I got the camper, a slide-in RV installed on my pickup truck. It looks good, feels a little like I'm on a seesaw with something almost as heavy as me on the other side as I drive. I feel all the bumps, but on a smooth interstate it glides along as usual. The first couple days of December is why I call this an adventure and don't really accept someone calling it a vacation.  I tend to call it a life style change, that's a better description, because the relaxation is certainly interspersed with challenges. Getting the camper installed became comical. I had confidence that it would work out fine, but the guys who installed it only spoke TexMex English, so their explanation of how to work the refrigerator, water system, where the bolts were that fastens it to the truck bed and many other things was a mystery to me as I drove away ... and there was no owners manual!  They tried to explain, but I didn’t speak their language!
    All I wanted when I started looking for a camper was a place to put my stuff when I left OC, where it would stay til I got back, and would be relatively secure and dry.  I was sure it would do that, so it was going to work.  I could figure out all the amenities later.
    The day after I got the camper I stocked up for camping and headed for Big Bend N.P.  I wondered how the extra weight of the camper would affect the pickup's gas mileage. The truck’s computer gives a message stating gas mileage per gallon and I observed it slowly going down from 20 to 19.6, then 19.  It also tells me how many miles I can drive before the tank is empty. That impressed me even though I knew it's another computer and all computers have a gremlin lurking amongst its innards.  That gremlin loves to Getcha! Texas secondary roads are in notorious good condition, have little traffic, and will save time by cutting down mileage to where I want to go because they are more direct than interstates. I chose one, watching how far I had to go before the tank was empty. I had over fifty miles by the computer’s message and the map said I had less than that to drive. Then the miles to empty messages got crazy. It went from 40 something miles to 35 miles to empty, then 26, 18, then 12. I said, “I hope the next town, Eldorado, is around the corner or over the next hill.” What the…… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. The gremlin is going to get me!!!! Oh yeah, seconds after it said 0 miles to empty it proved it was so, and I steered to the shoulder. I dialed triple A, but the extended network didn’t reach far enough. I couldn’t get any help there.
    Well, I hadn’t gotten any exercise for the day, so I put one foot in front of the other to find gas. Lucky me, I didn’t get a hundred yards before someone stopped. The driver and passenger only spoke TexMex. I said, “out of gas,” and they offered me a ride by pointing at the back seat.  A little iffy, but they took me to the next gas station. I had to buy a gallon plastic bottle meant for gas; I filled it and was off back to the truck. The temperature was in the low 30s, so I alternated hands carrying the gas.  When one got cold, it got to go into a pocket, and the other took over. I walked back to the road my truck was on and walked about a mile, when someone else stopped and asked if that was my camper up the road. I said yes, and they offered me a ride. Lucky again!  The driver said he’d shine a light on my truck, so I could see to put the gas in it. He got out of his truck with a light. As he walked towards me his truck began rolling forward towards mine. He forgot to put it in park! He ran back and just in time hit the brake before his truck hit the rear of mine. Wow, he sure meant well, but …. Damn!!! Sure glad he didn't miss the pedal.
    The plastic gas can had more safety features than a child-proof medicine bottle and tamper-proof food container combined and my hands were cold. The cap needed to be squeezed as it was removed, then the top of the cap had to be punched out and the spout inserted through it, and spouts cap needed to be squeezed on the sides so its cap could be removed. Of course I couldn't get it off, so I just gripped the spout with one hand and the cap in the other and twisted. Lucky again, it came off and I put the spout on the container and tried to pour the gas into the tank. The gas wouldn’t come out. There was still a seal on the spout that couldn't be removed. The guy said it would work if I pushed in against the tank opening. He was right and gas started to flow. Then I looked down and it was going onto the ground! Not what I had in mind. He was perplexed and said that's the way one worked for him. I jammed the spout down into tank as far as I could hoping the gas would go where it was supposed to go. The gas was flowing and none was going on the ground; lucky again! I’m still not sure how that happened, but the engine started after the can was empty, and I didn't care why or how! It worked.
    I drove to the station and filled the tank with gas. By the time I got gas it had become dark and I decided a motel was in order. As I drove there I started to figure out why the car’s computer gave me bogus info. It was easy and, of course, I should’ve known better. I had a 1,200 lb. camper installed the day before and just a couple hundred miles ago. My gas mileage had been 20 mpg before, that’s what the computer based its calculations on, and it didn't know about the extra weight. Yeah, from here on out when the gauge says a quarter of a tank, I’m stopping at the next station, no matter what the gremlin says!  I found a motel, put my stuff in the room and was ready to relax.
    Someone knocked on the door. Should I answer it? I did. A guy said, he needed help. His sister who was crippled had fallen. Sure I’d help; I’d been helped twice that evening. He said he needed help getting her up. He had rented a room in the same motel a couple doors down and had a U Haul truck. As I walked around to the passenger side I saw her. She was flat on the ground and was at least 400 lb. if she was a pound. Oh, boy! A hurt back I didn't need. He wanted me to take one of her arms and he the other and pull her up. No, that was not the way. I asked her how she was. I knew she was cold. It was now less than 30 and the parking lot surface had to be freezing cold. She had a house dress on, no coat, and lying on her stomach. There was no way the two of us could get her up. I asked her if she had ever fallen before. She said many times, and I asked how we could help her up. She knew, asked for a cushion for her knees; I got her a blanket. Once we helped her to her knees, we got her by the shoulders, helped her stand, and then got her wheel chair under her. It took a while, the motel owner helped, and I talked to her to give her encouragement. We got it done and luckily her wheel chair fit through the room's door. 
    That completed my first episode of my Adventure 2010!!! Each episode works out well and lots of them I’m surely not in complete control. Someone must be watching over me!  I slow down a little more with each occurrence, appreciate life, and my good fortune a little more! To end the day I got treated to Al Bundy TV reruns! The reruns are hilarious stuff.
    The next morning I awoke to a snow storm!  It hasn't snowed in this part of Texas for 10-15 years. I was sure no one in the town of Ozona knows how to drive in snow and I wasn’t sure how my truck would act with a half a ton of RV on its back, so I stayed ‘til the snow was gone!

 

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Bob Ruthrauff, Photographer / o.c.fotoguy at the beach
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