By Tim Sanders

Mankind has enjoyed vacationing since the dawn of history. It wasn’t always called "vacationing," but even when the early cave man told his co-foragers he was leaving for a couple of days to track down that woolly mammoth herd rumored to be ravaging the countryside a few counties away, he knew, deep down inside, that what he was doing was taking a vacation. And when he returned a few weeks later, all tanned and fit, he drew primitive stick figures on the cave walls showing where he’d been, and what he’d seen, and the wide-eyed look on his wife’s face when that sabre-toothed tiger chased her up a spruce tree over in the Yosemite region. Then, when his tribe members realized that they’d all be forced to look at those stupid vacation pictures over and over again, they took vacations, too.

My wife and I took a vacation a couple of weeks ago. Don’t worry, I won’t annoy you with a lot of crude cave drawings, although I like to think that I could do a fine job with stick figures if I put my mind to it. No, I am a journalist, and journalists write. So instead I will annoy you with an inspired, written recap of our vacation. Here, in masterful prose, is our vacation in a nutshell:

GAAAAAH!!

If you want details, I will give you some. I will capitalize introductory phrases, simply because that little voice in my head tells me to.

EARLY ON A MONDAY MORNING we left for the Florida panhandle, which is one of our favorite areas because a) we like the name "panhandle," b) the beaches there are beautiful and c) it is only 360 miles away. This last part is important because for at least half of that distance I had our dachshund, Maggie, on my lap.
AT HOME, Maggie does not like vehicles. On a long trip, however, she prefers the safety of our camper to those frightening rest stops, which she believes are terrorist hangouts. This means that walking her down the doggie path at a rest stop is an exercise in will power, with Marilyn or me pulling on the leash, while a little, short-legged jackass/dachshund digs in her heels and tries to pull us back to the camper. Needless to say, there was seldom any rest accomplished at those rest stops.

ONCE AT OUR CAMPSITE, Maggie gave up her fear of rest stops in favor of her fear of campsites. She did not like the looks of the grill, or the cement slab we parked on, or the people in adjoining campsites. Nor did she like the looks of the bathhouse, or the people coming in and out of it. Our vet had given us some doggie Valiums, and they helped. Marilyn and I each took one, and were able to get some sleep that first night.

ON OUR SECOND DAY, Maggie finally rested. We devised a strategy whereby we carried her a few hundred yards away from the campsite, which necessitated her walking back. About fifty yards from the camper, with our admonitions to "Rest, Maggie! REST, DAMMIT!" ringing in her ears, she stopped and rested. It was a large amount of rest for such a small, restless dog.

OUR CAMPER is self-contained, and really quite spacious inside–assuming that you are a circus midget. The main problem is with the couch, which folds out into a 72 X 48-inch bed. Marilyn felt that the bed was too uncomfortable, while my main problem with the bed was that once it was in the "sleep" position, you could only access it from the back end. That meant a lot of clambering around and hitting my head on several things with sharp edges, like microwave ovens and air conditioning units, which hung from the upper regions of the vehicle.

TO CORRECT THESE PROBLEMS, Marilyn purchased a nice, thick, 72-inch air mattress, which I believe was designed to be used as a fourteen-man life raft by our Pacific fleet during WWII. She loved the air mattress, and found it exceptionally comfortable. I, on the other hand, now had to deal with lying a foot-and-a-half higher on that bed in an area which was already a bit cramped, and thus finding any maneuvering even more fraught with danger. My experience navigating back and forth to the bathroom at night always went something like this: "OUCH ... YEEEOWTCH ... dang ... OOPS ... WHAT WAS THAT?" And the racket, of course, always woke the dog.

ON OUR THIRD DAY in Florida, I sat in the camper, holding Maggie on my lap, as Marilyn went into a place called the Donut Hole to purchase, ostensibly, donut holes. While I sat there, looking at the palm trees and explaining to Maggie about how global warming would soon force vast herds of displaced palms, with their young palmettos clinging desperately to their limbs, to migrate as far north as Indiana, I heard an alarming hissing noise. At first I thought it was air escaping from Marilyn’s 14-man jumbo life raft, but I was wrong, It was the air conditioner in our cab, losing air through what we’d be told later at Honest John’s Auto Repair and Pawn was either a couple of bad O-rings in the compressor or possibly something else, which could be ordered and might well arrive within the week. That two-minute diagnosis cost us $34.

IMAGINE, if you will, us arriving home very early last Thursday morning, the ligaments in my knee all rearranged due to a near fatal parasailing accident involving a collision with the boom of a 98 ft., twin diesel, double-masted sailboat on Santa Rosa Sound. Think about that little story for awhile, and think about what a bold, manly, athletic-type accident that must have been.

Now think about what really happened. Shortly after our air conditioner went south, so to speak, we stopped at a seafood market for some fish and scallops. I boldly got out of the camper, and as I strode in a manly, athletic fashion toward the store, pondering the relative merits of grouper versus tilapia, I tripped on a curb. The curb was not painted the recommended yellow color, but instead painted a very dark rust color which did not show up well in the shade of the building. It was a peculiarly graceless fall, although not nearly as goofy as the fall I took several years ago during another Florida trip, when instead of stumbling over a curb, I tripped over a loose ray of sunlight in a Dairy Queen parking lot. That Dairy Queen strolling double-gainer was especially embarrassing, because several elderly ladies were leaving the establishment at the time, and they immediately rushed to my aid. There were no old ladies at the seafood market, and I was able to hobble back into the camper with only an amused gentleman in an SUV noticing my misfortune.

SO, AFTER THREE DAYS we headed home. We’d had all the vacation we could stand. Next time, Marilyn says she’s leaving me, my walker and the dog in Alabama.