ready to direct me?”
Frannie was confused. “Direct you?”
“Help me line up the truck to get the hitch in the right place.”
“Um, sure.” At least she hoped she could. She had been concentrating on everything they needed to do to camp, but hadn’t even thought about getting the trailer to the campground. How hard could it be? Thousands of people did it.
“Do you have everything loaded that you want to take?” Larry asked.
“As much as will fit. Oh, wait, I have a bowl of Jello salad I made last night to put in the fridge. Then I’m done.”
“Okay. I’ll be ready when you are.”
After clearing the breakfast makings, she took a bowl of lime Jello with pears out of the house refrigerator and covered it with plastic wrap. She had already used all of her plastic bowls with lids for other food. When she took it out to the camper refrigerator, she could see that things would need to be rearranged to get the bowl in. She had just finished some creative cramming when Larry poked his head in the door.
“Ready?”
“Sure.” She let the fridge door swing shut, took a quick look around, and grabbed her set of camper keys off the counter. “Shall I lock the door and put the steps away?” she called to Larry once she was outside.
“Go ahead.”
She locked the door after only three tries and carefully folded up the metal steps, feeling pretty pleased with herself for completing this much of the process.
“Stand right over here.” Larry directed her to a spot near the hitch where he could see her in his driver’s side mirror. “If you can just let me know whether I’m going straight or not and how far I have to go, that’ll be great.”
She nodded and waited for him to get in and start the truck. Then she started motioning him back with her left hand while keeping an eye on the two hitches.
So far, so good. Not until he was too close did she realize that the trailer tongue was not raised up enough for the ball on the truck hitch to go under it. The hitch hit the tongue with a resounding clang at the same time that she threw up her right hand in a “Stop!” motion.
Larry pulled forward a couple of feet and stuck his head out the window. “Which is it?”
Frannie looked up. “Which is what?”
“Your hands. You’re motioning me forward with one hand and telling me to stop with the other.”
She looked at her hands, still in the air. “Oh.” She tucked them both behind her back. “Sorry.”
He opened the door and swung out of the truck to inspect the problem. “The tongue isn’t high enough.” He showed her how to crank the jack to raise the tongue. “Now, one direction at a time, okay?” His tone said his patience would not last long.
Sam and Sally were watching the operation. “Want me to try it, Dad?” Sam asked.
“No, she’ll be fine.” Frannie could have sworn she heard him add “I hope” as he got back into the truck.
This time she kept her right hand down, and Larry edged the truck more slowly, but he was too far to the right. She ran up to his window.
“You’re about this much too far to the right.” She tried to show the distance with her index finger and thumb.
“My right?”
She thought a moment. “Yeah—my right, your right, same thing.”
He huffed. She didn’t know what that meant, but he said, “I’ll try it again.” She backed up, and he pulled forward a few feet. She went back to her post and the maneuver, report, and retry routine was repeated three more times before she jubilantly threw up both hands and yelled “Score!”
“I think you mean touchdown, Mom,” Sam said.
“Who cares? We did it!” She moved out of the way so Larry could crank the tongue back down over the hitch.
Larry connected chains and plugged in cords. Once satisfied that nothing dragged on the ground, he stood up and put his hands on his hips. “I think that’s it. Everybody get in the truck.”
They did, and headed over to the Ferraros. The park was about a two-hour dr
ive and the Shoemakers would follow Mickey and Jane Ann.
As they pulled up, Mickey looked up from his own hookup process, and started to laugh and point.
Larry got out of the truck “What’s your problem, Ferraro?”
Mickey continued to point at the back of the trailer. “Did you forget to unplug?”
Frannie got out and joined her husband as he looked back in dismay and the heavy electrical cord trailing in the street from the back of the trailer. He ran his hand over his crewcut and turned to Frannie. “You know what else? We didn’t take the wheel chocks out and must have driven over them. I thought it was pulling hard as we came out of the driveway.”
“What do we do?” Frannie said.
Mickey had joined them. “I’ve got extra blocks of wood we can use for your wheels. Check your cord and make sure it’s okay.” Mickey grinned. “And you might want to stow the cord rather than dragging it along behind.”
“What would I do with out you, Mick? Other than be a much happier man?” Larry went to check the cord, called back “Looks okay,” and coiled it in its compartment.
