I was stereotyping, I’ll admit it.

Our first appointment was with Bill, who told us to meet him in a Taco Bell parking lot in Salem, OR. He said he’d lead us back to his property on his Harley with the small front wheel.

We’d made the journey to Portland and environs to look for travel trailers that might be cheaper than the ones up in the Big City–well, Big for this corner of the country, anyway. There was another draw: our new brakes needed to be broken in for 200-400 miles before we could tow with them, and Portland was just the right distance.

Bill’s trailer was well in our price range, but I started to be wary when he led us back onto the highway. We followed the sound of the Harley, his leather jacket with the full-back eagle patch, and the American flag that whipped along from its perch on the bike seat.

“We don’t have to tell him about our trip.” I said to Ami. “Where is he taking us? Why don’t you text T with his information so if something happens, at least he’ll get caught.” Then, “Nobody needs to know we’re dykes.”

That’s what I said out loud. In my head I plotted how I would stand by the back door of the car, waiting for any reason to open the tailgate and release our big-for-a-Pit-small-for-a-Mastiff protectress.

When we got to Bill’s property, none of my fears were assuaged–at least not by the deserted look of the place. The trailer was parked well behind the house, and his backyard stretched out as far behind us as we could see. If anyone else was home inside the house, we had no way of knowing. Every window facing us was covered in plastic.

But Bill took off his skullcap helmet, and his weathered face crinkled up like an accordion. Blue eyes that would give Sinatra a new name shone out from behind all that smile. He told us how he’d come to own the trailer. He’d bought an SUV for his daughter, and when she came for it, she decided she didn’t like it. So he tried to sell the car, but nobody wanted a V-8 in this economy. Except one woman with a trailer to trade for it. Bill didn’t need a trailer any more than that unsellable V-8, but now he had one.

That was the kind of guy Bill was. We admired him, but we didn’t buy that trailer. We had become wise to at least a few signs that a trailer’s lifespan had been exceeded, and two were apparent the moment I stepped inside. The air was live and musty, and the floor spongy. Someone had tried to lay new linoleum tile, but it hadn’t fixed the problem.

Our encounter with Bill was pleasant from the moment he met us–asking if we needed to eat before we went to see the trailer–to the moment we parted. Except for the fact that we knew we weren’t buying. And so it went with the other two trailer owners we met, the car lot guy who bought his little 17 footer at auction, and the barefoot, post-college Texan. The third guy we were supposed to meet flaked after making us wait four hours for him to get off work. Just never called, the jerk. We told the Texan what we were doing on our road trip, but nobody else. I didn’t think it would have mattered if we had, though.

While we drove that same 300 miles back home to Seattle, towing nothing except two tired dogs and one sleeping baby, Ami and I hypothesized. “I think the RV community is going to be fine with us. They seem pretty laid back,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re out there to meet people. We’re people.”

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