The splendid self-driving camper.

Grandma and grandpa in front of their camper.

They had been having a splendid time.

Summer was tipping towards fall, the sky a soft blue, laced with wispy clouds that competed with the hazy smoke on the horizon. California and Canada were on fire again, but the open highway stretched before them in inviting silence.

He loosened his grip on the steering wheel of his truck, the tension flowing out of his muscles as the tires slapped in rhythm against the asphalt. Fence posts whizzed by, the rolling South Dakota landscape turning golden as the harvest season crept closer. Reddish brown Herefords and black Angus cattle spotted the landscape, following one another to watering holes ringed in white alkaline mud.

She reached up and tugged at the corner side window of the truck just a bit, angling it more sharply inwards to pull in more of the outside air, directing it to her face. It had been a hot day, and the truck was stifling.

They rode in silence, having given up on getting a steady radio signal. The rushing air filled the car with its own music as each relaxed back into the vinyl seats, thinking about the vacation they’d had, savoring the memory while still looking forward to getting home.

The scenery in Florida and on the drive back had been magnificent, and the truck had held up well as it wound its way through the hills and mountains of their latest adventure. It was the time of year when families were preparing for school, leaving things a bit less crowded for other tourists. Trees were starting to turn to fall colors, yet a few stubborn wildflowers had stuck around. The sun set late enough that they could enjoy the gorgeous purple and orange sunsets as they pulled into the campgrounds along the way. It wasn’t too dark, but the light show was spectacular.

It was the perfect overlap of summer and fall, all the best parts at once.

She had purchased several booklets of full-color printed postcards from the places they’d visited. She preferred the imagery in those cards, the harsh colors overlaying photos that looked like drawings, bound in thick plastic spirals. She patted her purse, sitting next to her on the truck’s bench seat. It was heavier now, thanks to those postcards, but she was excited to show them at the next Ladies’ Aid meeting.

Her husband, on the other hand, was a photo buff.

One whole cupboard in the camper was dedicated to his photographic gear. His top-quality 35 mm camera, complete with a tripod and several lenses, had made it easy for him to shoot eight rolls of film. He was already calculating how long it would take to develop them as slides and invite the Iversons over for supper and a vacation slide show. A smile broke across his face as he thought of some of the great shots he’d managed to grab. He glanced in the rearview mirror and was struck by the open beauty of the buttes they’d passed.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard, ticking away. His stomach growled, and he realized it had to be getting close to supper. They’d have to pull over and have a quick bite to eat in the camper if they didn’t reach their next campground soon enough. Perhaps they’d delayed too long at the last scenic overlook.

Wait a minute.

There shouldn’t have been any open beauty in that rearview mirror.

His foot mashed down on the brakes, and she slammed into the dashboard, bracing herself at the last minute. The wheels screeched, and the back of the truck wobbled a bit from side to side as it careened to the side of the road. He pulled off the pavement as best he could with what little shoulder there was, tipping dangerously at an angle.

She looked at him with big eyes, one hand on the dash while the other rubbed the knee she'd banged on the glove compartment during the sudden stop.

“What in the world?!”

He smacked his open hand against the steering wheel, cursing a bit as he grabbed at the door handle, pulling at it a few times before the door opened up. “Where's the camper?!”

She turned around and looked behind to where the camper they’d been towing for several weeks should have been attached.

It was not there.

Somehow, for how long she didn’t know, the camper had slipped the surly bonds of the truck and had found the road less traveled.

She began praying quietly under her breath, a mixture of requests for help and forgiveness for all the swearing coming from the general vicinity of the back of the truck. She could hear him muttering and banging about near where the hitch should have been. He wasn't at the back of the truck very long. Once again, he was at the truck cab door.

He jerked the door open. The hinges could use some oil, their screeching joining in with the mutterings and cursings.

He pulled himself inside and informed her that somewhere along the road between that morning's campground and where they were, they’d lost the camper.

They’d lost the camper.

“Didn’t you feel it when it came off?” she asked.

