When I think back on my summers growing up on the Connecticut shoreline, so much was idyllic. I spent long hot days on sandy beaches swimming in the Long Island Sound, or enrolled in craft camps weaving baskets while slurping Capri Sun. My family would tuck into fried seafood takeout from the clam shack down the street for dinner on our deck.
We also went on vacation. In the mid-’90s as a preteen, that meant an RV trip. My parents purchased a 27-foot Dutchmen Coleman RV and it was my dad’s dream trip.
He idealized piling me, my mom, my older brother and younger sister into an RV for to scenic campsites where we’d trade computers and TVs for the great outdoors. We traveled around the Northeast and to Canada in it and I remember these trips vividly. But not for the reasons you’d expect.
As a child, I disliked them tremendously. The entire vacation felt like one big laborious chore, loading or unloading the RV with endless streams of bags. Getting where we were going meant long hours driving, and there was always work to be done, either setting up or packing to go home.
I’d toss and turn all night on a thin RV mattress while my parents’ snores kept me awake. I also remember how frustrated my dad seemed, fuming that no one was helping and vowing that next time, he’d leave us kids at home and go with just my mom. Packed into tight quarters, I’d retreat to the sole bedroom and click on my cassette player queued up with REM’s “Everybody Hurts” to fully lean int.
