Escapees November-December 2023

camping chair chat

professional medical team who quickly diagnosed the problem, and he recovered after a round of antibiotics. Ed and I were relieved to head home on April Fool’s Day. I foolishly believed that we had already experienced our annual catastrophic RV event and that the trip home would be enjoyable. We had a week layover in San Antonio to unwind and refresh. Unfortunately, we learned that our new rear RV tire was already worn. We consulted with our RV experts, who assured us that if we just replaced the tire and drove cautiously, we would make it safely home. While the AAA staff were replacing the tire, I extended the awning because it was raining. We did not know that a Texas rainstorm could quickly become a monsoon. Suddenly, a large boom jolted us, and we were horri fi ed when we realized that our (brand new) awning had collapsed and had been destroyed. When we left San Antonio, I was anxious but attributed it to my obsessing over the tire and the awning. Sometimes I cannot discern between my intuition and my natural tendency to worry, but I had a feeling that something would happen. While we were driving west of St. Louis on I-44, I noticed a plume of smoke rising from the rear RV tire. I desperately scanned the area for an exit, but the nearest one was far away, so I pulled over on the side of this busy, two-lane freeway. Remarkably, despite a considerable adrenaline surge, I grabbed my phone and called AAA. Ed climbed out of the passenger side to assess the situation. While glancing in the rearview mirror, I was horri fi ed to see my disabled husband rolling down a ravine! I was amazed at how quickly my 65-year-old body could leap over our console. My husband, Ed, was lying face down but could get up with assistance. He exclaimed that he lost his footing because of the shock of seeing that our tire was gone and only the axle remained. Eventually, we were towed to our campground and tried to decompress. After recounting the catastrophes of our road trip to friends and relatives, some suggested quitting the RV life. They could not comprehend how we would recover from so much trauma and verbalized their concern about my mental health. Remarkably, I feel stronger because we experienced some things I fear the most. We survived and used our critical thinking skills after this trip, and I decided to focus on gratitude for everything, both the good as well as thebad. Yes, I have mental disorders, but I am learning how to channel them so that they are assets, and I am fully embracing the RV life, part-time, of course. Marie Haas #182749

Not Just Cold Florida Cold

Like many RVers, we’re from a place with real winters, where the wind blows heavy snows into drifts and shuts the highway down. So we were unhappily surprised to arrive in Florida our fi rst December wear ing fl ip fl ops, only to run back inside the camper and start layering on button-ups and fl eece jackets. It was 58 degrees. N ow, had it been 58 degrees on a December day in our home state, we’d have been in T-shirts, strutting around proudly and bragging about how warm we were. But the sight of palm trees made all that a moot point. That Christmas, we threw the kids in the pool and told them to look happy while we took pictures of them for the folks back home. When they got out, they were shivering and asking for hot chocolate. What was going on, we wondered? Was it a case of false advertising? Were we really going to be able to enjoy afternoons poolside and evenings strolling through Downtown Disney in our short sleeves? Had we taken a wrong turn and ended up in Minnesota? While it never gets really cold in Florida like it does in our blizzardy home states, it can be surprisingly chilly. In North Florida, for example, the wintertime lows

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November/December 2023 ESCAPEES Magazine