Our Honeymoon

I don't know if you're planning on honeymooning in a souped-up, tricked-out Volkswagen Westfalia camper, but if you are, let me be the first to put a stop to your plans. Raegan and I were just recently married – on August 31st, not even a full month ago. We wanted to spend our honeymoon touring the country and had a camper especially built for the trip. This thing had it all: air-conditioning, power steering, cruise control, halogen headlights, enormous tires, better brakes, a sweet suspension, an extra battery, an indestructible rear bumper with custom-built gas can/spare tire holder, and the coup de grace -- a 92 Nissan Maxima engine with 190 horsepower (the old VW engine had 90). The wedding went off without a hitch. Even the weather was perfect. Now, we thought, if we can only survive the Honeymoon: four weeks of nothing but each other, living in a space the size of a closet, we'll have sure proof our marriage will last.

And then we started off. Within hours, the air-conditioner unit proved too heavy for its housing (above the rear seat, suspended from the ceiling), and the bottom was ready to drop. I kept it propped up by balancing it on the rear-closet door and we pulled into the nearest Home Depot. I managed a makeshift fix with some wire and a few screws and we were back on the road.

Now, if this were the end of the tale it would be a sure loser, but this is not even the tip of the iceberg (or mountain, as the case may be).

After a day of driving, we hit Erie, PA and were ready for our first night of camping. We found a campsite right on Lake Erie, squeezed between a couple R.V.'s, and made our way down the beach. It was perfect; we would sleep at the water's edge to the sound of the waves lapping the sand. We wondered why no other campers were parked as far down on the beach as we were and in the morning we found out why. Thanks to our heavy engine, overnight the camper had buried itself in the sand. Our huge tires provided little traction (this comes into play again later). We were stuck and a storm was headed our way. I tried desperately to dig us out, sticking rocks and things under the wheels as I got pummeled by the cold rain. But nothing worked. Finally, the campsite manager got a guy out to us with a truck and a rope and with the help of five other guys pushing from behind we managed to extricate the camper and were on our way.

(By the way, the temperature got down to about 35 degrees that night and we had not packed anything warm enough. We awoke in the middle of the night, nearly frostbitten, put on as many clothes as we could and returned to our pop-up tent bed. We got little sleep that night as freezing rain pounded our roof and soaked our canvas tent walls. But this, as it turns out, was also small potatoes, hardly worth mentioning.)

Days later, things started to really go downhill. We're on highway 10 in Jennings Louisiana, the Deep South, when for no apparent reason the stereo dies. Then the dashboard lights go out. Then the cruise control goes. Then the A.C. fails. It was like we were stuck in a Twilight Zone episode. Was there some short in the electrical system somewhere? And then it hit me – I had forgotten to unplug my razor charger from the camper's electrical outlet when we left the last campsite – a huge no no. It had been plugged in for nearly five hours, sucking the life out of the batteries! I yanked the charger from the outlet, but to no avail. Our systems were still failing and it was starting to get dark. Thankfully, just up ahead was a pulloff with a gas station/restaurant and a motel.

As we pull into the station, Raegan tries turning on the headlights -- just to see what'll happen. The engine dies instantly. I go inside to get help and am floored by the condition of this restaurant. Who would eat at such a place? No surprise there's not a soul in it. I call AAA and they say they'll get someone out as soon as they can, but it might be a while. I think about eating, but wonder if the food would make me more nauseous than I already am. I decide not to push my luck.

Two hours later a husband and wife team show up. And that's when Raegan and I learn there are levels of stupidity in this country that neither of us have previously been acquainted with. Example: when I ask the woman how far they had to drive to get to us, she replies, "I don't know. He was driving."

