'I don't camp'

Through the years, that attitude eased a bit, however, she never liked camping on the ground. If there was running water and a clean potty, then she could be persuaded.

When we bought “The Turtle,” she said, “I’ll take one trip and if I don’t like it, then that is it.” The Turtle was an old 1969 Ideal 21 ft. travel trailer. She fell in love with it and soon we were headed to Washington, Oregon and Mexico.

That was not camping because she adopted the Turtle as her own.

Then when we bought the Flying Dutchman and the Day Dreamer sailboats and she was sleeping on the water but not the ground. She adopted them in time and it was unbelievable when she agreed to sail for 32 days to Mexico.

The last 10 years went by fast and there were trips in the trailer and on sailboats, but one day, to my surprise, she said “I think we should buy a motorhome, something I could drive.”

She could have driven the truck pulling the Turtle but that was almost 45 feet and the roads in Mexico are narrow. She preferred not to. 

She could have steered the Day Dreamer but she liked to be up front managing the sails with the wind in her hair. The last time we actively had a sailing lesson was at Honeymoon Cove in Mexico where she was supposed to approach the bay and set anchor in about 25 feet of water under a 400 ft cliff.

She was ready for the job and we could have done it, except as we entered the bay, the winds jumped to 39 knots and the job of anchoring the Day Dreamer was difficult for even a seasoned captain. We did anchor, however, even after being anchored for a half hour, we kept the motor running to make sure the boat wouldn’t be blown on to the rocks.

The idea of a motorhome came because of health issues and one of us could not lay down while the other took the wheel and the motorhome was an idea for sharing drivers over long distances.

We checked out the prices of new motorhomes and had sticker shock. Then used units, which were about half the price, however they too were a little pricy.

Our local RV dealers had some older used units with 50,000 to 60,000 miles on them which didn’t seem to be in bad shape. We actually asked to have our mechanic at Dave’s Tire World look one over, but the dealer failed to get it started.

We were still looking one day when we had an appointment with Dr. Hylton, the neurologist in town. There was an RV parked right on the street with a “for sale” sign on it.

The following day, we returned to take a closer look and the price for the Fleetwood was only $3,000. We made an appointment to see the inside.

It turns out the inside was filthy but it was mostly cosmetic dirt. The appliances were clean and hardly used. The Fleetwood was a 1991 model and only had 60,000 miles. The tires looked new.

The owner had no place to park it, so he was having to move it every 72 hours to make sure the police didn’t ticket it. 

We offered $2,500 for it “In Cash” because it was so dirty and the owner said “Deal!”

Now we were off to the races, however, not before the RV had a name of its own. We tried on several names but they didn’t stick. “Hummer III” was possible because we named one of our boats Hummer and another Hummer II. 

Then the story of finding the RV on the way to Dr. Hylton”s office came to mind and with it the first time that she had said “My idea of camping is room service at the Hilton.”

You guessed it. We now have “Kathy’s Hylton” and we are ready to camp.