Mammoth Workhorse

Saturday, May 16

At 7:21 in the morning—a record!—Mammoth departed from home.  The planned destination was El Paso, Texas, but the 10-1/2 hour drive was being split out over two days. Even a 5- or 5-1/2 hour drive was pretty serious stuff for a massive motorhome with a Jeep trailing behind.

It carried a bunch of bedding and assorted crap to support the sleeping arrangements for seven human beings. Sort of human—I’m not sure if I should include children in that category.  In any case, four adults and three juveniles and a dog were all going to sleep in Mammoth’s massive belly…which appeared to be shrinking every second as we considered the logistics.

As far as beds go, Mammoth is equipped for the job.  The bedroom has a queen-sized mattress. The dining room table pushes down to make a bed which is a little bit smaller than full sized. And there is an overhead bed in the cab which raises and lowers, stopping just above the driver’s seat and accessed with a little collapsible ladder. Its mattress is a little bit smaller than queen size.  Two smallish people could fit nicely and the extra kid had to climb up in the overhead and squeeze between her parents. The boys slept on the table-bed; Molly got the spot on the floor under the main bedroom’s mattress overhang.

So the space worked for sleeping but it was a daily pain in the kiester to assemble and disassemble the beds and turn the space into a living area. And the television in the master bedroom didn’t support network connectivity or bluetooth headphones, so Ed and I had to go to bed at the same time (more or less) as the kids. Technically we didn’t have to, but when bedtime rolled around each evening, we were so tired that we chose to.

I chose Monahans Sandhills because it was a little past half way and I love the place. But after a long, hard drive, Edward (my son) did not share my feelings. It was very windy and he was tired from driving and the sand was blowing everywhere. Painfully blowing--sand blasting our arms, legs and faces. We set up camp and everyone retreated inside.

 

But after a little while, the wind eased a bit and I got the kids out to climb on the dunes with me and then roll down. (Them, not me). Ed and I fixed poke for the grownups; chicken nuggets and quesadillas for the kids.

Ethan, Elyanna and I had a lovely sunset view from the nearest big dune. And that was all for the day.