My First RV and Other Moments of Love and Despair

June 2001

For $5000, I changed my whole life. After doing research on the Internet, I found and bought an RV. Not that I knew anything about camping, mind you. Not that I'd ever been in an RV. But when I set my foot inside of it, I felt like I was home. And the price was right for making a major life change.

Some would call my RV old, but I prefer to call it "Classic." A 1977 Dodge Apache, 23 foot, Class C motorhome which means it looks like a U-Haul truck with a bunk over the cab of the van. I'd only owned one other car, the first machine I ever loved a white 1986 Toyota Celica. Sold it when I moved to New York City from the South. For months, I dreamed of returning to North Carolina, with the spare key I forgot to give the new owner, to steal it back and drive it away forever. I loved that car.

After over ten years being vehicle-free by choice, I was the excited owner of a very large vehicle. And after a month of testing the Apache in the Berkshires on short trips, getting a feel for it on the road, getting used to sleeping inside of it, I packed what I needed and left the city. Destination: Somewhere out West. Duration of the Trip: Unknown.

I was alone now, except for two small dogs and a very large vehicle. I felt the Apache under me, around me, as I drove I-95 North to Maine, the road rushing under us, a blur of motion. Never had been to Maine before. I listened to the motor roar, trying to understand the secret language of a Dodge 360 engine. Men have experience with machines practically from birth. For women, machines are foreign objects, not to be touched, difficult to understand.

For me, I wanted to touch the engine, know its curves and crevices. I lovingly checked the oil each time I filled the enormous tank of gas, pulling gently on the dipstick, rubbing away the old oil with a rag, re-inserting the dipstick slowly, deliberately, a two-handed technique. Then another slow pull and a careful examination of where the oil spread across the stick. Full.

Within a few days of my journey, I began to talk to the Apache. Words of encouragement at first, like when the road was at an incline and the engine strained. "You can do it," I'd say, "Come on, baby. Keep going." And I was patting its dashboard to reinforce my message, and I was patting its exterior each time I got out of it, feeling its bulk under my palm, confirming it was solid and strong and mine.

The Apache was my ride out of the high stress and low reward of life in the city, of endless days of loneliness hanging over me, of anxiety filling me up like a storm. The Apache was my $5000 ticket to freedom, to mobility, to being in constant motion across vast spaces. It was my home now, compact, uncomplicated, safe. The Apache was changing my life.

One week into my journey, while driving South out of Maine on I-95, the Apache's engine turned from a roar into an angry scream and then began clanking like a madman in an insane asylum beating metal on metal. My mind spun around as I tried to grasp the meaning of this new sound. What was it telling me? What had I done wrong?

I gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled and hyperventilating, saying "Please be okay, please be okay," over and over under my breath. I slowly turned off the highway, onto a side road, into the nearest gas station.

Heads turned as we clanged noisily to a stop. Heads shook in disbelief, in disapproval, all knowing before I did that my Apache was in serious jeopardy. Did they think it was my fault? I stepped from the large vehicle, a young woman, inexperienced in the ways of machines, naïve when it came to engines. That was clearly written across my face as I lifted the hood, trying to act and feel deliberate and knowledgeable. I checked the oil. Full.

"What is it?" I whispered, with tears stinging my eyes. "Tell me what's wrong." I begged of the Apache as it sat, mute and still, ignoring my pleas. Cold machine.

"Sounds bad," said an older man at the gas pump. I turned to him, feeling ashamed that I had failed the Apache somehow and people were there to witness my failure. "I heard you driving up and thought to myself, 'Sounds pretty bad.'"

I was being judged, I knew it. I was an incompetent, inexperienced woman who thought she knew what she was getting into when she bought a big RV, only her second time owning a vehicle, only her first time in a motorhome. Who was I to think I could handle this? What was I going to do now?

"The engine needs to be replaced," informed the mechanic at the gas station/garage on US Highway 1 where we were towed. My mind was still reeling from seeing the Apache being secured to the wrecker, cinched up onto the monster truck, rolling helplessly along the road we'd just driven down hours before. "From the sound of it, you broke a rod."

Broke a rod? How could I do a thing like that? How could this happen to me? Why didn't the Apache let me know something was wrong? I painfully went over every noise, every sign that may have warned me about this impending disaster. I had checked the oil like a fanatic, I had watched the coolant level, I had listened carefully to every new or unusual sound.

And then I remembered something that must have been the sign, something I couldn't interpret so chose to ignore. The oil gauge inside was slowly falling toward empty. But when I noticed that, I pulled over yet again to the nearest gas station to check the oil. Full. Always full. I told this to the mechanic who, I am sure, suppressed a laugh. "Dumb broad," I heard him say, but in reality he simply said, "That's the oil pressure, not oil level. Your oil pump must have failed."

Oil pressure. Not oil level. Why didn't I know this? Why didn't someone tell me? Why didn't I ask? Because of my ignorance, my bold-faced attempt at total independence, just me and a machine, I had destroyed an engine. Single-handedly decimated my ride to freedom. Mutilated a Dodge 360 engine. Killed my Apache.

$3800 and a week later, I was back on the road. I had to borrow the money, from family and friends, assuring them that I'd pay them back, explaining to them that I viewed this as the price I had to pay for my own ignorance. But that I couldn't let a broken rod keep me from heading West and pursuing my undefined dream. I couldn't let my lack of experience with machines, with engines, stop my journey dead in its tracks. This was the real cost of freedom. This was the reality of owning a big vehicle with a big engine for the very first time.

Nine months later, the Apache, my two dogs and I are still on the road. I am wiser now, better versed in the secret language of engines, and the mechanics I encounter actually raise an eyebrow when I open my mouth to explain some new sound or symptom that is causing me concern. I am knowledgeable. I am confident. I am a woman with a machine. And I am free.