Faded Dreams, Scattered Panties

Mary commented on it first. “Doesn’t it seem like a lot of these places had big dreams that never quite worked out?” she asked me. That was the other day and she was referring to many of the RV parks we have stayed at and how they have recreation centers and playgrounds and water features and things like that that were either never finished or have fallen into disrepair and remain unused. I told her that I had noticed that too. At almost every RV park we have camped at on this trip you can see where somebody once imagined that they would create a mecca to which thousands would come but in almost every case that dream has been derailed or abandoned.

The park we are at tonight is probably the most striking example of this phenomenon. It surrounds a bayou which the owner spanned with his own pedestrian bridge. He built a playground full of swings and slides for children. He has paddle boats and canoes for rent. His bathroom and shower contain twenty shower stalls and toilets. He has several gazebos and a party house. The feature he obviously put his heart into, however, was his pool. It has an island at one end and a castle surrounded by water at the other end. It has a water slide feeding it from one side. But all of it is in shambles. The water is filthy and duck and goose droppings litter the concrete deck that surrounds it. It is sad to see because he obviously put years of labor into building it and it has come to naught. There are only a handful of permanent residents here and we are the only overnighters.

RV parks must be seductive enterprises to dreamers. I can sympathize. I’ve had the dream – take a piece of land, plant some shade trees, lay some water and electric lines, landscape it nice, maybe put in a little store and then watch the money flow in. How difficult can that be? Quite difficult, apparently.

About the panties. It’s the strangest thing. From Washington to Mississippi, over 4000 miles, we have noticed with some regularity pairs of underwear along the roadsides of this great country. There are other items of clothing of course – shoes, belts, t shirts, but nothing is to be found with near the frequency of underwear. Today I decided to apply myself to getting an accurate count of what is to be found along about thirty miles of rural Mississippi roads and in three hours I saw three examples of garments that should have been covering someone’s buttocks and genitalia rather than rotting away on the side of a road. I went on pantie patrol. I have photos to prove this..

(Admittedly, Exhibit B is a bikini bottom but it serves the same purpose as underwear and is equally out of place on the roadside.)

So what is going on? Raise your hand if you have ever ripped off your underwear while driving a car and flung them to the side of the road. Is there a side to life that I have been kept ignorant of? Try as I might, I cannot think of a scenario where a pair of panties could legitimately find themselves on a roadside. I can think of several ridiculous ones: “Oh gee, it’s awfully warm today and I would feel much cooler if I rolled down the window and removed my underwear.” or “Hey baby, if you really loved me you would take off your underwear and throw them out the window.”

If any of you readers of Chelan Traveler know what’s going on, post your comments. I’d appreciate it and so would all the other clueless numbnuts,