We liked all of the RV parks we stayed in. Aside from providing multiple hookups—electricity, water, sewer, cable TV, and usually wireless—they offered a pleasant amount of social exchange, often centered around the pool or the Jacuzzi. At Mammoth Mountain, after a day of spring skiing, we hot-tubbed with a merry band of British soldiers who'd rented an RV for a week of R&R. Later we were all joined by a father of three, who explained why he'd spent $100,000 on a vehicle that he only used two or three times a year: "because, more than anything, it really, really brings us together." (I'll also remember Mammoth because it was there that I faced, and eventually overcame, the greatest of all RV challenges: the clogged toilet.)
Still, our favorite campsite was not in an RV park, but in the uncrowded Mojave Preserve, where we just pulled over a few miles down a dirt road, next to some giant sand dunes. Bruno and I climbed the tallest of them at dusk—the first thing we'd done together in months—then hiked back in the dark, with the light in the living-room window of the RV as our beacon. In the morning, we awoke to find ourselves in perfect solitude, a big blue box in the desert.
In all, we covered exactly 1,399 miles in our week in the Fiesta, with me doing most of the driving in the hot middle part of the day by design. Claire and Bruno put in plenty of screen time (DVDs, laptops, iPods), but they also looked out the windows and, I think, got a sense of the incredible western landscape. At night, every time Bruno or Claire stirred in their sleep in the front bunks, Noemi and I felt it back in the master bedroom, their tiniest motions transferred and amplified by the vehicle's suspension. It was impossible not to feel linked, like a little tribe.
Our last stop was San Clemente State Beach, an hour south of Los Angeles. There was a different, more urban vibe there—fewer old people, more vehicles in each campsite, loud music. Coming back from the beach at sunset, Claire, Bruno, and I stumbled upon a riveting domestic drama playing out in the parking lot: a woman with a puppy yelling profanities and climbing into a truck, and a heavily tattooed man watching her from the steps of a trailer. "This is permanent!" he yelled back.
The three of us exchanged a look—this wasn't something that was going to happen to our tribe. Back at the Fiesta, we stepped inside for a last supper of pasta with Noemi's tomato sauce. Around the small table, lit by fluorescent light and surrounded by not-so-real wood paneling, it felt just the way a home should feel.
"What's the best thing about the RV?" Bruno asked his little sister as we rolled north on I-5 the next morning. He was still lying in bed, shooting Claire with a video camera as she perfected her cheerleading moves in the kitchen.
"Oh, yeah," she said, clapping out the beat. "Family ... together ... forever!"
Next Page: A Happy Camper's Guide to the Desert
