The Further Adventures of mmm

Trip journal, musings, updates on my life

Saturday, July 22, 2006


Lookee what I bought.
It's a 24-foot Class C motorhome, just like the one my friend Earl and I drove across country last spring when I moved to California. I've named it Sonny Boy in honor of my dad. My parents had a camper for years that had been my grandfather's, and my father loved it. Sonny Boy is what my dad's mother called him when he was a baby. An odd tribute, I know, but hey, it works for me. As for Dad, he would have been amused, I'm sure.

I took my first trip in Sonny Boy to Medford, OR, over the 4th of July weekend to see my mom. I brought two of the cats along, Clyde and Shiloh. They didn't much care for the RV when it was moving. As a matter of fact, Shiloh, who has more than her share of moxie, went and hid in the slide-out section before I was even out of my complex in Aptos. Clyde just lay under the dinette table, wearing the best long-suffering pose he could muster. Part of the reason I bought the RV was so I could take the cats along when I go away, since Clyde is now diabetic and needs shots twice a day. As much as I told the cats I did this for them, they remained unimpressed as long as the engine was running. Ungrateful little beasts, but I love them nonetheless.

We spent the first night in the driveway of my friend Patty's house in Sacramento. The cats thought it was great, once we were stopped. After much cuddling and purring, the cats settled in for the night, as did I. In the middle of the night, I awoke to the most horrible howling from Shiloh. She sounded as if she was being tortured, and she was all puffed up to twice her normal size. I got up to see what was wrong with her and realized that something outside had disturbed her. That sort of disturbed me too, but I couldn't see anything or anyone out the window. As I lay back down in bed, I looked up, and there, framed in the skylight, was a little cat head, cocked at an angle, looking into the RV, trying to figure out who was in there. One of the neighborhood cats had come to check us out, and Shiloh the Fierce was just proving her mettle as a watch cat.

We stayed in a KOA campground north of Medford in Gold Hill. It was mighty warm during the day, so at night I ran the A/C. There was wireless Internet available, so I listened to Folk Alley on iTunes, surfed the 'Net, and sent some e-mails. Hardly the camping of my youth, but the cats and I were very comfortable and slept soundly. With the help of my Treo's alarm, I was up and at the showers by about 9:15, rather late by camping standards but the break of dawn for me.

The gas for the trip was exhorbitant, but the RV ran beautifully. I'm eager to take it out again. Once my place in Aptos sells, I'm planning on renting in Sacramento until the market settles down and I decide where I want to be for the next few years. With the RV, I can take off, with the cats, for days, even weeks, at a time, since I can work from just about anywhere. When it cools down, I'd love to go to the Grand Canyon for a while.

That's the update for now. I'll post again soon.
mmm

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