RV People

HEY EVERYBODY, THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM A MUCH LONGER ESSAY THAT I'M WORKING ON AND WILL EVENTUALLY POST (HOPEFULLY BY THIS WEEKEND) ON MY WEBSITE. BUT I JUST SPENT THE BETTER PART OF THE EVENING WORKING ON AND REWORKING THIS SECTION OF IT. AND I'M SO FILLED WITH PASSION AND IRE ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW THAT I FELT COMPELLED TO OFFER IT UP FOR APPRAISAL AND COMMENT... AND RIDICULE IF IT COMES TO THAT.


As you have probably gathered by now, I harbor quite a large reservoir of contempt for people in RV's. But more what it is, is an unbridled hatred of the people I refer to in my road trip travelogue as "interstate tourists":

These are the types of people who get annoyed that there isn't an interstate going straight through the middle of Yellowstone Park. Everywhere they go, they zoom in at 65m.p.h. and hop out of the car with the look of people who expect to see the Second Coming of Christ at every rest stop... They never stay long enough to take something in. They never actually look at anything except through the viewfinder of their camcorder. And they never spend the time seeking out those special nuances of an area that can't be described in a guidebook. They stick to the interstates where they never have to go more than thirty minutes between rest stops with bathrooms and Burger Kings.

RV people epitomize this travel ethic. Rather than looking at a road trip as an adventure, as the exploration of something new and exciting, with all the minor risks and aggravations go along with it, they prefer instead to insulate themselves inside a tin can from anything that they potentially didn't plan for. Using an RV insures that these people will never have to go out and interact with whatever environment they drive through - whether it be small town life, kitschy roadside amusement, or the great open outdoors. Instead they come to accommodating "campgrounds" by the droves where they park, hook up power and sewage lines and then spend the rest of the time sitting inside their antiseptic, air conditioned environment, watching cable TV, observing what they consider to be nature through a pane of glass, and talking about mindless idiotic jabber - primarily about the features and benefits of their RV's. When they do venture out of their Winnebago-designed ecosystem and into the out of doors, they make sure to pull out their state of the art comfy lawn chairs and extend the RV's built-in awning so that neither the heat of the sun nor the cool of the ground will disrupt the hermetically-sealed utopia they've worked so hard, and paid so much, to create.

I know what you're probably thinking: What do you care? You don't have to travel like that if you don't want to. So why are you bitching? I'm bitching because more and more I see the traveling culture leaning the way of the RV interstate tourist. More and more campgrounds clamoring for income are doing whatever they can to attract caravans of RV'ers of whom they can charge more than they would a mere family with a tent. And as more and more businesses cater to the RV crowd, more and more people begin to think that this is an acceptable form of vacationing, so they eagerly buy or rent the latest model. Without even needing to acquire a special license, they drive these lumbering, gas-guzzling behemoths down roads far too narrow for them to be traveling on (if only they would stick to the interstate), slow down traffic behind them, force oncoming traffic to ride the shoulder, make hundred-point K-turns into every parking lot they come to, then stink up perfectly good camping real estate with their gas fumes and sewage releases.

But those are just pet peeves. My real hatred comes from the fact that as I see it, RV's, RV people and RV culture are slowly but surely killing the allure and legacy of the great American Road Trip - and to a broader extent, destroying the very definition of "America" itself. The whole concept behind an RV is to be able to get to a destination as fast as you can so you can set up your temporary home away from home, then never leave its comforts unless absolutely necessary. You have no reason to go out and eat at Big Ed's Barbeque Pit because you can just boil up the spaghetti you bought at Wal Mart in your kitchen/bathroom. There's no need to buy a Coke from Mom & Pop's Roadside Convenience Store because you left home with your refrigerator-on-wheels fully stocked. In an RV, the only people you need to interact with are the ones you brought with you; other RV people who wander over to compare RV bells, whistles and penis sizes; and the occasional minimum wage amusement park worker who you'll viciously berate without pity for making the line for the roller coaster move too slow.

And as more and more people adopt this mentality, the very notion of Roadside, America will begin to die. As people stop passing through these little towns with their local fairs, attractions and colorful people, opting instead for the super-fast, super-convenient interstate, eventually there won't be any local fairs, attractions or colorful people to see. America will cease to be a vast and detailed canvas with wonderful things to see and experience everywhere you look. Instead it will become an uninspiring connect-the-dots of destinations, with busy divided highways zipping people from one dot to the next. And as the spaces in between those dots slowly languish and die, the land will be bought up by investors who will in turn build malls, condos and corporate parks, so that in time everywhere you go in this country will look exactly like everywhere else.

Already this is happening. The interstates alone - and the airlines for that matter - have helped perpetrate this slow death. Just ask anybody who traveled the famous Route 66 back in its heyday. Every little town along a major cross-country route had a name and an identity. Every hardworking person and every struggling family business had a real and genuine opportunity to carve out their own little niche in the American economy and way of life. Some accomplished this goal by providing a decent hamburger and soft-serve ice cream. Others did it by offering a cheap and cozy place to sleep. Still others did it by constructing items of a somewhat dubious nature (The World's Largest Buffalo, a giant cannon designed to shoot its creator into space, or even just a very tall pile of cans) and heralding their existence to anyone who might be interested - which they often were. Roadside, America used to define this country. It used to be one of the many definitions collectively affirming America as the land of opportunity where truly anything was possible.

These days giant corporations are ever trying to narrow down that list of definitions - preferably to ones that also contain their logo. These people deal in destinations and their very existence depends on people, hordes of people, arriving at those destinations day in and day out. They don't have time for the traveling public to poke around in Tractor Falls, Nebraska or Twineville, South Dakota. They need these people to get to their destinations, their destinations, as fast as possible and stay there for as long as possible before they race back home. And somehow they've succeeded in convincing most Americans that they also don't have time to waste between one destination and the next. Too many people have bought into the corporation-created notion of the destination reigning supreme - and nobody more so than RV people. And as more and more people adopt the mindset of the interstate tourist, the Great American Road Trip will die. And when that happens, the very definition of America, the very thing that made us great, will die along with it.

So fuck RV people and the cumbersome pieces of shit they rode in on.