A son suggested, after the two young women who had purchased my pop-up camper had driven away, that I ought to recall a few trips.
And he has a point. As students, my brother and I had once, during a summer vacation, taken a single old motorcycle plus a pup tent we had to share, on a camping trip – to expand our horizons. Because of some torrential rains we twice gave up on the little tent to sleep in cob-webbed barns by permission of kindly farmers – but more than a generation later I purchased a pop-up.
The $5,800 brand new towable camper was the height of luxury. Small, schlepped by my Subaru Forester, I enjoyed many of New England’s campsites. Instead of tent poles it was a matter of quite heavy winding, plus struggling a door from the camper’s ceiling, after which I would then be inside a minuscule living area, with two double beds – one at each expanded end – and a gas refrigerator, with 2-ring gas cooker. There was also a small sink, with water that could be hand-pumped from a 3 gallon plastic container in a cupboard on the floor. The pop-up even had a gas furnace for cold October nights, again run from its standard refillable propane tank.
In the Adirondacks I enjoyed quiet Eaton Lake (a favorite, near Long Lake); Fish Creek; Ticonderoga and its paper mill odors when the wind was from the wrong direction – and further afield, Acadia National Park in Maine. How lovely that was, with its hills, views of the sea, and, that particular year, some glorious post-Labor Day weather.
Outside Middlebury, Vermont, I recall a delightful camping ground by a lake, with only about a dozen sites, mostly unoccupied. Having forgotten bathing suits, I remember we waded, after dark, far into the lake and swam under the stars.
Up near Amsterdam was a major NY State campground with hundreds of sites. It was also a good halfway meeting point, convenient for me and my brother, who drove down from near Toronto in his Westfalia. That VW Westfalia camper was a classic – they can still be seen on the roads today – with an openable roof and a double bed at the back. I can still picture it beneath the trees beside his camp fire, looking lilliputian between bus-sized motor homes with humming generators.
I had only owned my pop-up for a couple of years before the mud wasps found it. Partial to propane the pests managed to clog up a crucial part of the external mechanism for the refrigerator, and I never forget the actual owner of the mega RV store where I had originally bought my camper knowing exactly how to probe the gas connections, and fixing it himself – all the while smoking a managing-director-appropriate cigar.
Finally, although I’ve now sold my camper, I can still enjoy its picture on my refrigerator today – that familiar heavy table, where I did my writing and reading, pretty curtains around the zippered windows, and reasonably comfortable foam benches. But this time the photograph has a couple of unknown dogs on one of my double beds, looking eagerly at the camera – because those considerate young women who drove off with it emailed me two really nice images.
I hope the pop-up yields for them similar pleasures, as it heads into its new life.
David Nightingale is Professor of Emeritus of Physics at the State University of New York at New Paltz. His latest book is A Kitchen Course in Electricity and Magnetism, published by Springer, New York.
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