My first RV experience occurred the year I turned 17, my parents, my six year old sister and I were traveling to Georgia to watch my nineteen year old brother graduate from Army National Guard boot-camp then continued to proceed to Florida to Disney World for a family vacation. Being able to afford a family vacation in 1979 was a rare ocurence for my family. My father borrowed from my uncle a bread truck that he had converted to a family RV camper. It slept five, with one of the beds being a combination of the driver and passenger seats with a board laid cross the seats, and a makeshift mattress. When the board was laid between the seats the bed was tilted on an angle, I was exposed to the public through the front windshield because the curtain was behind the seats. The curtain provided privacy to the back of the truck but left me exposed in the front seating area on this titled makeshift bed. In the cabinet drawers we saw these blocks of wood but could not figure out what they were for. Needless to say I spent the whole week on this tilted bed exposed to the public because due to our limited finances we slept in parking lots and on the side of the road. We had a great time in Florida and enjoyed Disney World as a family. After retuning home and speaking to my uncle and sharing our vacation I mentioned to him that we came across these blocks of wood and did not know what they were for. He grinned and we went out to the camper and when he placed the blocks of wood on the seats and showed us how they leveled the bed on the seats. We all laughed, thinking of the week I spent trying to balance myself as I slept on the tilted bed.
It has been thirty years since my first camping experience and to this day I enjoy camping, when my children were small we went camping in tents, after a few years waking up on the wet ground we purchased a pop-up camper, and then just recently we just purchased a 27 foot travel trailer.
Submitted by Donald Spivey of Pasadena, MD, as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.
Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!