The Seven Year Hitch

By Terry Sweeney

This is the story of following your dream no matter how crazy or impossible it seems. The author and her husband decide in their mid-thirties to give up their good jobs, leave their friends and family, sell everything, buy an RV (recreational vehicle) and live and work on the road full-time. The story tells of the transitory jobs they find, the places they travel and the random interactions between strangers that lead to impactful moments. The Seven Year Hitch is a terrific look into the world of full time RV living, as well as United States geography and history. It is also a wonderful lesson about staying true to your dream even during the tough times. The seven year journey takes the author and her husband through the western United States with imagery of the locales that the reader can easily develop a mental image based on the author's descriptions. The author does this not only with the physical beauty she encounters, but also the people she and her husband meet along their travels. Each character is so fully developed, as are the relationships that begin and develop.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098304461

Terry Sweeney

In the year that Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected President, Congress approved the Highway Act, which allowed for construction of the U.S. interstate highway system and Elvis Presley's had two number one hits, "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" for eleven weeks in a row, I was born. I was the eighth child, having lost a brother and sister before I was born, of what would eventually be 12 children, to then Col. Charles W. Sweeney and Major Dorothy Sweeney. My father was the pilot who dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, ending the Second World War. I was born at St. Margaret's hospital in Boston, MA., went to Catholic schools, eventually being commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps upon graduation from college. I spent nearly seven years of active duty, and two years of reserve duty with the Marine Corps, flying F-4 or RF-4 aircraft, as a RIO, out of El Toro, CA., until I left the military to become a stock broker in 1988. At the age of 34, I married and had six beautiful children with my then wife, two boys and four girls, who are all now adults. My wife divorced me after 25 years of marriage, so I'm currently single...but looking (ha ha). I ended up starting my own company 20 years ago, assisting people and small companies who had leveraged too much debt into reasonable payment solutions. I am currently retired in Laguna Beach California, where I write books for a hobby. When I am not writing--and even when I am--I always have music playing on my surround sound home theater network, from the 50s jazz and blues era through, 60's and 70's rock and roll, to the 90s and the alternative pop rock era. Music, for sure, is my love and passion, and feel extremely blessed to have been brought up in the best time ever for musical artists. That, and growing up listening to WBCN in Boston, with Charles Laquidara (The Blue Mattress show), his gameshow, "Mishigas" (Yiddish for "craziness") The Cosmic Muffin, Daryl Martini, and then at 10:00 am the switch over to Tommy Hadges for another 4 hours of just perfect music. No to mention all the little places on Boylston Street like the Jazz Workshop or Paul's Mall, where my sister and I saw Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes and the like, when we were 16 and 15 respectfully. As far as music, we had it all. Pure bliss.

Book preview

© Terry Sweeney 2020

ISBN: 978-1-09830-445-4

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09830-446-1

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Our dream was disintegrating into a nightmare. Six months ago we had traded our conventional life for a home on wheels.

Right now my fingers were cramped from clutching the arms of the passenger seat. I was yelling at my husband to slow down this thirty-two foot behemoth. Low on funds, low on spirits, and desperately needing to park this rig before dark, we were trying to decipher a cryptic map that supposedly led to a campground. We were climbing through narrow, icy roads with no pullouts and no way to turn around. We were north of Santa Fe, New Mexico and our treacherous journey was taking us through a tiny village where I could see people peering out their windows at these foolish people driving this monstrous vehicle.

After what seemed like an eternity, we saw the lake that marked our destination. We finally pulled into the campground, only to find it under construction. We are staying, even if we have to park in the middle of the road, I fiercely exclaimed, my stomach full of knots. Joe nodded his assent, not anxious to tackle the road again, which would only get icier as the night grew colder. A construction worker approached our rig, and I steeled myself against being chased away. He was a big man with a round cheerful face.

Hello, the campground is closed for the season, he informed us.

Is there any place we could park just for the night? Joe asked.

Sure, go up a little way, and there’s a pull out above the lake.

Thanks so much, Joe said gratefully.

He smiled, Why don’t you check with the foreman about working here? That way you can afford to put gas in this big rig.

A place to park and a chance to fill the empty coffers. Things were looking up!

The pullout overlooked a frozen lake and was surrounded by high-desert vegetation. After we settled in, Joe went to find the foreman. I plopped down on the couch and let my heart rate return to normal while Joe went in search of the foreman. He wasn’t hard to spot. No one could mistake his air of authority. He was a burly man in his mid-fifties who didn’t look like he saw much humor in life. Joe explained our situation. The foreman had just fired three laborers who were coming to work late and drunk. He was behind schedule, so he agreed. Joe said, Great, my wife and I will be here in the morning.

Your wife, he sputtered. I don’t think so.

Oh don’t worry, said Joe confidently, She can hold her own.

He seemed about to renege, then said grudgingly, I’ll hire you both for one day to see how you work out.

The campground was constructing a water-break consisting of wire cages filled with rocks. They were also pouring concrete slabs for parking sites. My job consisted of putting rocks into these wire cages and closing them up. The work was grueling and backbreaking. I decided then to call this our chain gang gig if I were ever to write about it. To make matters worse, the men had no idea how to act with a woman on their crew, so they ignored me, except for Anthony, the man who had initially greeted us.

We passed muster that day, and the foreman decided to keep us through the completion of the project, which would last two more weeks. Every part of me hurt, especially my hands. I could barely open and close them after the first day. Crawling into bed that night, I seriously doubted whether I could do this manual labor, plus it triggered my feelings of being ignored and left out, which I also didn’t like.

Each day, I got my direction from Joe and Anthony, who had truly befriended both of us. He even shared his lunch with us one day to show off his wife’s cooking. It was and has been the best bean burrito I have ever tasted. He invited us over to his house when the project was finished.

As the days passed, the others began to accept my presence. They talked to me about their relationships, their children, their plans after the project, and places they had been before. I found myself dropping my preconceived notions of construction workers and laborers. I developed a deep appreciation of all of the men and women who struggle to build the things that make our lives easier, with their hands. It was also a great confidence builder for me to wander into a male-dominated construction site and hold my own.

When the project ended, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I was able to do this physical labor, but even more importantly able to forge connections with these men. I was also very grateful that the hard labor was over with, and now I wanted to do girly things like cook and clean.

We accepted Anthony’s offer to have dinner at his home. He lived with his wife and four children in a small mobile home about seventy miles north of Santa Fe. They made us feel welcome, and we ended up staying for five days. Employment was hard to find in this area, and life was a struggle for them raising their children, yet what little they had they shared with us. Evelyn made home cooked tortillas every night and made five dozen for us to take on our continued journey. Anthony was a good natured fellow, though we knew he was having trouble finding permanent employment and that it weighed on him. He would take these little construction gigs when he could find them, and do the best he could to support his family.

The doubts we