The camper went out on its first voyage of 2021 yesterday, after an off-season of constant work (or so it seemed) on maintenance items and improvements. She's looking pretty spiffy for a classic gal, I have to admit.
As you're probably aware, the camper is rented through Outdoorsy, a site not unlike AirBNB that handles all of the heavy lifting leaving me to only worry about, well, the actual heavy lifting. On an associated Facebook page, I'm constantly reading stories from other owners of RVs and, mostly, their horror stories.
Granted Outdoorsy is almost exclusively dominated by owners of these big gazillion dollar rigs and not by people who have a pop-up and put the time into it mostly as a hobby and something to do, but I'm always amazed by the lack of respect and interest in making people happy and, most importantly, just meeting new people.
I spent a few decades in the public radio business, mostly interviewing and writing about -- as Amy Klobuchar once described her father's work -- "ordinary people doing extraordinary things." So maybe I'm just predisposed to meeting interesting people and renting out a camper as a facilitator.
But it's what brings me pleasure so no apologies and no horror stories here.
I always invite people who are renting the camper to come out a few days or hours early to get to know the camper, but, more important, get to know me and I them. I'm always thrilled when people take me up on it and from what I can tell, people really appreciate the human aspect of the transaction.
So yesterday, Mary and Tom came out and I gave them a full demonstration of the camper and asked questions etc. By the time they left, they were obviously pretty comfortable with the unit and I had no qualms about watching it leave.
I also always enjoy showing people the airplane building project that's going on in the hangar and describing the history of Fleming Field.
Mary and Tom aren't doing any camping. Some family is coming up for a weekend and they'll use the camper as a spare bedroom. A novel idea.
Since I have to work the Twins game on Sunday, I'll save them the trouble of driving it back and I'll just go stop at their home and pick it up.
As always, I tell people, "you worry about the camping, I'll worry about the cleaning."
They seemed like lovely people and I feel pretty good having had the opportunity to have them in my life, if for only a few hours on a weekend.
You probably won't hear anything about it on Facebook, though.
Be well.
As you're probably aware, the camper is rented through Outdoorsy, a site not unlike AirBNB that handles all of the heavy lifting leaving me to only worry about, well, the actual heavy lifting. On an associated Facebook page, I'm constantly reading stories from other owners of RVs and, mostly, their horror stories.
Granted Outdoorsy is almost exclusively dominated by owners of these big gazillion dollar rigs and not by people who have a pop-up and put the time into it mostly as a hobby and something to do, but I'm always amazed by the lack of respect and interest in making people happy and, most importantly, just meeting new people.
I spent a few decades in the public radio business, mostly interviewing and writing about -- as Amy Klobuchar once described her father's work -- "ordinary people doing extraordinary things." So maybe I'm just predisposed to meeting interesting people and renting out a camper as a facilitator.
But it's what brings me pleasure so no apologies and no horror stories here.
I always invite people who are renting the camper to come out a few days or hours early to get to know the camper, but, more important, get to know me and I them. I'm always thrilled when people take me up on it and from what I can tell, people really appreciate the human aspect of the transaction.
So yesterday, Mary and Tom came out and I gave them a full demonstration of the camper and asked questions etc. By the time they left, they were obviously pretty comfortable with the unit and I had no qualms about watching it leave.
I also always enjoy showing people the airplane building project that's going on in the hangar and describing the history of Fleming Field.
Mary and Tom aren't doing any camping. Some family is coming up for a weekend and they'll use the camper as a spare bedroom. A novel idea.
Since I have to work the Twins game on Sunday, I'll save them the trouble of driving it back and I'll just go stop at their home and pick it up.
As always, I tell people, "you worry about the camping, I'll worry about the cleaning."
They seemed like lovely people and I feel pretty good having had the opportunity to have them in my life, if for only a few hours on a weekend.
You probably won't hear anything about it on Facebook, though.
Be well.
