My buddy Dave had just purchased a motor home. This was greeted by all with a lot of enthusiasm, since it had the potential for becoming vacation city. Jump in, turn on the video, and we’re in Kansas. So, one day I got this email from Dave saying he was going to have motor home driving lessons at the Fort formerly known as Devens. This was a nasty shock. Up until now, I had anticipated my total participation in the trip to be maybe mixing the drinks (“How many CRW members does it take to mix a martini?”). This sounded like Dave would actually expect his guests to participate in the driving (and possibly other onerous chores).
But I guess if I was going to be allowed on the Magic Bus, I should at least feign interest, so I signed up for the lesson. I decided to mix business with pleasure, and ride out to Devens.
Dave had sent out driving directions from Route 2, and since I really didn’t want to ride out on Route 2, I got out my trusty Street Atlas, and worked out a route to the appointed parking lot. I printed out detailed maps with circles and arrows, stuffed the maps and Dave’s cell phone number in my jersey, and set off. It was a particularly windy day, and it seemed I was heading straight into it. After a few miles I decided it was time for a map check, so I reached back for the map, but it wasn’t there. The mighty wind had blown it away, and I was left with a vague memory of the route I’d mapped out. It wasn’t a complicated route, so I decided I could do it from memory, stay on 225 forever, take a left, and a few more maneuvers. I needed to pop out at a rotary on Route 2A, at which point I would be within striking distance of Devens.
I was following a road, when there was a sign for said road that went nowhere except an industrial parking lot. Street Atlas is a fine program, but it sometimes shows roads that aren’t there (or that used to be there in the horse and buggy days). This looked like one of those. Needless to say, I did not pop out at the rotary as planned. I did encounter 2A, but of course, there were two choices, left or right. Given my superior navigational skills, I figured I had about a 75% chance of getting it wrong. After I made my choice, I saw a bunch of riders going the other way. Not for any good reason, this convinced me that I was going the wrong way. So I turned around and managed to overtake one who was on a mountain bike, and did what, as a guy, I should be mortally ashamed of. I asked directions. He told me that this was in fact the way to Devens, and a little while later, I came upon said rotary.
I remembered the name of the road to Devens from my erstwhile map, but what happened after that was a little sketchy. But I reasoned, how hard should it be to find a forty foot motor home? Harder than I imagined. I went down a road, turned around, went down another road, got into the Civil War zone (all the roads had names like “Antietam”), several more turns, and I had absolutely no idea of were I was, where I’d been, or how I got there. Meanwhile I was rapidly developing hypothermia from the gale force winds and scant ground cover. Just as I was about to give up hope, I looked up and there it was. Looming large in the adjacent parking lot was the motor home. Being the cautious type, I wasn’t sure it was the right motor home (looked a bit more grey than I remembered), but after checking the South Dakota plates, and noticing that people I recognized were ensconced therein, I concluded this was in fact the place.
There were about six of us who were participating. Mrs. D. was a ringer since she had driven Ed Kross’ motor home for RAAM. I figured I was eminently qualified, since I had captained a big rig of my own, the tandem. I hadn’t clipped the stoker’s pedal on a turn in a long time, so I was ready. There were subtle differences in the motor home driving experience versus tandem captaining. It became clear that the consequences of a miscalculation with the motor home were far more severe than clipping the stokers pedal on the tandem, and term “cutting corners” takes on a whole new meaning. At the end of my trial run, Dave was quite grey, and the rest of the passengers had scattered for cover in the back. I think the consensus was that I should stick to bicycles.
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