GRILL!: The Misadventures of an RV Park Fast-Fry Cook. Diane Stegman

      Not that I have lived by this joke question for the entire length of my fifty-one years. It’s just that I heard this joke the other day and it seemed to justify my current vagabond lifestyle. Someday, perhaps, I will attempt to figure out yet one more plan, but for now I am behind the wheel of my car loaded with everything I own including my two Chihuahua mix friends. They are staring at me with big ears silhouetted by sunlight as they sit atop a pile of blankets in the passenger seat. “Are we home yet?” seems to be pleading from Bonita’s anxious and concerned little barks. She wants to get the hell out of this car! Her partner in crime, Bandito, tends to keep his concerns internal, yet I know they are there.

      “No, my little darlings. We are homeless for the moment.” I mutter, unsure of how long this “moment” will last.

      We had a very difficult night last night. It was our first night on the road leaving Ashland, Oregon, my sister, my rented mobile home, and my second shitty underpaid job in a two-year span. I had no plan; but I did have a tent and my first day and night went something like this:

      I had driven most of the day heading south in search of a working summer vacation. By late afternoon, I was ready for a break so I found an RV park in Jamesburg. The space cost me $20. I felt pretty proud of myself. I had never camped alone before. The first thing I had to do was retrieve the portable dog fences from the bottom of the trunk. I had brought three of them. They extend to sixteen feet each, giving my dogs forty-eight feet of freedom. My plan was to surround the tent so I could have my own space and my dogs could be relatively free. The fences were more of a problem than I had wanted. They consumed too much trunk space and were very heavy, but folded up quite nicely.

      It was a beautiful June day and I had picked a spot near a thick wall of blackberry brush. It wasn’t until I had completely set up my tent, fences, and Coleman stove, that I had the thought that bears like blackberries! Suddenly, my protective fencing seemed like it was made of toothpicks. I pushed the horrible thoughts out of my mind and continued setting up camp. I had to remind myself that this was going to be a great adventure and fears were not welcome.

      I fed the dogs and made myself something to eat from my provisions. The coffee was out and ready for morning. My padding and blankets were ready for a warm comfortable night’s sleep. I had decided that I would leave the tent’s skylight open for the night to watch the stars. After a nice evening walk with my dogs, I settled in for the night with my fluorescent lantern and a book.

      Off in the far distance I could hear the low drum of thunder. It was a very dark moonless night when I turned off the lantern for lack of interest in my book. Reading felt a bit too casual under the circumstances, since my concentration was bouncing all over the place. Bonita and Bandito were nervous and I could feel them staring at me like I was crazy even in the pitch black of the tent. They were waiting to go to bed someplace other than right here.

      It was hard to get comfortable. My down comforter, folded in half, was not as soft as I had hoped. I could still feel the chilly, hard ground beneath me. Wait just a minute! I began to recall the last time I had slept in a tent. That was about ten years ago on a stupid cut-short trip to Alaska with my once dear friend Jodi. We were going to hike and camp. She started her period on the plane, which made me nervous, since we had just read a notice about bears in Alaska. We read together that it was not a good idea to hike when a woman is menstruating due to the fact that the bear would follow the scent. On our first night of sleepless, bearless camping, I woke with my neck bound as tight as cement and as painful as if it were broken. I also caught pneumonia. Both events caused by, what I later learned, perma-frost. This happens when you sleep on the ground in a tent, the ground being frozen twelve inches below the surface. Needless to say, we caught the first flight home and never spoke to each other again. It took me two months to regain my strength.

      The sky suddenly burst with light followed by thunder that was slightly louder than before. I crawled out of the tent to search for an approaching storm. Weird, I saw no clouds. As I crawled back into my tent I had to remind myself that this was not Alaska. I was in the sunny state of California.

      I lay in the dark with the dogs. It wasn’t too long after that when a burst of light lit up the entire tent. I could see the dogs in that split second. They were on both sides of my head staring down at me, eyes wide, and ears high like stone statues. I had to laugh. I was laughing quite loud when the bolt of lightening hit very near to us like a bomb, followed by the heavy slow plops of rain hitting the tent, the plops increasing like microwave popcorn. I had to hurry and put the skylight cover back on the tent. By this time the wind had kicked up and it was dark, so I turned on my car lights facing the tent so I could see. It was now pouring, and I was wet and the dogs were panicked. I put them in the car, grabbed all my wet blankets, wet clothes, wet stove, wet tent, and stuffed everything into any and all extra space in the trunk and back seat. Once in the car, I turned on the heater, saw the time (1:30AM), and we watched and ducked the passing thunder and lightening storm until dawn, which was quite beautiful in spite of the circumstances.

      I had not counted on storms. The inside of my car smelled like wet dog and down feathers. All that the storm left in its wake were wonderful puffy pink clouds. I had not removed the fencing, so I put the dogs in their yard and made coffee on my Coleman stove. It was around 5:00AM at this point. I was still wet. I told myself that I could not do this again, that today—no, this morning, I would find a job and a house!

      I began to unload the wet tent and blankets from the trunk to make room for the wet heavy fencing, put the dogs in the car atop the pile of wet blankets in the passenger seat, drove to the restroom and shower area, dried my hair and changed my clothes. By 6:30AM I was back on the road headed south through the national park. After an hour on the road I saw a small café. The day was warming up quite nicely. I parked, got the dogs out for a short walk, and then went in to see if they were looking for any help. I also needed a good breakfast.

      There was no newspaper, so after my wonderful breakfast I approached my waitress with my inquiry.