THE TIOGA

My history with vehicles is blog fodder for months. My first car was a yellow Chevy Impala that rode like a ship on a cresting wave. I called her Guinnevere, after the Crosby, Stills and Nash song.  I shared her with my brother and he installed a faux grenade launcher to the dashboard (cause we are classy like that). Most of our high school friends drove brand new cars that their parents had bought them. Even though I envied the shiny, rust-free paint and electric windows my friends had, I always had a loyal affection for old Guinnevere. She wasn’t like the others and that’s why I loved her. For most of my life since then, I have owned cars that are well-loved and paid for. We have followed the Dave Ramsey approach (whether we liked it or not) of buying used cars and driving them into the dirt. It was responsible and necessary. New to me was good with me. Until…..the Tioga.

We were on our way to play at a music festival in Canada one summer and set out on the two day drive from Colorado.  We had a fantastic dirt colored suburban (this is the best color of car for gypsy thugs) and we had it loaded to the gills. Barry, me, our four kids (two in booster seats), our drummer, Melissa and our instruments were all crammed in like sausages. We were headed up to Alberta, where my parents lived and we were going to take a week of vacation in conjunction with the festival. It was summer in the mountains and we were stoked to be on the road. We made it to the halfway mark of Billings, Montana with ease and spent a night at a hotel with pizza and a water slide. This was going to be a great trip.

We wrangled the kids back into the truck the next morning and got on our way. We got about an hour out of Billings when the suburban made a really loud, startling clunk. We pulled over at a gas station to assess the situation and couldn’t figure anything out. We got back into the suburban and kept driving…because that was the wise thing to do, right? A few minutes later it kicked in with a cool grindy-clunky-revving thing. The truck was not right. It had no get up and go and we had to drive slower and slower and the sounds became grindier and grindier and clunkier and clunkier.  By some great miracle, we made it to the safe harbor of Harlowton, Montana (population 997 in 2010). Harlowton is a one street town so it wasn’t hard to find the 1950’s throwback automotive shop.

We skidded to a stop in a circus of exhaust and clank-grinding and high fived each other that we had somehow averted the whole broken-down-on-the-highway-with-all-of-our-suitcases-and-gear routine. (Alas, that sad story is for another day….). The owner/mechanic let the dust settle before he meandered out. I am certain he heard those noises, saw those Colorado plates and knew that he had us by the cojones. Melissa took the kids to a nearby park while Barry and I waited for the diagnosis.

The only Harlowton mechanic quickly delivered the news to us that our engine was, in fact, toast. It was going to cost more than the truck was worth to rebuild that engine and we were suddenly in the middle of Montana, with a truckload of gear and 7 people and no truck. We were stranded. Run aground. Master-of-our-fate mechanic pointed us to a car lot up the street and suggested we take a look at what they might have available. There was not a single car in that lot big enough to hold us. We trudged back to the auto shop and asked if he had any other leads on vehicles for 7. “Hmmmm….” he said. “Now… I do have this camper out at my place that I could sell ya. It’s a 1974 Tioga and I only use it for fishing any more but it runs and it would fit ya.”  What exact choice did we have? There was no car rental place out there in Harlowton. We were too far away for anyone to come and get us. Plus, we were going to have to get home someday!

We went to master-of-our-fate’s house and he led us to the back of his property where he was storing The Beast. I think I must have been in caveman survival mode at this point. As we meandered about in the decades-old vehicle, I ignored the smell of mold and the fishing bait boxes everywhere and tried to picture us getting around in this thing. I am a potential-seer which is a gift and a curse. It means that I can easily see things and people for what they could be.  It also means I have trouble seeing things as they actually are.  Like Pollyanna, I imagined how much fun my kids would have with no seat belts and a table at their disposal. I even told myself it would be awesome to not have to stop for potty breaks. This being the only viable option, we tried to stay positive and struck a deal. We went to the park to break the news to Melissa and started transferring our stuff to The Beast.

I was right, the kids thought it was awesome. They were so impressed with all the roominess and lounged about like camper bosses as we hit the road again. The first moment of reality-based trepidation that I had was shortly after we were back on the road, when I had to call the insurance company to take the suburban off our policy and add this gem to it. I remember the insurance lady asking me, “A 1974 Tioga? Is that a camper? So now this is the only vehicle on your policy?” Yep. Yep. The only vehicle. Don’t think about it, I told myself. Just be grateful you even have a vehicle, I told myself.

The rest of the trip to Canada was sort of fun. The novelty of a different way to travel was pretty fun for my kids and my parents got such a kick out of us arriving in such a vintagey gypsy rig. Once we were safe at our final destination, I spent some days cleaning it up and trying to make it cuter. I got rid of old seat cushions and made some new ones. I made some curtains. I scrubbed and scraped and deodorized. I got it to where it seemed like a little less of a fishing vehicle and and more of a family outing rig.

When our trip was over we loaded up to head home. We were a few hundred miles into Montana when a torrential downpour occurred and that’s when I figured out why The Beast smelled like mold. It had not rained the whole time we had been in Canada, so we did not know that when it rained, water cascaded down the inside walls of The Beast as if she was a public shower stall. We tried to stuff towels and shirts up where the water was pouring in but to no avail. It rained inside The Beast for a long, long time. We all sat there looking soggy and feeling betrayed by our new recreational vehicle.

Shorty after the rain stopped the muffler detached from The Beast and drug along the pavement making a sound like a jackhammer. We pulled over and Barry got underneath The Beast and tried to tie it back on but The Beast would have none of it. We had to drive the rest of the way home with no muffler. This meant that we now could hear nothing else but non-muffled 1974 camper truck engine noise, right up in our faces. I had to yell at the top of my lungs to communicate with Barry at all and we pretty much just gave up talking for the whole rest of the ride home. For this being a recreational vehicle, we were having exactly no fun.

I remember being a couple of hours from home and having a hellish epiphany. “Oh God. This is now my only car. This is now what I drive to Wal-mart. This is now what I drive to take my kids to school. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. No. No. No.”  Even for me, Miss “I name my old rusty car Guinnevere and think fondly of her” this was too much.  Even too much for a gypsy thug mom. I may have even shed some tears.

Thanks be to God, we were able to buy a second vehicle fairly soon after arriving home. The Beast then became Barry’s hunting toy and remained parked behind our house where I didn’t have to think about her for most of the year.

You know all that stuff I said about having loyalty and affection for old, paid for cars? I’m over it. Give me a car payment and a working engine any day of the week. Sign me up.

In other news we are preparing for our epic Patty World journey, which involves LIVING in a camper and touring for a year. I have revisited this Tioga debacle in my mind and really looked hard inside myself to see if I have what it takes to become a full-time camper living gypsy mom. I have “camperventilated” (as my brother calls it) on several occasions. Will my potential-seeing-Pollyanna side sign me up for something that it truly terrible? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be the best thing I’ve ever done. Either way: blog fodder. 🙂