Trena Eiden

Nate Bargatze is famous for quipping, “Marriage and prison are the two easiest places to start a fight.”  

Houston is a horrible place to get through. The freeways are continually in the midst of construction and traffic congestion slows from mediocre slow to bumper-to-bumper at every exit, and that’s at midnight.  

After lifting jacks, replacing batteries, airing tires, and washing months of salt and algae off the camper, we latched onto it and left our kids in Lake Jackson, Texas. As we headed east to Pensacola, Florida, we took advice from a kind gentleman at the camper storage and headed to Texas City, rerouting around Houston. What a win. Gar and I stayed married for the first time in all our Texas travels. Woot-woot.

I did realize right away that I’d forgotten how much slower travel was with the 38-foot behemoth behind us. We hadn’t gone far when I turned to Gar, “I’m pretty sure if we’d used a rickshaw to pull the camper and tote us in its little seat, we’d have been further by now.” He likes to pretend he’s hard of hearing in the truck. He’s so wise.  

Usually, we do the 10-hour trip in a single run, but we ended up spending the night in Denham Spring, Louisiana, because when we got to Baton Rouge we were in such a traffic jam it was a gridlock for hours. We never moved, then when we did, it was only to stop 2 feet ahead. There was a semi-truck in the right lane paralleling us and as we began crossing the bridge over the mighty Mississippi, I saw a massive ship being onloaded from the port and tried to snap a photo. The big rig was in the way, but when the driver saw me, he waved a finger, giving me the one-moment-sign, and as we slowly merged forward, he didn’t. Instead, for just a brief moment, he held back his lane of traffic so I could click a pic. There are good people everywhere. I could have kissed him but, as my children later pointed out, that would have just ruined his day.  

Finally, we made it to our final destination at the RV park, got the camper worked over and everything put away. I couldn’t stay too long with Gar in the south as I had to come back to work, but I’ll stop here to mention that, years ago when Trace Adkins came out with, “Every light in the house is on,” I thought he wrote it for Gar. Whether at our Wyoming home, or in the camper, Gar never turns off a light he turns on. It’s a habit that makes me apoplectic. One morning, while in the RV, I looked up from doing the dishes to see the kitchen light on, the dining light on, the bathroom light on, the bedroom light on, and amazingly enough, the reading light over the couch. Gar had gone outside, so when he came back in, I pointed to all the lights and asked him if he was looking forward to heaven? He didn’t answer, but raised his eyebrows in a question. I said, “I’m serious, are you ready for the chariots to come, because right about now is when I want to tell you, if it was up to me there’d be a public execution, look at all these lights left on.” He sighed and said what he always says, “I was coming back to that room.” I said, “When I fly home, I’m gonna hire someone to wander around the camper turning out lights, but the good news for you is, after tomorrow, I won’t be here to nag.” The next morning, I got up early, leaving Gar to keep snoozing. I showered, did my hair, cleaned the bathroom, scrubbed the kitchen, wiped out the fridge, packed my bags and made coffee. I checked my phone and saw that my plane was on time for departure, and hearing Gar wake, told him I was good to go. He took a shower while I fried bacon and eggs and toasted our bagels. While I waited for him, I tidied the bedroom and fluffed the pillows. He strolled out of the bathroom, got dressed in the bedroom and as he got to the table for breakfast, I said, “Don’t sit down till you switch off the lights in the back.” He pursed his lips, did a pirouette, and as he made his way to the bedroom, chorused in a singsong voice, “Freedom.”