By the time we got back to Gueydan that Mardi Gras night, we needed to be alone. We’d been sleeping in living rooms and spare bedrooms for five days, with incredibly on-the-go days and very little sleep.
So as tempting as it was to take the comfy bed in the house at Kenneth and Heuetta’s, we opted for setting up the trailer. It had a private bathroom, a heater, a kitchen sink, a hot plate, a bedroom with wall-to-wall mattresses and clean sheets. What more could we want?
I was so whupped that all I wanted to do was sit, preferably in total silence with a drink in my hand and a book in my lap. Chelsea on the other hand was resolutely determined to “get things put away”.
I simply couldn’t cope, so I did my level best to ignore her ongoing mutterings and mumblings and questions.
Tree Frog
It worked well until Chelsea started making the bed and discovered a tree frog in the sheets. Now, if I kill a palmetto bug or scorpion, Chelsea will clean it up, but she won’t be anywhere around if something flies or jumps.
Not only do tree frogs jump, they splat with a nice gooey plop every time they land. Chelsea was having none of that. It was now my job.
Rousted from exhaustion, I crawled over to the beds and systematically searched for the now-elusive frog. Twenty minutes later I gave up, knowing that either we’d sleep in the house again or I’d eventually find the frog, because we sure as heck weren’t going to sleep with a tree frog loose in our sheets.
I shivered at the mere thought of awakening to the slurpy kiss of a frog on my face.
As bedtime inexorably approached, the thought of the frog wasn’t far from my mind. Glancing up with a deep sigh in my heart, I suddenly spotted it. Leaping for the bed, I yelled at Chelsea to get me something I could use to trap it.
Somehow in the split second it took to make my move at that frog on the wall, it disappeared in thin air.
If you’ve ever been in, or lived in, a travel trailer, you know they are miniaturized. The doors are narrow; the rooms are small.
Heuetta, knowing we’d want bed space, had borrowed several mattresses, putting one up on a frame and tucking the other firmly on the floor between the walls, giving us literally wall-to-wall beds.
While comfy for sleeping, it gave me no maneuvering room in chasing frogs, and the doors were so narrow there wouldn’t be any fast evasive action.
Puzzled at the disappearance of the frog, I looked around and then looked down. Much to my horror, the frog, wet splotch and all, was eyeballing me, happily ensconced right at chest level on the eyeglasses I had hanging around my neck.
Yes I shrieked, rather quietly I thought, given the circumstances, but it was a miracle I didn’t break both elbows trying to back out of the narrow doorway, my feet tangling in the sheets and mattresses.
I did have the presence of mind to make a giant leap for the front door and quickly (actually rather frantically) shake my glasses, allowing the frog to leap to freedom outdoors.
Once the adrenaline calmed down it was a great stress release. We laughed until we cried.
The Trailer
After only a month in a small travel trailer, I have new respect for those who live in one permanently. The trailers are small. They get very cold quickly and very hot quickly. It’s similar to living in a tin can.
In the ten steps from the bedroom at one end of the trailer to the bathroom at the other end we traversed our living room, kitchen, dining room, pantry, hall closet, storage area, and bathroom sink.
Generally there’s no real window screening, so windows and doors have to be kept shut to avoid an influx of mosquitoes, lizards, and yes, tree frogs.
They are inclined to leaks and to mold. The hot water is often lukewarm at best. They are inclined to get funky smells. The gas heaters have to be watched carefully or carbon monoxide will gather inside the trailer.
The seating arrangements are tight. There’s very little chance of setting up a true office space and not much room for comfy armchairs, especially two of them.
When two people are sharing the trailer, there’s very little escape from each other.
Visitors are best kept outside where there’s more room.
The good news is the trailers offer privacy, alone time, protection from rain and wind, heat and air conditioning, the chance to sleep in a real bed, and they have indoor plumbing. There’s even pretty good protection from bugs and mosquitoes if the windows and doors are kept shut.
We were especially lucky because “our” trailer was located in a beautiful large back yard with lots of birds and outdoor chairs. We did have wireless Internet access in the trailer, and Chelsea could go inside the main house to plug into an Ethernet cable for fast access Internet.
Kenneth was frequently around, offering us company if we wanted it. We had access to a great washer and dryer. Everybody was really friendly. We got to use the much nicer and larger showers inside, with real hot water. We got to see Heuetta from Monday to Thursday.
A huge blooming mulberry tree was right outside our door, giving us front row birdwatching opportunities, including observing the berry-eating antics of a flock of gorgeous cedar waxwings.
We even got used to the highly vocal frog that took up residence in the kitchen wall of our trailer, frequently serenading us in the middle of the night with its high decibel levels reverberating throughout the trailer.
All in all, we were incredibly relieved to have a place of our own, a place to just be for a while, and a chance to recover from our hectic pace of the prior few months.