Two Tightwads, a Camper, & a Baby

By Angie J. Mayfield

How can a family afford to travel out West through 13 states in 13 days with less than $1,500 during tough economic times? By holding on to their adventurous spirit and each other, by bringing along their own homegrown food supply, and by sleeping in a camper, showering at truck stops, and finding creative entertainment and budgeting options along the way. Add in being chased by a bear, getting lost in the wilderness, exploring their Native American ancestry, and engaging a precocious 12-month old, and the stakes and fun keep adding up in this humorous, heartwarming journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781977263193

Angie J. Mayfield

Angie J. Mayfield is a professor at Vincennes University in southern Indiana, an award-winning author and journalist, a columnist for Boomer and Mules and More magazines, and a lifelong equestrian. Her articles and photos have been published in numerous newspapers, magazines, and calendars. Angie received the Hoosier Press award in 2006, and her memoir Love, Loss, & Lunacy in a Smalltown was a finalist in Writers’ Digest Life Stories in 2012. She lives on a farm in southern Indiana with her husband, children, and a menagerie of pets and spends her summers in the mountains of Montana riding her mule and photographing Nature’s canvas.

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Two Tightwads, a Camper, & a Baby

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2023 Angie J. Mayfield

v2.0

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Gypsy Spirit

Day 1 Guns and Hoses: The Road to Freedom

Day 2 (Saturday) Prairie Dogs, Bears, and Badlands, Oh My!

Day 3 (Sunday) Heart-Shaped Rocks and Leathery Old Men

Day 4 (Monday) The Devil, the Ants, and a Hollywood Rodeo

Day 5 (Tuesday) Welcome to Yellowstone

Day 6 (Wednesday) Detours and Dancing with the Stars

Day 7 (Thursday) Nature: Up Close and Personal

Day 8 (Friday): The Land of Gods and Ghosts

Day 9 (Saturday): Montana Moose and Magic

Day 10 (Sunday) Going Over the Sun

Day 11 (Monday) Broke and Broken Down

Day 12 (Tuesday) Dells, Ducks, and Midwest Muck

Day 13 (Wednesday) Home is Where the Heart (and Squirrels) Live

A GYPSY SPIRIT

"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost…"

– J.R.R. Tolkien

EVERY TWO OR three years I am infected with an uncontrollable itch – not one that requires medication, but some type of therapy or healing, or at the very least, a change of environment. The stress of work, kids, and responsibilities and the hum-drum monotony of day-to-day routines stifle my creativity, my spirituality, and my contentment with my chaotic life. Nothing tames my emotions like an escape to the wilderness, whether it be a weekend road trip or an extended, exotic adventure.

After the death of my first husband, Bernie, in an automobile accident in 1999, I realized life is short, unpredictable, and full of lost opportunities. We have the rest of our life to do that, he often claimed when discussing vacations. Well, the rest of my life was upon me – and I didn’t want to waste another moment. I made a vow to myself to visit places I wanted to see and experience adventures that called to my gypsy soul now, while I was still young enough to enjoy them. I wanted to live, not merely exist, so I was making my bucket list and furiously trying to fill it to the rim. I may be a little cracked from the tragedies of my past, but they push me to reach for that thin ray of light still visible in my future.

After Bernie’s death, I escaped to Colorado, searching for sanity and purpose, trying to piece together the puzzle of my life into something new and meaningful. I communed with Nature, argued with God, and wrote poetry while sitting on a boulder in the middle of an Aspen stream. It was a step in healing.

Two years later, I had broken down again in a flurry of raising children, working two jobs to keep our heads above water, managing a farm, and attending graduate school. I packed the kids, my equines, and the camper and headed to Eminence, Missouri for a week of camping, trail riding, tubing down Jacks Fork River, and becoming reacquainted with the free spirit I used to be. Next it was Florida, then a Canadian fishing adventure, then a position with Homeland Security that allowed me to travel monthly to new places where ghosts could not find me.

By 2007, however, my chaotic life began to implode around me. Dysfunctional parents, failed relationships, rebellious teenagers, exhaustion, and loneliness littered my path of self-destruction. An abusive boyfriend had left me shaken and insecure, and I now distanced myself from others, restlessly seeking something – but pushing away everything. I was like the skittish Blue Heron that stands along the creek on my farm, always alone, waiting. That summer I decided to take extreme action and seek a better life for my children and me. I wanted to move out West, but I knew my father would kill me. Instead, I found a faculty position at a university three hours away.

Teaching college English was my dream, next to becoming a best-selling author and a country music singer, of course. My 9-year stretch of heartbreak, depression, and really bad country songs was finally broken. Teaching at a smaller campus where many of the students were mothers who commute, come from rural backgrounds, work full-time, and want more for their children, I felt right at home. One might say I’m an accidental academic – a walking paradox, actually.

I had given up on finding love again, convinced I was cursed, yet that small part of me still yearned for romance and a partner to share my life with. I truly believed one had to experience the bitter to appreciate the sweet, and I had certainly endured my share of heartache and bad relationships over the past few years. However, I’d had a good man once, so I knew the qualities to seek out.

