Going to the country

Gus is in Washington DC on what is known universally as the "8th grade trip". Every time I mention it to someone, they give me the knowing look of having been there or of being the parent of a participant on the spring ritual of leaving your family to begin the process of adulthood that ultimately leads to spring break in Lauderdale, binge drinking and sloppy everything.
There is nothing that spells nightmare more for me than hordes of teenagers left alone to torture each other and remember it fondly.
I missed the joys of the "8th grade trip", instead I was traveling the country with my parents in a vw camper staying in campsites on Key Largo, where other families in somewhat more legitimate sized RV's lived for the winter months, listening to Blackwater by the Doobie Brothers
on the game-room jukebox 51,000 times every night. Now, three of us in a vw for six months, I can only describe that as Lynyrd Skynyrd so eloquently did in Freebird the song that got played the other 49,000 times a night. "Lord help me".