This year for my birthday Carly gave me a glimpse into my future.
At least that’s what she said as she handed me keys to the doublewide trailer we’d be spending the next 48 hours in. The Sou’Wester is a collection of rentable trailers and cabins located on the Washington coast outside the town of Long Beach.
Your trailer comes with a stove top, toaster oven, and t.v. with built in VHS player. We’ve got a big collection of videos here in the main house, feel free to take whatever you’d like.
We’d had one other recent experience with trailer parks, an operation in Eastern Oregon called “Good Sam’s RV Lot”. At the tail end of a weeklong road trip spent hiking, camping, and hot-springing through Washington, Idaho, and Montana we were on our final leg of the trip home and desperate for somewhere to sleep our last night on the road. So far through some combination of minimal planning, affability, and dumb luck we’d managed an incredible trip. We’d camped in a shady, wooded campsite near a creek. We’d camped at the base of a mountain one mile from the most incredible hot springs view I’ve ever experienced. We’d camped beside a miraculous alpine lake, just us and eleven empty campsites.
Our last night, we decided to camp somewhere in the general vicinity of home. We’d driven approximately six hours from a campsite off of Highway 12. We woke up that morning, ate a tasty oatmeal and egg breakfast in our quiet campground, and took a leisurely stroll along the river. Behind a heavily-wooded curve of highway we’d stripped off our clothes and skinny-dipped in the frigid river, crawling out to dry our skins in the crystal light of a sunny September morning.
Now we were on the final leg of our journey, headed for what we hoped would be a lakeside campground. The temperature had been climbing all day and by afternoon we were hot, restless, and more than ready to set up camp and jump into cold, clear water again. According to our technology, there was a scenic waterside campsite near the junction of Highway 12 and Highway 730. This is a lie. There is nothing scenic about that junction. We began to suspect as much when the landscape flying by outside went from rolling rural farmland to scabby, kind of scuffed up looking hillsides criss-crossed with electrical towers and giant blobs of rocky dirt.
The drastic change of landscape dragged me from my road-lull reverie with the first jolt of potential panic. So far we’d been so lucky, it was only a matter of time before that luck ran out. We were sweaty, and sleepy, and done with the road with no “charming waterfront campsites” to be seen. In fact, there was no waterfront anything except waterfront highway. At the junction we had a decision to make: left or right. Left would take us south, along the Oregon side of the Columbia River. Right would keep us on Highway 12 into the Tri-Cities region. My iPhone claimed there were plenty of camping opportunities in either direction, so at the last possible moment we chose to go left. Eastern Oregon. Oh how I loathe thee.
After the junction, the Columbia River was literally our right hand man, the road transitioning into a steep, gross little embankment that plunged straight into the water. Good Sam’s was tucked between a line of electric poles and the river. Desperation washed over me as Carly pulled into the horseshoe parking lot, and walked toward the office. The continuous hum of generators hung heavy in the air. An elderly man hobbled from the interior of his RV onto a presumably permanent wooden porch, expelled half his lung into the bushes, then calmly sipped his beer. He stood there a few moments, coughing, taking in the splendor of his American flag flapping in the breeze, hands tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
If personalized hells exist, mine resembles the row of permanent residences at Good Sam’s.
But I was charmed by Sou’Wester’s blue and white Zelmar cruiser. The wood-paneled walls, the careful collection of trinkets… Sitting at the laminate tabletop, feasting on fancy cheese and champagne, I was the birthday queen of the trailer park. We whiled away the next 48 hours playing chess, hiking to lighthouses, and strolling along various beaches. Watching the sun set while wading through a field of golden dune grass, Carly’s hand warming in mine. Collapsing into bed with a belly full of good food and port, my head spinning with colors. I know she meant it as a joke, but if this weekend was a glimpse into my future, I’d be damn lucky.
Lovers. I hope your cheese is always fancy, your trailers always doublewide, and your VHS players always built-in.
Xoxo
-b
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