I yearned for passion and a best friends-and-lovers relationship, and that unexpected blissful union finally happened shortly after I arrived out west – southwestern Indiana, that is. One could say my former stereotypes were thrown right out the stained glass window. Love didn’t blossom on some exotic island or through a matchmaking website. Actually, Doug and I met at a gas station.

Okay, not erotic enough for Harlequin Romance or tacky enough for daytime television, but not unheard of in a small town. He was driving an old Ford truck with a stock trailer full of cows. I was filling up my Chevy on my way home from campus. As I lifted the nozzle, I caught a quick glimpse of this rugged wrangler petting one of his Angus and offering words of encouragement, comfort, love, or maybe just plain mockery, considering he was on his way to the stockyard or slaughterhouse. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I remember the picture of this younger, raggedy version of Michael Douglas talking to a cow somehow struck a sentimental chord and I couldn’t resist a little harmless flirtation.

Does it ever talk back? I asked.

Depends on where I pet her, he retorted and turned to smile at me – a kind, meaningful smile like that of a child being handed an ice cream cone. I melted. He wasn’t adorable, but he definitely had something I couldn’t let go.

As rural as a man gets, his muscular back and arms were clearly visible as he returned the nozzle to its holder. His farm hat, cowboy boots, dirty jeans, and a Save a Horse, Ride a Tractor tee were common for the area, but the gleam in those copper brown eyes pleaded for a longer look. Drooped slightly in the corners, they reminded me of a basset hound I owned once, innocent and trusting, yet somehow old before his time.

He possessed the weathered face a man incurs from too much manual labor, weather, and worry – like an August field with want of rain. But there was a softness about him, a subtle intelligence in his voice, and a genuineness that caught me and held me helpless in that lingering smile. I found myself making simple chitchat that I normally detested. I asked about the cows and told him my father raised cows, but I raised and rode mules and grew corn, soybeans, and a vegetable garden.

You don’t look much like a farmer, he teased. But that’s a good thing.

Just a hobby farmer, I told him. I cash rent the crops to pay the taxes. I teach English to pay the mortgage.

My worst subject, he admitted. The secretary is always correcting my memos. I teach high school biology, agriculture, and welding but my real love is the farming I do on the side.

I was pleasantly surprised – an educated country boy. He was perfect for me, so that meant he must be married. No ring, but farmers never wore rings. I wanted to ask, but he didn’t strike me as the type who liked bold women, or who would ask one for one’s phone number either, unfortunately. He seemed a good fit for a Pippi Longstocking, Ellie Mae Clampitt cross like me. The more we talked, the more we found we had in common. He was a daisy in a field of weeds, and I wanted to pluck him for my own. Instead, I pulled myself away, waved goodbye, and cursed my manners all the way home.

That night I looked through old photo albums. I watched videos of Bernie playing with the kids. I cried, and I prayed. They say the Lord helps those who help themselves, but I felt like a Navy cook left alone with no potatoes. I had been too stubborn to ask anyone for anything, always taking everything on myself until I was a broken fence, my heart tangled in rusty barbed wire. Why couldn’t I appreciate my many blessings and not want more? Stop lingering in a past you can’t change. Either find peace alone or find someone to make you smile again.

The following day I walked into my office after class to find a bouquet of daisies, my favorite flower, and a card. Just couldn’t resist. You’re the sunshine I’ve been looking for. I’d love to talk to you again – Doug.

On our first date, Doug took me to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, to his classroom to feed his albino catfish, and then for a moonlit walk around his farm. The next weekend we went camping and trail riding. He broke my mule’s bridle, dropped me off the tailgate of the truck, and stepped all over me during a barn dance. I didn’t care. Great conversation and laughter can nurse any bruise.

I can’t explain it – except maybe in a country song – but I think Bernie hand-picked Doug for me. Sure, he’s poor and forgetful, and his mom hates me for stealing her slave and moving him to Indiana. And yes, I have four kids, too many pets, and too little patience. But our emotional baggage is about equal, and other than those minor blended family adjustments, we were everything we’d been looking for and more, and in spite of past failures and warnings from friends and family, we married a few months later. I think our kids agree we made the right choice, though they claim our open displays of affection are disgusting.

We do have our differences, but they complement each other – like sharp cheese and sweet wine. I think Doug is ADD and I’m a little ADHD, so we’re always busy but we don’t seem to get a lot done. There are times when his lackadaisical attitude drives me insane, but then again, it’s that down-to-earth, easygoing nature of his that keeps me sane.

If I had a theme song, it would be Da-da-da-da-da… Charge! Doug’s, on the other hand, would be La-la-la-la-la-la. Our doctor claims he’s a plow mule hitched to a race horse, and he’s not sure which one of us will wear the other out first.

I’m not exactly easy to live with either. Doug’s a saint to tolerate my hard-headed, high-strung personality. Compared to the women in his past, however, he claims my affectionate nature and spontaneity are quite the welcome shellshock. I worry about his back. He worries about my cholesterol. We both worry about our kids, the environment, the government, and the general lack of work ethic, integrity, and empathy in today’s society.

Then, just when we had grown comfortable with each other and our chaotic but manageable lifestyle, we discovered birth control doesn’t always work and that it is possible to have a grandchild older than our