You must be under 10 years of age

8.24.10 Salem, OR
Yesterday was a hard day. We found ourselves turning into what we thought was a way across the highway only to find it was a left hand turn lanes with a cement median for people going the other way. With the Airstream, once you have made the turn, you find that you cannot easily back up or readjust yourself mid turn. Luckily no came to make a left hand turn as we were waiting. We were able to make the turn into the parking lot. We still were shaken and could not find an easy place to eat so we went on. This is something that you do not think of when you are in a car in a new place trying to find some food. One of our biggest issues is how we can find a place where we want to eat the food and that has parking lots that can accomodate and let us turn around or get out of the parking lot. You really do not know until you turn in there and then like we found yesterday... you could be in a spot where there really is no place to park. So, here again, you are on to the new plan...

The next thing we tried was to find an RV park further up in Oregon off I5. We use Passport America, Good Sam's Club and the military famcamps as our primary camping places since they can give us discounts. I began the process of searching on my iPhone and in our books. I was not having much luck. Finally we decided to stay in Salem and Ted made the first call. The person taking the reservations began asking Ted questions that I had never heard before. He was saying things about the age of our Airstream. "It is a 1974." "I would say it is in good condition." Then he said, "what is this about? The appearance?" And then he laughed... I could tell that they were saying something about us not being in good enough shape for their RV park. Then he asked if they could give him any other numbers of RV parks in the area. I got mad. I said, "Just get off the phone." I did not want him to talk to these people any more.

I was mad. I could not believe that they would reject us for having a vintage trailer sight unseen. I love the funkiness of our Airstream, plus I like not being like everyone else when we pull into these RV parks. I don't like the fact that everything has to conform, they all have to be white or neutral colors. Everyone has to line up in the literal and figurative sense of the word. Does not seem right. I watched myself get madder and madder.

We called another place they did not ask about the age of our RV. The name of the place was Hee Hee Illihee. I felt that they must have a sense of humor. When we got here and were checking in I saw on a sign with the rules, which were extensive that once again, that your trailer had to be under ten years old. This time they could see the Airstream. They did not ask. I felt uncomfortable. I did not want to be asked the age and have to leave and find a new place to park. This RV park is new and when we spilled some cheese off our tacos on the cement before we had even ate our dinner, Ted ran inside and got the broom to sweep it up. We were very much trying to conform, not draw attention to ourselves, go along with the game plan. As were sitting outside having dinner and listening to the people next door talk trash during our dinner, I said to Ted, "This is not the way that I want to live." He said, "I know."