When I was younger, I had goals. Lofty, noble goals.
Like driving an RV and living in Alaska
Yep. When we lived in Florida, at the tender age of five, I resolved to:
1. Purchase an RV.
2. Learn to drive above RV with considerable skill.
3. Drive above RV to Alaska (I was desperate to see snow, after all).
4. Drive around Alaska in above RV and live in it "all the time."
I had it all planned out: my RV would be huge - big-screen TV, full-sized bed (I was getting sick of my twin bunkbeds at the time), couch and recliner, kitchenette is a must (I'd be living out of it, after all!), HAM radio, comfy driving seats, mucho shelf and storage space for all my books, and (of course) prints of van Gogh's and Turner's greatest paintings on the walls... oh, and fresh flowers. in vases fused to various surfaces.
I was awesome. I had it all planned out. I'd winter in Anchorage - and find a hotel that would pity me and offer me a free plug-in to keep the RV from freezing beyond recognition. [The notion of "plug-ins" for cars had only recently been explained to me by my father. As I'd only lived in Arkansas and Florida at that point, I had some trouble fathoming temperatures dropping that low. I was fascinated.] I'd spend my summers driving along to all the major must-do's in Alaska - Anchorage, Fairbanks, Valdez, Seward, Fort Yukon, Nome, even up to Barrow. And what about Juneau? Well, even at the tender age of five, I'd already read (I swear! I read all the time!) in an encyclopedia (Yeah, I even read those...) that the great Alaskan capitol was only accessible by plane or boat. Fearing my RV, heaving under the great stress of my worldly treasures (I knew I was a packrat), would sink the ferry, I resolved to station it in Valdez until I completed my tour of Juneau and Skagway. I also realized the necessity of repeating this RV-abandonment when seeing the Alexander Archipelago, the Aleutian Islands and Kodiak Island.
I presented the whole plan to my parents, and told them I'd drive down the highway through Canada to see them every now-and-then. I think they were so impressed that I knew the colonial capitol of Alaska ("New Archangel was the capitol of Alaska when the Russians ran it. But now it's called Sitka. I'll have to go there when I take boats around the Alexander Archipelago..."), that they became too tongue-tied to oppose my Alaskan dreams.
I suppose, years passed... and it was assumed my RV aspirations passed as well. Fast-forward to the early 1990s. I was about twelve or thirteen. I somehow ended up at an RV show in the Quad Cities with my parents, and my Alaskan dreams resurfaced... much to their horror. I'm sure they regret taking me there, as it took several months again to purge my head of Alaskan flights-of-fancy. And they never took me to an RV show again.
I told Zach this whole story earlier this week. A few days ago, he announced that the "largest RV show in the Pacific Northwest" is being held in Seattle this weekend.
We're venturing there in about an hour. I tremble with excitement.
Perhaps I'll blog next from Alaska. Unless Zach is able to quell my lofty RV aspirations for the third time... which he probably will. But still, it's nice to know I had such noble goals from such an early age... and apparently still harbor them.
Posted by James at February 7, 2004 02:26 PM