Roger’s Reality: The Camper Saga, Part 2

By Roger Owens

So, when you buy a boat, or a camper, first you really check it out, figure out how things work, and then it’s time to try out your new toy. We called it a “shake-down cruise,” in keeping with the nautical theme. Cruises plural, rather. On three short trips we learned that the swaying of the trailer was a bit uncomfortable, between the wind and the big rigs blowing by the old farts doing 63 in the camper. We’re not in a hurry. I have driven many trailers, but none with this high of a profile. We call it being “under sail,” because, buddy, the wind and the truckers’ slipstreams are pushing you around like a sailboat whether you like it or not. Of all the crap we’ve packed, we sort out what we’ll really need and what we can ditch back at the house. Once home, I purchase a sway brace and install it on the trailer. It works. Lesson One learned.
    Now comes the biggie. Cindy’s family and friends have gone camping at Chincoteague Island from upstate New York since she was a kid (it’s off Virginia, and the locals pronounce it SHINK-tig), and her best friend Debi and her daughter decide to restart the tradition. We all agree to meet there and as luck has it, we all land within a couple miles of each other. Cindy’s sister and her husband have a place on the water. Her best friend and her daughter, the daughter’s husband, and her son have a townhouse a minute from our campground. Two other friends from the old ’hood in Upstate also show up, from Maryland and North Carolina. I don’t know them but they are enjoying talking up old times so much we don’t really notice; we all end up hugging.
    A tremendous time is had by all. We get together at our campground, at the townhouse, on the water, drink and eat and talk and laugh. Evenings we go to the local seafood places and gorge on the best oysters, clams. You name it, we eat it. We even eat oysters straight from Chesapeake Bay, on a boat tour where we see two – count ’em, two – of the famous little ponies from Assateague Island (pronounced locally ASS-tig). Cindy thinks I’m going to be upset at not seeing more; I say I’ve seen horses before. I didn’t come all this way, setting up camp for one night in Jacksonville, then down and off the next morning, then South Carolina, then Virginia, then Chincoteague, which is the hell and gone from anywhere, busting ass every day to knock down and set up somewhere else, just to see some ponies. I did consider it a crash training course, but that’s still not why I came.

    I came to see Cindy and her best friend since they were eight and nine hugging and kissing, for her to see her sister Wendy and her husband Dick. For her to see Debi’s daughter Brit and her husband Zack. And for both of us to meet her son Ritchie, at least as an adult. At twenty-one, he’s a pistol. He and I hit it right off, as have Cindy and Brit. All this is so good for Cindy’s heart and it makes me glad. We walk the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, and from Dick and Wendy’s place we get to see a space launch from the new Wallops Island-NASA Launch Complex. I didn’t even know it was there. We’re kind of proprietorial here near Cape Kennedy; other people don’t have launches! But there it was, and not one in a thousand of all the people gathered had ever seen a real launch, including most of Cindy’s family and friends. Perfect day, perfect launch. We follow with a great dinner on the outside porch by the bay, lots of beer, wine, and liquor flowing freely.

    Another few days of hanging out, and we pack up to leave. Hugs and hugs and hugs. I quip that in the South we’d have to go around the room a few more times before actually leaving. The next morning comes, and we go from that place.
    The rest will come in Part 3.

Copyright © 2021 by Roger Owens