Travels in a Tin Can

For one thing, our rig was about the size of a matchbox toy in comparison to
the behemoths we parked next to. Most were about one and a half to two
times larger than Harvey, which gave him a serious inferiority complex. This
forced us to shun our neighbours in an attempt to buoy his spirits. In fact,
some of the other travellers had cars to tow behind their RVs, or to tow the
‘fifth wheel’ (caravan), that were as big as our van. On busy sites we would
often walk around for hours looking for our van before peering into the dark
crevices between two 32 footers and exclaiming: ‘Oh, there it is!’ Most of the
campers also had garden furniture; fences, flowerpots, flags and other
paraphernalia making us feel even more like poor cousins. Size is not
everything of course, and we would surely have interacted more with the other
campers, but for two further barriers.
The majority were seasoned campers, often travelling to the same sites
each year and so with established networks of friends. Snowbirds are the
extreme example of this group. In comparison we were inexperienced and
also transient RV-ers, generally moving on after one night as opposed to one
month. Related to this there was a serious age gap between us and most of
our neighbours - in fact our combined age was less than many of them.
Most of the people we saw who even approached our age group were
either camping in tents or had hired cars and were staying in motels. I do not
consider myself particularly ageist; it was just one more thing not to have in
common. The feeling was obviously mutual because one night we heard carol
singing and opened our van door to find a group wandering between the RVs
stopping to sing at each one. When they left our site we heard one comment
carry to us on the wind: "Pity they're young".