They jumpstart the battery and the camper roars to life. We let the engine run to charge the battery and then try to start it up again. Nothing. The battery isn't charging. We call Marco, the guy who built the vehicle. He says the alternator must have died. Luckily (and this is the only lucky thing that happens on our trip), Marco had left us a spare alternator, as though he knew something like this might happen. But the AAA guy refuses to switch the alternators without calling in for back-up. Forty minutes later, his boss pulls up. Neither one of them will speak more than a couple words to us and the syllables that emerge are in a thick, unintelligible Creole. They won't even talk to Marco on the phone, as if to do so would put their own expertise in jeopardy. Raegan and I step back into the restaurant to get away for a moment and we can't believe our eyes. The place is full of people. Everyone in there has a huge Crocodile Dundee knife on his belt (presumably for dealing with actual crocodiles) and they're all staring at us like we're from another planet (which by all accounts, we might as well be).

Did I mention the bugs? They had bugs so big down there at times we couldn't tell if it was a bug or a bird. We could actually hear them hit our van. The AAA man's wife says if one of the primordial beetles crawling towards me decides to bite my leg, it would swell up to three times its size (my leg, not the bug). When Raegan asks if it's always this buggy, the woman replies, "You're in Louisiana, now." Well, at least she knows where we are.

Suddenly, boss-mechanic gets feisty. I can tell by his face and his gesticulations that he's not happy. He doesn't want to put in the alternator – the one that actually works. After several repetitions, I realize he's saying, "This isn't the original alternator." Now if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that the alternator he's holding is our original alternator (Marco had given us a bigger, better one for the trip.) Finally, he elaborates: "This is a Nissan alternator."

I don't know how else to say it, so I just say it: "It's a Nissan engine. See there where it says 'Nissan'?" The mechanic says nothing, but gets back to work.

They get the thing in, and with Marco's help I manage to rewire it. It works! The engine is charging the battery. We thank the mechanics, tip them handsomely (in return for letting us keep our lives) and drive off as quickly as is legally allowed. We're so freaked out, we drive on through the night so as to put as many miles between ourselves and Jennings as possible.

The next day, Texas is so hot the air-conditioner can't keep up, despite the fact that ice is forming on the back of the unit. What's more, water is now literally pouring down the interior walls of the camper, soaking our luggage and bed cushions. I stuff the A.C. compartment with camping towels, hoping it'll sop up the water as we go, but to no avail. Water continues to leak. A day or so later, I finally figure out the exhaust hose got disconnected from the unit when the housing nearly fell apart way back on the first day, and am able to reattach it. Another problem solved.

If this were the end of the story I would again advise you to cast it aside as a losing entry, but we're still not nearly into the thick of it.

In New Mexico, things are finally looking up (or down into the Earth, as the case may be). We had just been 750 feet into a mountain to check out the stunning Carlsbad Caverns, some about as big as the towns we'd driven through. We're still readjusting from the perfect coolness of the clean cavern air and the rare peace of total sensory deprivation. Fortunately, what with our humongous tires, our ride is super-smooth. So smooth we didn't even notice we were going ten miles over the speed limit. But the main reason we didn't notice we were speeding was because Marco had forgotten to adjust the speedometer to accommodate the new tire size. In fact, we would never have known had we not been pulled over and given a speeding ticket. In fact, all along we'd been wondering why everyone else was driving so slowly. Has the whole nation gone cautious? As it turns out, we'd been driving ten miles over for the entire honeymoon, sometimes doing as much a ninety-five on the highway. Pretty good for an '84 Camper.

Wyoming, though, is where things truly got out of hand. We're at a fork in the road on highway 14 and decide to take 14A, the scenic route. We're low on gas but think we have enough to get us to the next town (as it turns out, we may have been wrong).

As we travel up into the Big Horn mountains, the scenery gets more and more beautiful. Cold, but gorgeous. Free-range cattle are walking along the side of the road. The view is simply breathtaking. Soon it begins to rain and I wonder if anything's going to freeze up. Suddenly: it's snowing! We never expected snow on our honeymoon so we're pretty excited. But the heat in the van can't compete, it gets cold, and ice begins to build up on the windshield. We're driving through a total whiteout. And have I mentioned the wind? It's ferocious. We somehow make it to the top of this mountain road and begin our descent. I'm thinking, "As long as we're going straight we should be okay." And then the car slides, just a tiny bit. I try to correct for the slide, but there's no correcting to be had. The wind or the slush or both pushes the car farther into a spin until we're travelling backwards, down the mountain, on the wrong side of the road. But oncoming traffic was the last thing I was worried about. In fact, in the last twenty or so minutes, we hadn't seen a single car. I was more concerned about getting stranded with no heat at the top of a snow-covered mountain, miles away from anything.

