Tonight woe is we.

Homecoming day for Rigby.

It was not to be.

That’s the haiku version. The whole story is way more of a tragedy. Come along as I walk you through it…

In 2016, Ric got caught up in the notion that we needed an RV. Well, it goes back further actually. One day in 2003 or so, I was just packing up my things to leave the office for the day when Ric called me. Weird, I thought, I’ll be home soon, wonder what’s going on. Didn’t have to wonder long cuz he blurted out, “Guess what I just did?” Before I could reply, he said, “I just bought an Airstream.”

I probably dropped the phone. I don’t really remember because I think I blacked out. I didn’t even know he was looking for one and I don’t think I ever heard him talk about them beyond a few sentences every few years along the lines of “Airsteams are so cool, it would be fun to have one someday.”

As it turns out, a guy decided to sell his 1964 Tradewind that had been sitting out in his field for a couple of decades. At one time the family had used it for vacations, but the kids grew up and the parents got old, so it was left in a state of benign neglect.

Ric thrives while bringing neglected things back to life, so he saw what it could become under his hand. It was a bit of a gut job, and he worked on it for months. I did the decorating and when it was done, it was really a bit of a gem.

We went all over Oregon and part of Washington in it, learning lots of things along the way… we loved our little Toaster Moon.

The years went by, it got harder for us to manage and tow the 30 foot long trailer. When it became clear we would lose our parking space, we decided the only practical thing to do would be to sell it. So we did, and it kinda broke our hearts.

So I thought our RV phase was behind us. But in 2016, when I asked Ric what he wanted to do for Father’s Day, I didn’t expect him to say, “Go look at Class B RVs.”

But hey, his choice so off we went, out to some place in Gresham or beyond. We looked at several makes and models, new and used, but not the one where the sales guy stepped into and immediately backtracked, coughing and gagging, “oh sorry, that one hasn’t been cleaned yet” leaving us to wonder if it was crime scene or explosive orifice.

Anyway, I thought they all left something to be desired but this was Ric’s day and I was his accomplice. Last stop of the day was the Airsteam place in Gladstone. Airsteam was making Sprinter vans (made by Mercedes Benz) into Class B RVs called Interstates. The minute we stepped inside one, we knew we were in a different world. Things sounded different, they felt different, they looked different, they even smelled different. And by different, I mean better. Way better. With a way higher price tag of course. You get what you pay for, right?

So fast forward nearly a year. Ric’s career was winding down and he was finally getting a glimpse of what would be his reward for decades of working brutally hard, taking risks, sometimes things going sideways, but ultimately enjoying a measure of success. He wanted to mark his achievement in a meaningful way, one that would enable him to enjoy his golden years more.

An Airsteam Interstate would be the passport, the ticket, the stairway to heaven. So in February 2017, we went back to the dealer, they happened to have the exact layout we wanted in stock. It still had the sale price sticker on it (they didn’t realize that but I found it ), so it was pretty much meant to be. Obviously.

It didn’t need refurbishing or decorating, aside from a few Pendleton items, so it was good to go. We started climbing the learning curve. Or rather Ric did. We encountered some problems along the way, sometimes user error, sometimes design or manufacturing shortcoming. Shit happens in RVs. As someone pointed out, you’re not driving a vehicle. You’re driving a house sitting on top of a vehicle. It’s really complicated. How could things not go wrong?

But now I’m going to have to dive into a bit of a downer rabbit hole. I’m going to have to say things I don’t like saying. I don’t yet know exactly where the ultimate source of the problems is to be found. But we’ve encountered way more than our share of disappointments, misadventures, illogical statements, unkept promises, ridiculous timelines, changing answers and so on and so forth.

And somewhere in there is why, we we arrived today in Tacoma at the scheduled time to FINALLY pick up Rigby, our Airstream Interstate, when we opened the side door so I could pee, rather than a spiffed-up, ready-for-adventure, all-broken-things-fixed-or-replaced, all-recall-repairs-finally-done rig, we saw the image to the right instead.

We had to leave Rigby behind once again. I didn’t get to pee until we got home about six hours later. Next time we’ll go down the rabbit hole. Stay with me, okay? I’ll be back soon.