While we now travel in an A-frame trailer, my first recreational vehicle was a motorhome.
In the summer of 1975, my step-dog, her owner and I were planning a seven-month camping odyssey across the western US and we wanted to do it in style. With that in mind, I bought a 1965 (or so) Volkswagen camper van that had all the amenities one associates with luxury travel – a closet, a sink with water that could be hand-pumped from a built-in water tank, a built-in ice chest with a drain pipe for the meltwater and a fold-down bed big enough for two humans and one canine. Best of all, it had room for all the stuff that we motorhomers like to bring.
What it didn’t have was a furnace. Early in the trip, we were camped at the Mather Campground in the Grand Canyon. Temperatures plunged, snow fell and we found ourselves facing a three-dog night with only one dog between us. Worst of all, over the sound of our chattering teeth I could hear the built-in furnace of the camper next door kicking on and off. I swore that my next RV would have one of those.
It does.