We need a new mattress in the camper! That is the first thing most people will change out when they get a camper. RV manufacturers will never give you a decent mattress. Not unless you’re buying a $500,000 mega rig and then you can’t be certain. I know…mattresses are a highly individual thing. Just ask Goldilocks. But, maybe if you could have a choice when you buy your camper…soft, medium, or firm…innerspring or memory foam…six inch or ten inch? That could make the whole camping experience much better from the get go.
Neither of us slept terribly well this trip. It was difficult to regulate the heat. The little ceramic heater we bought is terrible and I’m returning it. There are so many settings on it, but it never shuts off…and even at its lowest setting of 59°, it was still WAY too hot. Then we couldn’t get the electric blanket just right. I think Mr. FixIt had more trouble than I did because he is his own heat generator. Honestly, it’s like sleeping with a radiator. So, if he isn’t comfortable, he tosses and turns and neither one of us sleep soundly. We were supposed to stay till today, but we came home yesterday so he could rest up his back and be ready for bowling tonight.
The camp hosts at Beaver Creek State Park where we stayed serve coffee, cider, and donuts at their site every weekend of October. We sat around their campfire and enjoyed some fellowship and tasty treats. Then we finished hooking up and took off for home. Mr. FixIt seldom asks to stop and see something in particular. On Friday, he wanted to drive back down to Steubenville to see the reproduction of Fort Steuben that was built in 1797. It was thirty-two miles back toward where we came from. So, round trip of sixty-four miles to see something my friend Gail said was nothing to write home about. If I’d felt better, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was up sick during the night Thursday night and all I wanted to do was snuggle in my fuzzies around the fire and knit and enjoy the campground.
When we were heading through Steubenville yesterday, I pulled off the highway and turned in to the fort so my sweetheart could see it. Unfortunately the guest center was closed for some reason…covid, staffing, whatever. But we got to walk around the grounds a little and see the buildings from the outside. Now that we know we can get in and find a place to park with the camper, we can try again the next time we go up.
When we were packing up yesterday, the ground prong broke off of our heavy duty extension cord so we stopped at Lowe’s on the way. Mr. FixIt replaced the plug as soon as we got home so we could hook the camper up to the house electricity. We got my sweetie all settled in the recliner with the heating pad and I got all settled in the camper under the electric blanket. I know there aren’t too many more nights where I can sleep out here so I’m taking advantage of it. They were predicting our first frost last night!
Tonight is the Hunter’s Moon…October’s “harvest” moon. As I lay here writing this, I watched the full moon rise over the far hill in all her glory. I was prompted to recall other full moons of note in my life. I was at a James Taylor concert in late summer 2001. 9/11 hadn’t occured yet and the world was still turning. I was at Red Rocks, overlooking the Denver Metro area. The moon rose full and I swear it was the biggest and most beautiful I’d ever seen it…pumpkin orange in an indigo sky. It shimmered with the heat rising up from the city far below.
Sweet Baby James started singing Up On the Roof, and I was transported to the summer of 1979 to a mountain in West Virginia. I was backpacking with Hubby #2. I’d never been so vulnerable in the woods carrying a way-too-heavy pack, missing my daughter, exhausted and hungry after a full day’s climb. I started singing this very song, bright and clear, as a way to ground my panicky heart. Just then, we heard a thundering sound, looked up the hill above us, and a whole herd of deer came running down the mountain and leapt gracefully over our heads before disappearing into the woods below us. My then fiancé and I locked eyes for a moment then looked at the sky above us. That evening, the Milky Way stretched out in the black inky sky as the full moon peeked through the leaves, sending dappled shards of moonshine onto the forest floor. We stopped and pitched our tent right there along a cool babbling brook and slept like babies.
I love the moonlight. I’ve gone snowshoeing in the peaceful quiet of a Rocky Mountain winter, guided by her brilliance. I’ve made love on the top of mountains in her silent shadows. I’ve swam naked in pools of warm water under her canopy of light. I’ve rocked my baby at my breast in our log house as I watched the moonrise over the wilderness. I’ve stood at the grave of my beloved, beating my chest with my fists…crying out in my grief to God and the angels and the Man in the Moon. And, I’ve held my new love’s hand as we watched the moon rise over the ocean waves. With the moonrise comes the hope in all things new. It’s always steady, it’s always there…whether we see it or not.
As is God.
?
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
Psalm 8:3-4 ESV