In three days of travel, Wanda has added more than 1100 miles to her odometer. Tomorrow, she will crest 40,000 lifetime miles. I wish I had a cupcake and candle to celebrate her.
In RV years, Wanda is still a spring chicken at nearly 8 years old. There are a lot of vintage Winnies and Airstreams still out and about. While I was not Wanda’s original owner, when I found her in Thurmont, Maryland, she had less than 7,000 miles and was about a year old. Unfortunately, her first owner became ill right after he purchased her and was not able to make more than a few outings before he died. When I picked her up, a white plastic laundry basket with some of his personal items were still on board, and I let it stay until I needed the room for my own things.
I am funny that way.
When I first started thinking about getting an RV, a Class C like Wanda was not in the mix. In fact, far from it. My dream ride was something smaller, a Class B, that would be easy to navigate in towns like Santa Fe that have narrow streets. Even though I thought I would buy a gently used, older Roadtrek Adventurous, after about a year of research I had worked my way up to a new Pleasure-Way Plateau XL. It was perfect for one person, but comfy for two as well.
When I went back to the RV dealer for one final test drive of the Plateau, I took along two girlfriends. While they liked it, they were quick to point out that I would not be able to take both of them along at the same time, but if I would get THAT ONE OVER THERE, we could all travel together.
“That one over there” was Wanda, and no. She was not what I wanted. She had a slide, and I didn’t want a slide because if something goes wrong with it, the cost of repairs can be enormous. In comparison to a Class B, she looks like a behemoth, and I could not see myself driving something so big.
But, on the plus side, she was on a Mercedes Sprinter chassis and her interior was clean and bright, and she smelled factory new. She had a permanent full bed as opposed to a fold-down and a full shower, something that Frank thought would be nice to have. And she was nearly $70,000 less than the brand-new Plateau.
So, I changed my mind and brought her home just before Christmas 2017.
I would like to point out that the two friends that badgered me into buying Wanda have never taken a trip with me, and Frank has never used the shower. Trust me. I don’t let any of them forget it.
Driving an RV is similar to flying a plane. There is a lot of preparation, and there is a dedicated checklist to make sure everything is ready to go. Before every trip, I take Wanda in for a routine service checkup of not only her “house” but her chassis. Of course, there are always tiny things here and there, but this year brought the first truly big expenses when one of two motors in that dang slide (that I did not want) up and died. It was also time to replace all six of her tires, and they do not give those away.
But God is in the details, and it can take several hours to double check that every minor component is in working order because there is no time worse to figure out that something is wrong than when you are on the highway miles away from an RV service center. While I love my Mercedes Sprinter base, it is a combination workhorse and delicate flower. You cannot blow on it too hard – literally -- or else it starts to spew out messages like “ESP Disabled…Take to the Workshop.”
My friend, Kim, and I discovered this disconcerting fact one Sunday morning when the wind was blowing so hard in Nevada that it lifted one of Wanda’s wheels off the road. In response, she shut down anything related to her Electronic Stability Program that manages traction control including her anti-lock braking system.
We had to drive for another good hour in whipping winds that continued to batter us left and right before we were able to find cell coverage. Once that happened, we did a quick You Tube search and found out that simply turning off the engine would do a reset, and sure enough, everything went back to normal.
Another famous message I once received from Wanda was, “Only 10 Starts Remain.” Mercedes is nothing if not literal; it meant exactly what it said. I could only turn Wanda off and on again ten times. After that, she wasn’t going anywhere. Thankfully, Frank and I were close enough to civilization (Minneapolis) and with four starts remaining, we were fortunate to find a Mercedes dealership that would take us in immediately for a diagnostic and reset of Wanda’s onboard computer.
Events like these are why I ask all of the friends that want to join me on a trip if they are flexible and unflappable. My aforementioned friend, Kim, has set a high bar for those that follow. She can hook Wanda up as good as I can, and nothing phases her. She rolls with the punches, and this is a key element of successful RV’ing. You cannot let little things bother you, or else you are doomed.
Another thing you need when driving an RV is not only a sense of how ‘big’ you are, but the ability to focus. You have to be aware of your surroundings at all times, so this is why you make sure that your mirrors are always properly adjusted. Wanda does not have a rear window – not that it would be useful at all, but she has multi-mirrors that I have learned to check with frequency. It isn’t the large 18-wheelers that are an issue -- you can actually feel them coming because their drag starts to pull on you. It is the micro cars and motorcycles that race up alongside of you as if they have a bad case of Small Dog Syndrome with something to prove that will scare you to death.
On one of my first trips out West, I found a way to stay focused and prevent my mind from drifting when a road is long, straight, and exceptionally boring. I count dead armadillos.