There was simply no stopping the car. The brakes were doing nothing, so I gave it all up to God. Seconds later we were off the road and flipping down the shallow (thank you, God) mountain grade. The van finally came to a stop – upside-down, about thirty feet from the road. I shouted to make sure Raegan was okay. She said she was, and helped me out of my seatbelt (we had both been wearing them). We smelled gas and knew we needed to get out of there since there's a propane tank on board with a live flame running the fridge. No pressure, right? Neither door would open so we crawled through the busted-out driver-side window. Raegan heard a car coming and ran to the road (with no shoes on, by the way, but still wrapped up in a sleeping bag she had been sitting in to keep off the cold), shouting for help. It took the man a minute to safely stop his car.

The kid driving turned out to be a fireman-in training, eager to help. Our stuff was strewn all over the side of the road, including our wedding clothes and gifts, but we gathered what we could together and loaded it into our rescuer's car. I crawled back into the camper to fish out my wallet and cell phone, and it was like Carlsbad Cavern all over again. Only I couldn't help but think at any moment the car was going to collapse on top of me. By the time I emerged, safe and victorious, two or three other cars had stopped to help, and called the police. In the fireman's car, Raegan and I can't stop touching each other. We know how lucky we were, how close we were to losing each other, and make a solemn vow to never fight about anything again.

We meet the officer halfway down the mountain. Instantly, we can tell he's more irritated by us than he is concerned for our safety. He says, "I really needed you two to stay with the vehicle."

"With all due respect," I say, "It's snowing like crazy up there. Freezing cold winds. Plus there's always the possibility our camper could explode. It's an old '84 and there's a propane tank on it, you see, and..."

"It's snowing up there?" he says.

"Where's the nearest car rental place?" Raegan asks abruptly.

"That'd be Cody Airport, about fifty miles away."

"Is there a bus we can take to get there?"

"No ma'am, there sure isn't."

"Taxi?"

"Nope."
"Snow in September, no public transportation, what kind of place is this?" Raegan says.
"You're in Wyoming, now," he says.

He tells us to head to Lovell, the closest town, ten miles away. There's a Super-8. He'll meet up with us later. On the way down we get to talking. The fireman-in-training says we we're lucky we slid where we did. Farther down the road it gets really curvy and the drop-offs are sheer cliffs. The grade is the steepest in the country, he says, eleven percent.

He drops us off at the motel and later the cop returns, apologetic after seeing the severity of the crash, and drives us to the local ER. For the most part, we're sore but uninjured. Raegan has a big bump on her forehead.

The hospital is empty. We walk around shouting "Hello!" until the nurse emerges and says she'll have to call the doctor and the x-ray technician at home and have them come in. We're checked-out, x-rayed, and everything looks okay. The nurse, a peach, offers to drive us to Cody Airport the next morning. She's headed that way anyway. If we don't mind leaving at six a.m...

Cody airport is a tiny building no larger than our apartment. We walk up to the Thrifty Car Rental counter, and there's a handwritten sign: "Cleaning cars, back in 30 minutes." No matter, we've got plenty of time. Bored, I look around. And that's when I see the flyer. It reads: "WAS YOUR HONEYMOON THE STUFF NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF?...Tell us all about your own honeymoon disaster..you could win a second honeymoon!" I can't believe it. I show it to Raegan and we laugh and start deciding where we want to go.

When the clerk finally shows up, I tell her, "You are looking at the next winner of this contest." Then we tell her our story.

"Sounds like you win," she said. "But unfortunately we're all out of cars."

That's okay. We've still got nothing but time. There are two other agencies here. Surely one of them will have a car.

And then a voice comes over the loudspeaker (did I mention the date is September 13?): "The airport must be completely evacuated. We are conducting a terrorism drill."

The honeymoon is just beginning.

R.I.P. MADGE I