In 1970 my wife and I purchased a 13 foot Shasta trailer. Our son was three. We decided to travel West to see my brother who was in the Air Force stationed in Nevada. Where the closet had been I put in a Monomatic toilet. We started packing for our trip and packed way too much stuff. At the time we were living in Maryland so as we set out on our trip we traveled the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We stopped at a rest area on the Turnpike and went into the trailer. Nearly everything had fallen out of the cabinets and was on the floor. The water tank had sprung a leak and the carpet was soaking wet. After cleaning this up we were on our way again. I stopped in St. Louis for gas. The attendant cleaned the windshield and crossed the wipers. Later we ran into heavy rain in rush hour traffic. I turned the wipers on and they came up about half way on the windshield and locked. I finally found a place to pull over so I could straighten out the wipers. We got to a campground in Gallup, New Mexico after dark. There was a small airport nearby with planes taking off and landing most of the night and railroad tracks close by with trains rumbling by and blowing their whistles all night. Between Kingman, Arizona and Hoover Dam the car started vibrating so I pulled off the road and discovered a large knot on the right rear tire. My wife and son got out of the car so he could play. I went to get the spare tire out which was located under the packing shelf in the trunk. From the heat it had swelled up and wouldn’t come out. I told my wife she had better get our son away from where I was working unless she wanted him to learn some new words. I got the tire changed and we were on our way. Shortly after the air conditioner stopped working. I pulled off the road to check this out. A vacuum hose had melted from the heat so I cut the melted part out and put it back on and it it started working again. We made it to Nevada and then went on to California and then back to Nevada. We drove to Flagstaff, Arizona to a campground. I went into the office to register and asked the lady where the dump station was. She looked at me and then she looked at the trailer and she screamed to the top of her lungs and said “YOU HAVE A BATHROOM IN THAT LITTLE THING.” The thought did go through my head that I should pull the valve and let her see that it did have a bathroom. Since that time we have had several travel trailers, truck campers and finally a motor home.
Submitted by James Moore of Staunton, VA as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.
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