“No, I did not," he said. "Don’t you think I’d have said something?”

Grinding the truck into gear, he executed a sharp U-turn on the highway. What had been a beautiful late afternoon drive had turned into dreadful expectations of what they'd find if they ever found their camper. Suddenly, the setting sun wasn’t a beautiful friend, but an enemy counting down the minutes before it got dark.

Pushing the accelerator to the floor, the roaring engine and the road noise nearly drowned out the quiet whispering prayers coming from the passenger side of the truck. Every few minutes, he would burst out into a variety of swear words, exclamations, and denigrating comments about campers in general.

The sun began to drop lower in the sky. She was worried that darkness would leave them stranded on a desolate highway without a camper. The minutes ticked by and the sun dropped another few degrees in the sky. Maybe it was 30 minutes. Maybe it was 50. Helen couldn’t see the clock and certainly wasn’t going to ask about the time.

Two weeks of perfect camping, out the window, because their camper decided to take a trip without them.

She began twisting the seam of her skirt pocket, working a thread loose and praying all the more, nearly jumping out of her seat every time he pounded his fist on the dashboard or slapped his hand on the steering wheel. It was as if he was beating the truck for not letting him know something had gone terribly wrong with its back end.

“What’s that?” She asked, pointing to some crushed grass at the edge of the road ahead of them.

There was only a shallow ditch, with no field approach or other reason to see tracks through the grass. The tracks veered right off the road and continued. He slowed down, and she pressed closer to the window. “It looks like vehicle tracks, and they go right through that barbed wire fence.”

As they got closer, he pulled the truck off to the side before rolling to a stop. In the tall grass of the pasture, they could make out the glint of the sun bouncing off the metal camper.

How long their camper had been relaxing there without them, it was hard to say.

In silence, they both looked at the trail through the grass in between two fence posts, and out to the pasture. Somehow, miraculously, the camper hadn't hit a post, broken up in the ditch, or even tipped over. Even in its disobedience, the camper had good manners.

She stayed silent as she watched him. He chewed on his bottom lip, then looked up at the sun, which was nearly setting on the horizon, contemplating what to do next.

“Well, ma, I guess we'll be camping here tonight,” he said, pulling the truck off the road and driving into the ditch along the camper’s tracks.

She bounced about in the cab as they drove over the rough ground, her white hair brushing against the ceiling of the cab several times. Both of them grew increasingly incredulous as they realized how close the camper had come to gullies and holes. Off in the distance, small dark dots could be seen sprinkled up the side of a low butte. This cattle pasture was in use. 

“I’ll pull the fence up a bit so those cows don’t get out,” he said, knowing, as a cattleman himself, that no one deserved to have their herd on the loose.

Once the fence had been rigged up, he took a closer look at the camper. There seemed to be only minor external damage, with no structural concerns. The hitch appeared to have broken clean away from the truck, causing the camper to roll right off the road, through the fence, and come to an upright stop.

He stood up, pulling his cap off and wiping his forehead. “We dodged a bullet on that one.”

“Is it safe to camp here?”

“It’ll have to be. I’m going to need to get to a town tomorrow for some repairs, so we’re stuck here tonight,” he said.

After using blocks of wood to level the camper and prevent it from moving, they both went inside and began to open the windows to let the cooler evening breezes in. The orange polyester curtains were a bit heavy for the light breeze, but any waft of air would help.

Soon, she had a nice supper of sandwiches, fruit, and potato salad set on the small brown table in the camper. The pinging sound of grasshoppers flinging themselves from the tall pasture grass against the metal side was unnerving at first. Most campgrounds were a bit more mowed, and she was hoping she wouldn’t find any wood ticks.

Since there was no place to plug in for electricity, and they didn't want to use up their flashlights just to read, they both turned in for an early night.

To be fair, it was lovely camping as far as camping went.

No bathrooms of course, but a person didn’t feel so bad about using the pasture for a toilet when there were cow pies everywhere. Thankfully, they had plenty of water in several thermos containers and nearly full propane gas tanks. The cooler had been filled with ice just that morning, so they wouldn’t starve.