Frannie and Larry got back in the truck to wait for Mickey to pull out ahead of them. They looked at each other.
Larry said, “Is this really stupid or what?”
At the same time, Frannie said, “Why did we decide to do this?”
They both started to laugh and couldn’t stop.
To their immense relief, the journey to the park was uneventful. No strong wind whipped them around. Although the clouds hung low, the rain stayed away.
When they reached the park, Mickey led them first to a fresh water spigot. He had warned them that there were no water hookups at the site so they would need to fill their tank before they set up.
They didn’t have reserved sites on this trip, so when the water tanks were full, they drove slowly around the campground looking for two good sites together. They stopped several times to check obstacles and the levelness of a site. The second time around, Mickey and Larry agreed on two adjoining spots with a nice campfire area.
Frannie got out to help Larry park. The process went more smoothly than the hookup had. However, when they checked the levels on the camper, they had a slight tilt to one side, so Larry got a board out of the truck that he had brought just for this purpose. He pulled the camper forward a few feet, had Sally move the board into position behind the camper tires on the low side, and in only two tries got it backed up on the board. It still wasn’t perfectly level, but much better. They unhooked the truck, and Sam cranked the jacks down that supported each corner.
Frannie opened the steps and unlocked the door. “Get out those lawn chairs, Larry. I’m ready to kick back with a cool drink.”
She stepped inside the camper. The squish beneath her foot signaled the mess she saw all over the floor. The refrigerator door stood open, and a dozen broken eggs mixed with the lime Jello to create an abstract design on the vinyl floor.
“Oh no!”
“What?” Sally ran to the door to survey the destruction.. “Omigosh!”
Jane Ann heard the fuss and left the tablecloth that she was spreading on the picnic table. “What happened?” Her mouth dropped open, and then she started to laugh. She noticed Frannie’s crestfallen face and put her arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulders.
“I’ll get some paper towels and help you clean it up. Too bad we didn’t bring a shop vac.”
Frannie sunk down on the picnic table bench and put her head in her hands. Larry poked his head in. “What’s wrong? Oh! I see.”
“Jane Ann went to get paper towels. Of course I forgot to bring any. I don’t think we were meant to do this.”
“We’ll all help with the cleanup.” It was the type of consoling suggestion Larry often made, which Frannie deemed well-meant but impractical.
“Thanks, but there isn’t room for more than one or two in there.”
He cocked his head. “Is that the water pump running?”
“What does the water pump sound like?”
“Like that.” He practically leaped up the steps, tiptoed around the mess and opened the bathroom door.
“Oh, no!”
“Now what?”
“The sink faucet was still on from when I flushed out the system!” He leaned over the counter and pushed a button on the tank indicator. “We’re about out of water.” He pushed another button. “And our gray water tank is almost full.”
Frannie couldn’t move her mind past the gooey mess on the floor. “What does that mean? How could we be almost out?”
He sighed. “This bathroom faucet was turned on and apparently so was the pump. After I filled the tank, we drove around, deciding on a site, got parked, set up—the whole time, water was running from the fresh water tank to the gray. So now we need to hook back up and go dump the gray and refill the fresh.”
Frannie threw her hands up. “One thing at a time. This mess has to be cleaned up first.”
“Yeah. Here comes Jane Ann. I’ll get a garbage bag for the paper towels.”
Soon they were on hands and knees mopping up.
“This has to be one of the slimiest messes ever,” Frannie said. “And disgusting.”
Jane Ann paused and sat back on her haunches. “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes in the Operating Room, there’s—”
Frannie put her hands over her ears. “La-la-la-la—I don’t want to hear it.”
They finished sopping up the worst of the mess and Sally hauled the garbage bag to the dumpster. The women went back outside where Larry and Mickey stood by a golf cart, deep in conference with another man.
Frannie walked up to them. “We’re as done as we can be without water to finish. So now we need to hook the camper back up?”
She realized that Larry looked more relaxed. “Maybe not. This is George, the campground host. He thinks we can hook up enough hoses to reach that hydrant over there.” He pointed to the middle of the next loop. “Since all of the water in our gray water tank is actually fresh, he said I can just dump it on the ground.”
George said, “I’ll go get a couple more hoses. If you guys each have one, that should do it. Let’s get this taken care of.” He jumped in the golf cart and sped off.
Frannie could have kissed the man.