The Ambassador & the RV

On Aug. 1, after a nine-hour drive from D.C. in our family SUV and a night in a pet-friendly hotel in Newport, R.I., we pull into the KOA Campground in Middleboro, Mass., where our RV rental agency, Cruise America, has offices. Parked in front of the building is a huge motor home with "Cruise America" and a photo of a family at the Grand Canyon printed all over it. My chest is tightening. It is 10 a.m.

We unload our car and store our belongings in the 25-foot RV. Its interior is a mix of faux wood paneling and plastic. We tuck the baby in the safety seat, and Rocky, our Australian shepherd, under the table. Wolfgang takes the driver's seat. He tells the agent we do not need a navigation system because we have me.

At 2 p.m. we finally get going. We are headed for Peterborough, N.H., the first stopover on our 19-day trip. Wolfgang fights to hold the steering wheel steady, and the sound of rattling pots and cutlery is hard to get used to. But by early evening, we are driving up the dirt road to the home of our friends the Kaisers, a German American couple. Karl teaches political science at Harvard; Debbie inherited the 250-year-old antiques-filled farmhouse from her parents. "You must be excited to sleep in the camper," Karl says with a grin. "Or would the baby prefer a proper bed for the last time?"

"She would love it," I reply, before Wolfgang can say anything.

Next morning my husband insists on leaving early. Karl gives us a final goodbye, his mocking smile accompanying us in the rear-view mirror until the dirt road bends.

We decide to have a short look at the center of Peterborough, which Thornton Wilder portrayed in "Our Town," but our vehicle will not fit in any parking lot. So we continue west on Route 9 through Vermont and then north on New York Route 22, turning south after Fort Ticonderoga and heading to Lake George, N.Y, on a smaller road flanked by green pines. A steamboat with colorful flags is making one of its daily tours, and boat rentals line the shore. "Looks like a mix between Lake Starnberg in Bavaria and Lago di Como in Italy," Wolfgang says. A few months later, in October, a tour boat will capsize on this lake, killing 20 people. But now the water is alluringly blue and peaceful.

We arrive at Lake George Escape campground in late afternoon. According to our tour books, it's a five-star site with two swimming pools and "full hookup": electricity, sewage, water. There's even cable TV and Internet access.

Milky twilight is settling in. Men leaving the camp store with firewood in their arms walk along the driveway. Lake George Escape combines the traits of a super-size parking lot with an entertainment complex, intermingled with trees. RV next to RV. You don't see your neighbor? The truth is: You hardly see anything else. Smoke from more than 300 barbecue sites fills the air; clotheslines block the last bits of free sight between the cars. The only safe bet is to look up: The sky will remain our only view of nature for the length of the stay. Nothing is as I had hoped.

I keep these thoughts to myself. Night is falling, and the blue light of television flickers out of every motor home. We put hamburgers on the fire and eat in the glow of the yellow insect candle.

Next morning we look around. Our home is squeezed in between super-vehicles, some with tents serving as sunrooms, some with plastic porches decorated with living-room lamps and garden gnomes. Most of the license plates are from New York.

"Something has truly changed in the past few years," one of the Cruise America guys in Boston had told us. "People don't have much money to travel far. They come from nearby."

The scent of coffee is filling the morning air. Girls in bathing suits are cruising around on their bikes. Next to us is a party of 10. Grandpa and Grandma, each weighing more than 250 pounds, enjoy their first cigarettes of the day in camp chairs.