'Having a great time; wish we were home'

From: 2geezers@oldhome.com

To: 2cool4u@hipster.com

Subject: Vacation

Dear Nephew,

Your Uncle Ambrose and I are having a great time — wish you were here.

Your uncle loaded up our new motorhome and we’ve set off down the road on our summer vacation. Actually, the motorhome is something your uncle threw together just yesterday morning.

Well, “threw together” is maybe just a little too modest a term. What he did was to take and set up a block-and-tackle, used his lawn tractor for lifting power and raised the playhouse he built for our precious little Thelma 40 years ago onto the flatbed trailer he uses to haul off scrap metal.

Your Uncle Ambrose looked at his work and pronounced it worthy of attaching the Winnebago nameplate. Instead, he used his soldering iron to carve “Vic’s Roadhouse” over the door.

Well, it didn’t take long to figure out the aerodynamics left a bit to be desired. Our Honda Goldwing that he'd hitched it to got pretty squirrelly coming down the steep part of our driveway and the trailer was threatening to swing around in a jackknife. So your uncle gunned it, crossed the highway and kept on into the Gravely’s driveway just across the road.

Now the Gravelys are about a third of the way through their trip to explore Randolph County’s hiking trails so we didn’t think they’d mind us parking our motorhome in their backyard. It has a pretty good view of Randleman Lake a half mile away and when it gets pretty dark you can imagine that the hill behind their house is Mount Shepherd.

We got settled in pretty quick, except that in our haste to hit the road we forgot that Thelma’s playhouse has long since been stripped of furniture and appliances and your uncle has been using it to store firewood. So while he started a bonfire, I went back across the road to throw together some vittles.

Food tastes better in the great outdoors, except when you realize that eating off the ground next to a blazing hot fire in July is akin to Chinese torture. So we took the basket of food back to our house and ate it at the kitchen table.

Once the dishes were washed, we went back out to our home on the road. It was nice to look up at the stars while stretched out on your uncle’s woodpile. He once took an astronomy course and pointed out to me the Big and Little Dippers, the North Star and what he swore was the Southern Cross, even though we’re known to be in the Northern Hemisphere.

After about the 500th mosquito bite, I told your uncle that there was one other thing we forgot — a skeeter net. Well, we both went back to the house to get it — one to carry it, but first, both of us to look for it since we hadn’t used it since 1968.

Once we got inside, we decided it was too dark to try to put up a skeeter net that we didn’t know where it was and if it was still in one piece if we ever did find it. So we stayed overnight in the house and had eggs and toast in the morning.

We’ve still got several more days to pull our motorhome back over here before the Gravelys get back from their vacation. In the meantime, we’re watching a public TV series on the Great Lodges of the Rockies. 

Wish we were there.

Love,

Your Uncle Ambrose and Aunt Victoria

RE: Vacation

From: 2cool4u@hipster.com

To: 2geezers@oldhome.com

Dear Uncle Ambrose and Aunt Victoria,

Glad to hear you’re having such a great vacation. If you get that motorhome back on the road, why don’t you haul it here to Gopher Woods? I have one neighbor who burns wood and another that deals in junk.

Love,

Your Nephew

Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.