Aug 7, 2008

Anatomy Of A Vacation.

camping-rates

You are looking at one of the things that recommends camping over other vacations: Bossy and her family are paying $16 a night to sleep less than a hundred yards from the lakefront, and a short car’s ride from many New England destinations—including that very famous New England destination, Montreal.

Bossy and her family have gone on cheaper vacations—for instance free—but those vacations tend to go up in smoke a few minutes after the host says,
“You people have been here for ten days—when are you going to paint my master bedroom?”

Some of the other things that recommend camping are this:

exchange-rates

And this:

seashore-rental

But Bossy has a secret about camping: she is very selective, where selective equals picky. Bossy doesn’t like scabby, buggy, shady campgrounds:

shady-camping

And Bossy doesn’t like crowded campgrounds, especially those that are scabby, buggy, and shady:

crowded-camping

Bossy likes her campground sites open, and rolling—kind of like a Civil War battlefield minus the bloody bodies.

When Bossy was first married she tried and failed to enjoy many of the camping opportunities closer to her crowded, buggy state — before locating the first campground to meet her guidelines:

camping-pregnant

The campground was located on Florida’s west coast and featured a manicured lawn that ended in white sand that ended in the Gulf of Mexico. Bossy and her son discovered they liked camping so much they stayed for an entire month, even though Bossy was pregnant.

And then five years ago Bossy and her family discovered their bucolic Vermont State Park quite by accident, where accident means they made a reservation at a different Vermont campground and drove through the front gates and saw crowds and shade and bugs and one mother backhand her little girl against the picnic table. Which is when Bossy and her family drove back through the gates at 60 miles-per-hour and situated themselves on the floor of a local camping store, where they combed through books researching nearby campground alternatives.

And for the last few years Bossy has been content with their bucolic Vermont camping vacation except for three things:

  1. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to engage in a vacation where you can never stand fully upright in your shelter.

  2. Rainy days are really a wash-out. Heh. And

  3. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to house the many supplies necessary for camping when the entire health of your marriage is hinged on the state of the basement.

For all of these reasons, Bossy was interested in exploring the functionality of pop-up trailers, but she had one problem: Bossy’s Honda isn’t weighty enough to tow anything.

OK, she had two problems: Bossy’s Honda isn’t weighty enough to tow anything and Bossy doesn’t have anything to tow.

Enter Bossy’s boyfriends at Saturn, who kicked into high gear—and see how Bossy did that? Made a gear reference right in the middle of her plug for Saturn?

saturn-outlook

Saturn kicked into high gear and facilitated Bossy’s relationship with Viking, a company that won’t be caught trailing the competition—and see how Bossy did that? Made a trailer reference right in the middle of her plug for Viking?

trailer-side-view

Anyway. Regarding her latest camping experience, Bossy has a few things to report plus another secret:

First the secret:

sink-area

Bossy totally underused the many available features in her Viking. For instance this kitchen area. Bossy likes to keep it real, where real means buying fat steaks at the local camp store and grilling them on the campfire griddle, accompanied with a glass of Chianti—which is to say Bossy’s version of camping is a little like Goldie Hawn’s imagined version of the Army, which includes exotic locations, lunches out, and sandals.

So Bossy didn’t use the stove or the running water or the refrigerator in her pop-up trailer—just like she didn’t use the available electricity, the hot-water heater, the overhead lights, the fan, or the attachable outdoor shower.

But in terms of Bossy’s full report, she can tell you this: pop-up trailer camping still feels very much like camping. The expanse of every vinyl wall unzips to full screens:

through-trailer

airy-bunk1

And compared to airline tickets and hotels and rental cars and beach tags and daily restaurants, the initial investment of a pop-up trailer is minimal and allows proximity to areas otherwise unaffordable.

And pop-up trailers solve many of the problems associated with camping, such as not being able to stand upright inside the tent, not having a place to hang out comfortably when it rains, and not knowing where to store the camp accoutrement: Bossy’s Viking has ample storage and when not in use, most of these items can live in the trailer, freeing up the basement and saving the twenty-year marriage.

Tons Of Information About Traveling In A Recreational Vehicle.

savvysource.com


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