It’s the people
When the coffee brews too slowly and the night watch grows too long, it’s time for some relaxation therapy. For my husband and I, that means two weeks away in the camper.
This time we made it to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. While we love ocean sunsets and moonlight ferry rides, it’s the chance encounters with people that fill our travel journal.
My husband is retired Army, so we often camp on military bases. On night one, the kind host at a military fam-camp came out in her pajamas to help us with a late check-in. (They were tasteful pajamas, more like loungers, really.) She apologized, even though we were the ones inconveniencing her. She even walked us to our site.
While we were getting settled in, we were approached by a woman power-walking through the RV complex.
“Are you weather-aware?” she asked. It was clear there would be no small talk.
“Uh, yes,” I answered, hopeful that I was, in fact, weather-aware.
“Then you know there’s a storm moving in,” she said. “We’re on the edge of it. Watch your radar apps.”
I had a strong urge to salute. “Yes, (ma’am), we will.”
She searched my eyes. Then, satisfied that her message had been received, she power-walked away. I smiled. I like it when strangers take the time to weather-warn me.
At our destination on Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, we adopted a local Krispy Kreme, because—well, Krispy Kreme. One morning at the drive-thru, we got a new person. We asked for a sour cream donut.
“Oh, we don’t have those,” the new woman answered. Then she paused. We were scanning for other options when she suddenly broke radio silence: “Oh, sh#t!, we do have those. Drive around, baby, and I’ll have one for you.” (“Baby” being the common mode of address in Mississippi; Sh#t being a little less common at Krispy Kreme.)
We tried to stifle our giggling before we reached the window. She apologized for cursing. “I have a free donut for you, if you want it,” she offered. We assured her that we weren’t offended and wished her well. And we enjoyed our bonus donut. It was a good day at Krispy Kreme.
One day a woman approached our camper and said, “Hello. Do you like to gamble?” It was clear there would be no small talk. She was a social person stuck in an RV with a man who wasn’t. We talked her down and wished her good luck on her quest to find a casino buddy. We aren’t much for slot machines.
We encountered a gentleman whose car had overheated on an exit ramp. My husband hopped out and gave him a push. And a young girl working the register at a Love’s travel stop who was shaken up by a rude customer. We reassured her that some 80-year-old men are rude to everyone, and she shouldn’t take it to heart. She finally smiled.
We swapped intel on good camping sites with a former Navy seaman. He’d been injured in an accident during explosives training. The scars on his arms confirmed his story. It soon became clear that he had stopped mainly to admire our red Lab. He’d spent 20 years raising and training German Shepherds. People who talk about the best dogs they ever owned are like people who tell fish stories. The feats grow with the telling, but if you love dogs, you go along.
We travel to experience the world from someone else’s point of view. To recalibrate the internal gauge that measures our obsession with daily minutiae. To remedy the inner “hangry” that sets in when we fast too long from what feeds our souls.
We travel to reconnect, and to remind ourselves that media outlets profit from fake controversy and feigned outrage. We travel to rediscover, most people are nice.