Friends Of A Certain Age

“Have you noticed what our friends are doing?” I asked my husband.

He looked up from his computer with distraction written all over his face.

“No, what are they doing?”

“Well, they are all starting to travel by RV. I know at least three couples that are traveling that way, seeing the sights and going out West.”

“Mmm… ok,” my husband said, dropping his gaze back to his screen.

“Well, do you think that we should think about doing that too? I mean, it could be fun. You and I could rent a camper or an RV, a small one of course, and we could take the dog. We could have it all planned.”

There are times that words come out of your mouth that you are pretty sure that you would not have uttered under normal circumstances. Somehow, after being in a pandemic that has hung around for months on end, ideas start to hatch from the oddest places in your brain.

“Mmm…,” my husband said again. His logic was making him noncommittal.

“Don’t you want to go out West and see all that stuff, all those parks? Didn’t we always say that we were going to do that someday?”

“A camper?”

“Yes,” I said. “They have very nice ones now. They call it “glamping” these days.”

“I don’t know,” he said warily. The weight of the idea was starting to hit him.

“Well, I thought that you would be thrilled,” I huffed ever so indignantly. “Here is an opportunity for me to be, I don’t know, earthy and natural. Haven’t you always talked about all the fun you had camping as a boy? You are a proud Eagle Scout! Maybe I could become one of those crunchy, granola-and-campfire sorts of women.”

Nursing my bruised ego, I retreated from my husband’s office. I went to my computer to research how to jump start developing a delightfully breezy, outdoor-enthusiast personality when my phone rang.

“So, I have been thinking about something,” I began to my daughter. “Maybe Dad and I should rent a camper or an RV and go out West to see some of the sights, you know the National Parks and all.”

There was silence on the line, followed by a single sound.

“Mmm…,” my daughter said.

“Lots of our friends are doing trips like that. We could take the dog. It might be a fun couple of weeks.”

My daughter sighed, sounding resigned.

“Okay, let’s unpack this,” she said. “First of all, you have been watching PBS again, haven’t you? Did you tune in to that Ken Burns special on the National Parks again?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm….You know they leave out stuff, like actually camping, hiking, and sweat, while they concentrate on all that beauty,” she said and then sighed again. “Alright, where do you want to go?”

“I was thinking Mount Rushmore.”

“You want to drive to South Dakota to see old dead white guys carved in stone? That is not very 2020, you know. Monuments are kind of out of style right now, even if they were presidents. Where else do you want to go?”

“Maybe Yellowstone.”

“Well, I’m sure that you realize that it can be crowded, and those places are not Disneyland. I watched a news report about a woman who tried to pet a bison at Yellowstone. The darn thing charged her, ripped off her pants and flung her onto the ground. You weren’t planning to pet a bison, were you?”

“No,” I lied.

“And then there is the part about you and Dad in a camper. Somehow, I can see myself having to drive to Montana to get one of you, whichever one has been left on the side of the road, after all that “togetherness” has occurred.”

“It could be fun,” I said meekly. “And all my friends are starting to plan trips in RVs.”

“Mother,” said my daughter in her “teacher” tone of voice. “If all your friends were getting mullet haircuts and tattoos during the pandemic, would you do that too? It is called peer pressure. Your identity as an adult should NOT be based on what your friends are doing.”

“I know that.”

“Tell you what, go think about this. Think about sleeping in a tiny camper, think about not having a large bed, or air conditioning or television for a couple of weeks. Think about hiking with critters all around you, and then ponder the big one - sweat. What were the two things that you don’t do well, do you remember?”

“Sweat and dirt,” I answered.

“Exactly.”

I got off the phone and moved over to the couch to stretch out with my cell phone. The overhead fan was creating lovely air flow and I popped a chocolate in my mouth.

Everyone thinks they know me so well. I, however, am full of surprises. All my determination is going into researching my outdoor trip of a lifetime. There is no reason that I shouldn’t explore the natural world. I plan to do it too, as soon as I take a nap.