Dateline:

DeTour Village, Michigan

Preparations underway for Saratoga Springs, NY, and the inaugural launch of the Vintage Trailer Jam, a watershed moment in RV history, we are burdened by a major decision.  Should we take ?

• Pre-WWII wagon from our villa in Tuscany, powered by the 1923 Paige, or
• The not so vintage, 1986 Excella, in hibernation after an unusually harsh winter

 

      OR          Although both are pictured here, our dilemma is solved by choosing the latter.        

Jack, unsure of his loyalty, must decide between his favorite vertical target, the fire hydrant surrounded by affalo grass, or shotgun seating in the Silverado.          

Our major companion, Lynn, reacted rather predictably when I proposed the 1,100 mile trip to dry-camp for four days in a mosquito infested state park, the same state whose Governor was recently dismissed for keeping company with prostitutes. No ambivalence here as she responded,  “you want to go where ?”,  

“to do what ?”,

“for how long ?”

Evidently she does not follow the  Tour of America  or the fascinating  R. Luhr blog site. In fact, I recently overheard her in a whispered conversation with a ‘friend’ as she was requesting advice on how to have her cell phone records erased. Next, by examining her computer history, I discovered that her two most visited websites are  E-Harmony  and  Match.Com  .

Any suspicions I might have had were completely unfounded as she explained that she really liked that smarmy spokesperson, the toothy guy with the engaging smile, that founded E-Harmony, and all the wonderful stories of couples finding one another. Like watching  The Hallmark Channel  on your computer while searching for sword swallowers or ukelele players, she explained.

 Was I relieved ?  Oh my, yes.   I was certain that she planned to replace me with an ocarina maestro, a lyre strummer, a picker of the Jew’s harp, or some other obscure, and thankfully forgotten talent in the trash heap of musical lore.

Tomorrow, our relationship happily rescued by watching Dr. Phil reruns, and the promise to see the visiting company of the New York City Ballet Troupe, we begin the trip eastward to Saratoga.

My next entry will address name badges and other forms of dictatorship. Not rated PG-13, it will contain (L,AS, N, V).          

In a quest for journalistic authenticity, I have attempted to enlist two popular travel authorities to assist in the coverage of the upcoming Vintage Trailer Jam , an inaugural event with geoglobal interest.  

First, the popular Rick Steves, author of Europe Through the Back Door, one of those fictitious how-to books that fantasizes a vacation on $5/day when we know it costs three euros just to use the toilet.        

Rick, pictured here, is in Bosnia/Hercegovina and somehow feels that filming Sarajevo  trumps Saratoga.  His e-mails to me are almost always curt, terse, and monosyllabic, and today’s was not an exception. When asked if he and his production company would have any interest in dozens of aged trailers filmed in a park like setting with the Adirondack background , the answer required a mere one-thirteenth of the alphabet.  

NO

Undeterred by rejection, I contacted Kevin Brown, husband of the pert, juicy, firm-figured Samantha Brown, host of her own travel series and more importantly, the cheerful spokesperson for Champion Storm Windows.  He was at least kind enough to forward a picture of Samantha on another boring, food-borne-illness, cruise ship contemplating whether to fly to New York to join us at the trailer jam.  Note the furrowed brow set atop her otherwise exquisitely sensuous frame, well, you can certainly empathize her indecision.    

Shortly thereafter she was photographed again, this time in yet another third world hovel, seeking the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  That girl, how does she stay so slim, eating desserts & scarfing down all the locally popular intoxicants ?  It must be those long evenings on the dance floor, late-night clubbing with the home-grown lotharios, while poor Kevin, software geek, has to stay home and watch the dog.  

He can be quite cranky, surely no student of Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, and his e-mail ended in a threatening tone, something on the order of…..’ and I want you to stop stalking my wife, xxxhole’.   That Kevin, he’s such a hoot; should have specialized in proctology.    

Requests directed to popular news and travel organizations, i.e., National Geographic Traveler, New York Times Sunday Travel section, and the supermarket pulp grade tabloid, Trailer Life, met with similar rejections. Almost as if some mass media conspiracy exists for the sole purpose of not reporting on the Vintage Trailer Jam .  

Fear not, bloggees ( at latest count, numbering in the low single digits, the actual number of time wasters reading this nonsense)  you will be able to attend, albeit vicariously, through this column.   If, for example, any of the common Dilbert phraseology is used at any time during the event, you will be the first to be alerted. This includes, but is not limited to, the following corporate buzzwords:

• timeline
• doable
• proactive
• walk the talk
• low hanging fruit
• sustainability
• crunch the numbers
• seamless
• ball park
• bottom feeder
• one on one

Like that brainless sit-com theme song, “I’ll be there for you…..”

Stay tuned, friends.