Trip: Day Thirteen

I checked our campsite in the morning before heading off to the showers and there was absolutely no sign anything had gone amiss. It was cleaner than the showers I was heading to.

It's not so much that everybody was dragging in grass clippings on their feet, and nobody had yet taken care of it. It's also not that there are only two shower stalls for all the campers, and I had to wait - sitting on the only seat around, the toilet. No, my disappointment in the showers was an engineering thing. There is a concrete lip in the front one had to step over. Just a minor nuisance, as long as one is able to step over and doesn't need wheels to navigate. But I found out it serves another function.

When the concrete was poured, the floor in the shower stalls was sloped away from the drain. This means the floor in the dressing area was wet. Not just wet, but standing water, grass clippings, soap, and what-not. I try not to speculate on the contents of the "what-not." One had to be very careful when dressing and undressing that no speck of clothing hit the floor. After I was finished with everything else, I headed over to the picnic table set up outside to dry my feet and put on shoes and socks, even though it meant gingerly making my way through a bed of rocks which were not all river-washed and nicely rounded.

Breaking camp took extra time this morning, since we started preparations to unpack and store the RV as we were packing. Breakfast dishes were done and put away, clothing was all located and packed back into its original containers, rather than allowed to sprawl all over for ease in use. The water tank was emptied into black and greywater tanks for their final flush, and orders given that nobody use sink or toilet in the RV the rest of the day.

There was one final photo op: the rest stop on the hill overlooking the river from the opposite side, with views of the river and its many bridges. That done, we were on our way.

Like the first day, I figured I could have written the rest of this day before we had even left home. Drive drive drive. Heat heat heat. Snooze if you can. Hit Friday summer-weekend rush hour in the Twin Cities, try to be patient, try not to mind that vacation is over, mountains are just memories now. Begin making those mental lists that really tell you you are home again: chores to do, bills to be paid, the upcoming work schedule, calls to make, appointments to keep, grass to mow (by Paul of course), groceries to restock....

Paul wanted to get the RV in to a mechanic to get the engine checked. I vetoed that. It's emptied, parked "in storage" on the driveway, and the insurance pulled off. Next year, once we plan a trip, will be soon enough to start looking at mechanical things, like what's wrong with the electrical system, cleaning the carburetor, checking if there's a hole in the muffler. That's IF we plan an RV vacation next year. At the moment, I'm all RVed out.