Both drifted off to sleep surprisingly well, considering all things.

During the night, some curious cows visited the camper, rocking it as they found an edge to rub against. But for the most part, it was a lovely breezy bit of pasture, with the sounds of gentle wind rustling through the grass and coyotes howling in the distance once the sun went down.

The morning came early.

She felt the sun creep above the horizon, realizing Glenn had already gotten up to make himself some coffee. She quickly dressed and pushed the curtain aside, deciding she’d make some eggs for breakfast.

There was a knock on the door, somewhere between the eggs and coffee, and he opened the camper door to find a South Dakota Highway Patrol trooper standing near the metal step.

“You folks care to tell me why you’re camping in this pasture?” he asked.

She pulled back the edge of one of the orange curtains, peering through the dusty camper window. The trooper was tall, and she wondered what the good folks of South Dakota did to trespassers and fence-cutters. There wouldn't be a postcard booklet for that experience, she was certain.

Her husband kept his gaze steady, though his voice revealed a bit of embarrassment at their predicament.

“The hitch on the truck seems to have come off,” he said, gesturing towards the front of the camper. “We didn’t realize we’d lost the camper until we were a ways down the road.”

“Really.”

“Since it was late, we just camped here and planned to take the truck and hitch into a town for repairs.”

The officer seemed skeptical at first. It was a wild story to be sure. “The landowner thought some folks decided to use his pasture as a campground,” the trooper said. “As you can imagine, he was a little upset.”

She watched her husband’s face turn pink. For a private property advocate fond of putting up “No Trespassing” signs on his land, this was a low point in life. But she was relieved the officer believed them.

Once the officer had left and the breakfast dishes were put away, she settled into the dinette seat. Her husband had to take the truck to town and get the hitch welded back on.

“Never weld on a hitch,” he would say in the years after the incident. “The welds break and you’re flying through someone’s pasture on a wing and a misdemeanor.”

Eventually, he returned and spent 40 minutes swearing and sweating as he lifted the camper up to the hitch. It had settled down deep into the field dirt by then. The first twenty miles or so as they continued down the road they’d already traveled the day before were quiet. While she wasn’t sure what he was thinking, she pulled out her journal and completed yesterday’s entry.

“Hot day. Lost the camper. Found it, and had beans for supper.”

Grandpa in the doorway of his camper.

This is a true story, by the way.

My grandpa and grandma really did lose their camper, and it’s a story we ask dad to retell often just to hear him laugh. But the funny thing is that grandpa’s campers seemed to itch for freedom.

Years later, when my grandpa had a motorhome, he and most of the family, including my parents and two oldest siblings, were traveling back from a family reunion in Indiana.

Somewhere between Fargo and Grand Forks, on a lazy stretch of flat I-29, Grandpa fell asleep. Perhaps it was the heat or a big meal or the hypnotic whine of the tires on the pavement. My dad was also asleep, but since he was in the back on a bunk instead of at the wheel of the motorhome, his nap was less notable.

“All I can remember,” Dad tells us, “is that I had sort of a strange feeling back there. It was a kind of significant rocking motion. I tried to adjust for it while I was sleeping so I would stay on the bed.”

Behind the motorhome, with its driver asleep and as it began to veer to the left towards the median, another driver raced up alongside on the right. Honking and hollering, Grandpa woke up suddenly as the wheels started to leave the pavement.

“You’re going to have an accident!” the man screamed from the car.

Grandpa grabbed the wheel, wrenching the lurching motorhome back on the pavement while swearing back at the Good Samaritan. “Goddam it I know!”

My brother was reading a book the whole time.

“The guy behind him was just trying to help him, warning him that he just about tipped over, but grandpa knew that already,” Dad said. “Quite a swearing fit. He stopped and made me drive the rest of the way home.”

Camping is a serious business, particularly when your camper has a mind of its own. Always take every opportunity to go camping, but make sure your camper goes with you.

Hit the road, but keep your camper on it with you.