My Sister, Our Kids, And A Motor Home

This story is stretching my memory because it happened when Melanie was five so that was thirty seven years ago. Rosie called me one day when my husband and I were at our brokest. I don’t know if that is a word, but it works for me. At that time, I generally made pancakes for supper every night from scratch. I remember Wally telling me that if he never ate another pancake it would be too soon. They were good pancakes, I had made the homemade apple butter for them, or the homemade chokecherry syrup or whatever we wanted, everything was homemade.
Anyway, Rosie had called me and said that she would like me and the kids to go to Kentucky with her and Julie in the motor home. Oh, I could have cried. I wanted to go so bad, I could taste it, but there was no way that I could squeeze out enough money to go on a trip. In my mind, Kentucky was half way around the world. So of course, I told her the truth, I would love to go, but I just couldn’t. Then she said the magic words, she said she would pay for everything but what I wanted to spend on the kids. Rosie said she would pay for our food even. Oooh, things were getting a little easier for me to visit with Wally now. You have to understand that Wally was a proud man. He wouldn’t even let me buy clothes at a yard sale because he wore hand me downs all his life. So this little “visit” was going to be difficult I knew. Wally was a proud man, but he was a soft old teddy bear. He said I could take twenty five dollars on the trip and food out of the pantry to take on the motor home.
I almost broke both legs getting back to the telephone to call Rosie back.
I think that Wally took me to Sioux City and we loaded up the motor home. I took home canned pickles, and all kinds of things that I had “put up.” Rosie and Jr’s motor home was called a Champion. It was beautiful. I have only pictures that I got from the internet of their motor home from the same year. It was a big old thing, but you put three little kids and two grown ups in it somehow it shrinks.
Rosie had a travel plan. We were going to go to Indiana to Santa Claus, Indiana and we were going to go to Adventure Land in Iowa. I think it was like a miniature version of Six Flags. There were many stops for us along the way too. One of the places my sister just loved to go was to visit the Amish Colonies. She loved to have some time to do some “wine tasting” and she inevitably bought some goodies.
Ok, let’s get started on our trip. Wally went back home, I made sure I had all of my babys’ things packed away and out of the way. Rosie, got behind the wheel, I sat in the co-pilot’s seat and away we went. NOT! Everything in the refrigerator flew out and all over the floor. So Rosie had to stop and go to a store right there in Sioux City and get something to keep the refrigerator door closed. It took all I had to keep it closed manually until she got some tape or maybe Velcro so it would stay closed. I may have said something to her that I hoped that that was not going to set the tune for our trip, but we just laughed and took off like fools.
Our next stop was the Amish colonies. Everything was going extremely well there. Rosie didn’t do too much “tasting” I think she bought a broom or a quilt and away we went.
We both had stocked the motor home with food for sandwiches and goodies, so every so often, Rosie would stop for potty breaks and we would have a picnic. The kids loved it and so did we. Rosie and I were separated by age and miles. She worked as a nurse and I as a housewife and mother. So our quality time together was extremely limited. So what I am trying to explain to you readers, is that our mouths were going a hundred miles an hour in visiting not just eating.
If memory serves me right, we went to Adventure Land next which is somewhere by Des Moines, Iowa. It’s really strange, it has only been thirty seven years, why can’t I remember all of this? Well anyway, we had an absolute ball there. I got my sister on the log flume and I thought she was going to scream her lungs out. We had so much fun. It was so good for our little ones too, to see their moms in a different perspective. They were acting pretty "goofy!"
We decided that we were going to drive straight through to Kentucky so that we could spend more time with Rosie’s mother-in-law. Now I have to stop here, because when I woke up this morning I started thinking about this story. The first place we stopped in Kentucky was not “Mammy” or Jr’s mother’s, it was his sister’s house, I believe her name was Pauline. We had arrived a day early, so that’s why the gun. By the time we got to her house it was late at night and Rosie knocked at the door and a guy came out with a gun and pointed it at her stomach. I thought I was going to faint. I am sitting here laughing my head off. That’s what happened later that night too, but not right then. Anyway when they later realized who Rosie was, we were invited in and the gun put away. I ushered the kids out to the motor home after awhile and put them to bed. They were utterly exhausted it was way after midnight.
I went to bed with a magazine, but kept one ear and eye on the door to make sure my sister was going to be okay with those crazy people. After awhile she came out to the motor home and I could tell she had been “tasting.” What, I don’t know, but where we were in Kentucky, it was a dry county, so it was probably moonshine mixed with soda. Anyway she and I were visiting and I could hear her get her bed ready which as most of you know that have ever camped, was the kitchen table. She was closer to the windshield and my bed was closer to the kids. She was really talking and laughing and I was grinning to myself, wondering what she had been “tasting” when all of a sudden the most horrible noise and a great big thump followed by a “uh!!” My poor sister’s bed had collapsed. She evidently had put the boards too close to the edge when she put the bed together and when she rolled over, down she went. Her legs were up and her head was up and her bottom was on the floor; she was a perfect V. I had to get up and help her out of her situation, which wasn't all that easy either. I thought we would never quit laughing. We were still laughing when the sun was coming up. We would get real quiet, then someone would go, “uhm, uhm” then it would start all over again. This is a two part story. The second part of this story is probably even funnier than this one. What a crazy trip. See you later, from the boon docks of Kentucky!