The only explanation I can give for how this began is that I hold a deep desire to see a live armadillo. So far, they have evaded me, so when I saw a dead one on the side of the road in Texas, I was elated. Even though its body was bloated, and its little legs were stiff and stuck straight up in the air, I was thrilled to have finally seen the rare and elusive (at least to me) armadillo.
A few miles down the road, there was another dead armadillo. Then another, and another, and another. They were piling up so fast I realized I was losing count, so I turned it into a game. How many dead armadillos can I spy with my little eye?
Ask anyone that travels with me. I am going to count dead armadillos. I have seen them as far south as Georgia and Northern Florida, but nowhere in the world are they more populous than smack dab in the middle of the country, so once I got through Tennessee yesterday, the bodies started to pile up.
Actually, it was more like four dead armadillos, but that was a good start. I was still far from where the real action is. At least, that is what I thought. As I moved through Kentucky and into Missouri today, I counted a whopping 48 dead armadillos thereby surpassing my former record of 46 for an entire trip. There were tons of carcasses of varying sizes along the way, but I am a purist. Like any good medical examiner, if I cannot get a positive ID on a body, they don’t make my official DAC -- Dead Armadillo Count.
My criteria are straightforward. The best dead armadillo is fresh roadkill. They haven’t lost their distinctive hunchback shape. This phase does not last very long, especially in the summer heat, so I need to see one of three things: their brown, accordion-like outer shell; their white underbelly, preferably with four intact legs; or their sharp pointed tail. Even if they are flat as a flitter, as long as I can make out any of these characteristics, they go on the DAC. And I won’t budge. Even if I think it is an armadillo, if I cannot prove it, I mutter, ‘nope.’
Trust me, this is no small feat when you are driving 65 miles an hour in a 15,000 pound vehicle.
I am practiced at the art of carrion identification thanks to Bill Clark, the man that wrote the Peterson Field Guide to Hawks. For two years, I had the great privilege to study raptors under his tutelage, and whenever our class went off to wildlife refuges to better our ‘in flight’ identification skills, Bill gave me the job of Carrion Analyst. That is, I got to ride shot gun and hop out of the car to make the determination if a dead animal was a rabbit, fox, nutria, or other forest or water dwelling creature.
We also kept count of the total dead, and this was important information because we could determine if large communities of vultures would have enough to eat. Unlike the rest of their raptor brethren, they do not have strong, sharp talons or beaks that allow them to either do a fresh kill or pick the meat apart, so they are relegated to the role of nature’s undertakers that clean up the dead.
Today, I was highly energized by the increasing number of dead armadillos I was finding. The miles merrily fell away which was good because from point-to-point, I had to cover close to 500 marking the most I have ever covered in a single day solo. I got so engrossed that I did not notice that I was running dangerously low on diesel. Given that a Mercedes likes for you to know when it needs to blow its nose, it is odd that it does not provide a sufficient warning when it is low on fuel.
Luck was on my side, and I soon found a gas station with reasonably priced diesel, though at that moment, $10 a gallon would have been acceptable. This station had segregated its diesel pumps off to one side, and besides myself, there was only one other non-commercial vehicle at the pumps, a large white truck driven by a relatively nicer looking man. I felt comfortable enough to ask him, “is this diesel okay for my RV,” and he said yes.
While I was pumping the diesel, he said, “you know, you have something hanging off the back of your RV.”
Well, I didn’t know. Whatever it is, it wasn’t there when I left Paducah several hours before, and even though I hadn't heard a thump, I was worried I might have run over an armadillo myself and now it was hung up underneath Wanda's carriage. I pictured a huge bloody mess, but when we walked to around to the back, the dangly down thing turned out to be a rubber panel hanging down near my black water tank. The nice-looking man said, “I think it is your tank heater." I assessed that he was correct, and poked it back up into Wanda’s innards until I could get a bungie cord and do a better job.
He said, “you know, I saw you dragging this on the road, and I tried to get your attention, but you were looking straight ahead.”
Too embarrassed to say I was scouting for dead armadillos, I did a little ha-ha, and said, “I promised my husband that I would be safe on this trip, so I was really focused on the road.” For emphasis, I pretended that my hands were gripping a steering wheel.
“You sure were,” he said. “I tried for miles to wave at you.”
I thanked him for trying to help me out, and he smiled. He said, “it is something I would want someone to do for my wife.”
I could tell he was ready to continue our conversation, but there more little armored bodies to add to my DAC, so I said, “safe travels,” and pointed Wanda towards the buzzing highway.
Even though most wildlife specialists will tell you that armadillos have a small range that only includes Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida, I have unscientific but irrefutable proof that they are migrating in large numbers beyond their known boundaries.
I would document my DAC with photographic evidence, but another rule of RV’ing is that you never stop on an interstate unless it is for an emergency. It’s a good way to get run over, and there are at least 48 dead armadillos along the side of I-70 in Missouri that know that for sure, and I am relieved to say that I was not obliviously dragging another one along.
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