You Never Know What You'll Find in a RV Park

While we were staying at Lou and George's in the mobile home park for a few day's visit, when our host asked if we wanted to go see their son, John.  "Sure, why not?" we answered.  George drove us to the RV Park about a quarter of a mile away and across the highway from the lake. The first thing I noticed about the RVs was that many of them, if not most of them, were no longer movable. Some had no wheels or had permanent structures attached to them. George stopped the car beside one that looked as though it had been used in the movie, "Independence Day".

We were met by a man in his mid-fifties with medium length gray hair and beard. He smiled, showing crooked teeth and sparkling hazel eyes. "Hi, I'm John," he says in soft Californian.  "Welcome to my castle. Let me show you around." We step into the kitchen of the now immobile motorhome.  To the right there are curtains over the windshield and a female manikin with red hair in the driver's seat.  "That's just Margie," he says.  "I got her when I bought the motorhome after my wife of twenty-six years left me after saying that I was no longer necessary for her pursuit of happiness."

The kitchen is crammed with almost everything except cooking equipment, although there may have been a stove or refrigerator under the tools and computers and model cars. John was quick to point out a Hot Wheels car, The Red Baron, which he said was valued at $1500.  "A friend of mine restores Hot Wheels," he says, "but that destroys the value." Could toy restoration be a new fad on the west coast?

I notice a flat screen TV and ask, "You got cable?"

"No," he says, "let me show you my dish set-up." He leads us out of the motorhome and to the rear where there is more  junk, or perhaps materials to be repurposed.  There was a ten foot tower with a dish antenna atop it. "Built the tower myself," he said, "but I may have to move it.  It depends on how tall the plants grow.  My neighbor has a permit to grow medical marijuana.  The state will let you grow up to 100 plants, and that will take up this whole cleared area." He moved his arm to indicate the area between the RV park and the base of a hill.

"Really?" I ask.

 "Me and some of the guys in the park are gonna help him out with the cultivating and harvesting.  He aint't got no money to pay us, you know, but we'll get paid," he adds with a wink.  "That's the tour, but I know you came to see my boat."

We walked back to the front of the RV where George was talking with a big man whom he quickly introduced as Joe and continues talking. I overheard some electrical terms: amps, watts, discharge, and such as John led us to the ten-foot-long pedal boat sitting on a less the substantial wooden support.  But the rickety support elevated the boat to waist level to make it easier to work on. The faded red and white boat no longer had a paddle wheel or pedals.

"George had sold his boat and had the motor left and it was easy to install. I just put it in where the tiller was. It fit right in. Then we used an old broken paddle for a keel to kinda make it go straight.  When  I got SSI there was a guy in Santa Rosa who had some solar panels for sale and I bought six," John said excitedly as he walked around his creation pointing out various features. "Joe is going to help us hook up the solar panel to charge the battery, he's a retired science teacher and knows electronics."

"When will you get it into the lake?" I asked.

"Sometimes next week, I think.  You gonna be around to see it? I'll take you for a ride."

"No, we'll be back in South Carolina by then," I said.

We said our "goodbyes" in the RV park and were soon on our way through the walnut groves and vineyards in the direction of San Francisco.