Please meet Humdinger
After a day of hiking, the sun had gone down and I needed to find a place for me, my two kittens, and our RV to sleep.
I started calling all the highly rated RV parks but after 5 calls not one had picked up. I must have started to look for spot too late. I thought, “Well, another lesson learned. I guess I’m going to wind up sleeping in some noisy bright parking lot…again.”
But then I tried calling one more place; a small RV park with only a handful of reviews that were all positive, but a bit off of my route. Lo and behold someone answered! And they have space for me! Yay!
I pulled onto a very poorly maintained dirt road. Lots of divots and bumps. It was definitely the most rattling I had subjected the RV to thus far. A box of shoes and my brand new guitar that I haven’t touched yet become projectiles from the overhead bunk and come crashing to the floor. The silverware drawer flings open. Anything not totally battened down finds its way to the floor. And the poor kitties in their carrier next to me must have been loosing their shit, but the shaking was so loud that I couldn’t hear their screams even if they were making them.
After this long treacherous entry, I come upon a house with very orderly junk out front. Let me explain.
I assume you are familiar with “rural junk” that often litters some people’s property. An old car parked sideways in the grass with no tires on blocks with grass growing around it. An old rusted trailer with a pile of wood sticking out of one of the windows. This was like that…except everything was impeccably organized. This was well-cared for junk. It’s as if someone with OCD owned a junk yard.
It would be hard to understand how this junk gets there if I didn’t once live on a large swath of rural land. Once people know you have space for things it is only a matter of time before junk starts accumulating. I use this understanding as a futile attempt to stave off my judgement.
On the front of the garage is a big makeshift sign made from the top of a plastic bin with a rectangle hole cut in it to make room for a large doorbell button. The words “Ring here for service” written neatly in sharpie on the bin top that is screwed into the siding.
A tentative, thin woman in her early 60’s with long salt and pepper hair appears from the darkness at the door. She is seemingly perplexed by the arrival of a stranger at her home so late. “I’m the guy who just called about a spot tonight,” I said, feeling a bit like I was part of some clandestine operation.
It soon becomes apparent that I just misread her affect. She was expecting me. As we go through the business of getting set up I notice that she is missing one of her front teeth.
I’d be lying if I said this didn’t fit the whole “Deliverance” scene I felt like I was driving into…late at night…in rural Trump country. But even as I thought that, another part of my mind was chastising me for judging.
In just a few split seconds, I ran a whole scenario in my mind about how she lost the tooth and what economic circumstances led her to not get it fixed and how lots of wonderful people must be missing teeth. And how I was being a rich privileged city boy in judging her. This all happens in just a few seconds while I’m waiting for her to return with my handwritten receipt.
I was just about to get further lost in my mind wrestling with my own apparent bigotry like a good guilt-ridden Bay Area liberal should, when a 4WD golf cart comes roaring up the hill towards me, driven by a portly man with no shirt.
“Howdy!,” he says with a big smile while the 4WD golf cart is still moving, as if he couldn’t wait to say hello. He greets me like we know each other. As if he wasn’t waiting for an arrival, but that he was awaiting my arrival.
Gary is a jolly spirited man with long thinning curly gray hair and a mustache. He is accompanied by an elderly black chihuahua I later am introduced to as Ruby aka “Ruby Doo”. She has her own special propped up cushion in the passenger seat of the vehicle. Ruby has a calm understated demeanor which makes Gary’s exuberance stand out even more.
He is so proud of his little off-the-beaten-path makeshift RV park. Everything is old and wonky but impeccably maintained and/or jerry-rigged to work.
He gingerly brings me to my very first shaded spot to have ever parked the RV and helped me back my rig into it. “Wooo! Look at you! You got yourself quite the Humdinger right there!,” he yelled to me through the window as I parked the RV.
I knew immediately that the gods had found the perfect vessel in Gary for delivering the RV’s name to me.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet “Humdinger”.
“You get settled tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll show you paradise,” he said before speeding away.
Paradise? I took his proclamation like I would a billboard for a roadside attraction: overhyped on the billboard but then you get there and it’s really nothing special.
As promised, he comes by in the morning to show me paradise.
If I’ll be damned, he was right!
When you follow this little trail out the back of this little podunk RV park, it opens in to gorgeous vistas, a number of good sized ponds stocked with fish, a cold spring with remarkably great tasting cold water and a breathtaking profile view of the Crazy Horse Memorial.
I later discover that Gary and Toots, (that’s the name of the woman I met when I arrived), bought this property over 30 years ago from a rancher who had developed Muscular Dystrophy. As Gary puts it, the guy needed help, and so they helped him out and became really close with him, and then Gary and his extended family, who still live on the property, pulled it together for the downpayment.
This piece of land was part of the Homestead Act in the early 1900’s where the federal government would basically give you up to 50 acres of land if you were going to work it and “improve” it. There is National Forest Service land on either side.
Before I left, Gary and Ruby Doo came by on the cart to say goodbye. I had mentioned that I would love for my kittens Shammy and Dudley to get some exposure to dogs because I’d also like to have a dog someday. Three days later, he remembered, and brought Ruby Doo by as an ambassador for all Canine Kind.
Here we are, two grown men, speaking in high sing-songy tones to our animal children as we introduce them. They got along fabulously.
He peeked in the RV and saw that I had a scratching post and some cat toys and said, “Oh, they are so lucky to have you as their dad. You are taking such good care of God’s children and I thank you for that.” He said this so sincerely. No hint of irony.
Thank you Gary, Toots, and Ruby Doo for an unforgettable start to my full-time RV journey.
