Happy Trails, Part 41

DURANGO, Colo. — I want to proclaim that RV campers are the friendliest, most cooperative, most helpful and most eager people my wife and I have ever encountered.

We pulled into our RV park in the middle of a magnificent setting in southwest Colorado. We thought we had a pull-through site reserved for our 28-foot fifth wheel and Big Jake, our 3/4-ton Dodge pickup.

Wrong! All they had were back-in sites. We quibbled only for a moment with the park host, telling him we were promised a pull-through site when we made the reservation a couple of weeks ago.

“Can you back it in?” he asked. “Sure,” I said. “We’re not expert at it, but we’ll make it work.”

“I’ll be out in a minute to help,” he said.

We didn’t need him.

We pulled up to our site and began the process of backing ‘er up.

Then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere came two gentlemen. They were roughly our age. They began guiding me back. They were barking out instructions. My wife was left merely to stand there, smiling and chuckling at the fellows’ wonderfully noble intentions.

I tried to tell one of the fellows that I am not a complete novice at this, that I am able — with some thought and patience — to back the rig up. It didn’t matter. He actually reached into the truck while standing outside the driver’s side door and began cranking the steering wheel to get our fifth wheel angled just right to back into our site.

Meanwhile, the second fellow stood at the back guiding the first fellow toward where the RV was supposed to go.

After just a couple of mid-course corrections, we got our fifth wheel lined up properly with our utility connections.

Mission accomplished!

I want to mention this because it is one of the many pleasures my wife and I have discovered as we have begun our serious travel journey throughout North America.

I’m pretty sure there are many more of these types of guys awaiting our arrival. And, indeed, we intend to offer our own knowledge and RV experience to other newbies as we meet them along the way.