Long Time Gone: Day 17: Savannah, GA

The Teardrop is gone.

Definitely, hopelessly, heartbreakingly gone.

When we arrived two days ago, we unloaded all of our clothes and most of our food from the van and the trailer and took those things into the house we are renting. Then we parked the trailer in a private parking spot off the alley, happy that it had its own snug little space away from street, right behind the house. Flash forward to this morning: We ate a quick breakfast at the house and were getting ready to pack in some more sight-seeing. But Keith and I, having just finished our coffee, decided that we needed some minty gum. The supply in my purse had been exhausted, but I had stashed several more packs in the trailer, so I volunteered to go out back to retrieve some more. I swung open the gate between the back yard and the alley, and there was ... nothing.

For a moment, I was confused. You know, like when you run upstairs to get something, and when you get there, you forget what you were looking for in the first place. Oh, yes. Gum. From the Teardrop. But ... the Teardrop is not ... Wait, did we move it? Did we park it on the street last night? ... No. ... Oh my God. The Teardrop is gone.

(It could be noted here that I awoke this morning -- an hour or two before I made that awful discovery -- from a vivid dream in which someone was trying to steal my car and my wallet, which I think is an eerie coincidence.)

We called the police, and they dispatched Officer Matt Jackson, who must be around Natalie's age, maybe slightly older. He expressed shock that something like this would happen in this neighborhood -- because according to him, it never does. He also sympathized with us, saying he's sorry it had to happen to us, being on vacation and all. We showed him a photograph of the trailer, and he acknowledged that it's a distinct looking vehicle that should stand out, wherever it is. He promised that he'd put out a bulletin about its disappearance and check impound lots in case it was towed. But he did not seem very confident, and we are not very hopeful. We saw it last around 9 a.m. yesterday, when Keith went to dig out some cereal from the galley for breakfast. A maintenance guy from the vacation home rental agency came around 4 p.m. yesterday afternoon to fix a lock on the back gate, and he says that the trailer was not there when he stopped by. So it was boldly taken sometime before then, in broad daylight. We didn't notice until this morning, though, almost a full day later. That trailer could be four states away by now. Sure, it has a distinct look, but it's also so small, it could discreetly fit in any garage or shed or storage unit, anywhere.

Immediately after we called the police, we called the rental agency to let them know what had happened, and to ask what time the maintenance worker had stopped by and if he had seen the trailer. The lack of concern has been very discouraging. The office manager who answered the phone tried to clarify with Keith, "Wait ... was it a trailer or a camper?" Keith was all, "Lady, it was both. And does it matter? It was stolen." She didn't offer any help, and hasn't followed up with us at all to see how things are going. Keith and I are thinking that it would have been nice if they had offered us another night in the house to get organized and regroup, since clearly our plans have suffered a pretty serious derailment. But ... nothing.

So, the police officer wrote up a report, and he took Keith's cell phone number, and after that, there wasn't much for us to do. It wouldn't do any good to sit around the house and mope for our lost Teardrop, so we set out to see a few more Savannah sights.

First-up was the Owens-Thomas house, purported to be a star of Savannah's house tours. Designed by English architect William Jay and built in 1819, it featured innovations indoor plumbing and that were certainly state-of-the-art at the time. In fact, the house had flush toilets several years before the White House did. We were led around the house by one of the original Daughters of the Revolution, who must love that house and its deceased inhabitants more than her own children, but who looked about as happy to be leading a tour through the home as she would have been pooping on its meticulously reproduced rugs. At the beginning of the tour, she requested that all guests turn off their cell phones. I exchanged sheepish shrugs with Keith, knowing that, despite the warning, he would choose to leave his ringer on, in case the police needed to get ahold of us.

The tour started in the basement, and minutes after the guide explained that rainwater from the gutters on the roof collected in two 2,000-gallon cisterns in the attic, which fed an 800-gallon cistern between the first and second floors, which in turn fed the 5,000-gallon cistern in the basement, Keith approached her in front of that giant tank and asked where the water came from that filled it. She looked at him cooly and said, "I have already explained that."

The tour continued, and we mounted the stairs to the first floor to marvel at the master bedroom where the Marquis de Lafayette once spent the night. The tour guide pointed out that he stayed at the home with his son and his dog, Quee-ess, in 1825, and because of that visit, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Wait, what? I thought. Quee-ess? What kind of weird dog name is that? I've never heard of such a name. She asked if there were any questions about the room, and after an awkward silence, my hand shot up and I asked her to please spell the name of the Marquis de Lafayette's dog.

"Quee-ess," she drolled disdainfully. "Q - U - I - Z. Quee-ess."

Things went downhill from there. Because, when we moved on to the family dining room, Keith's cell phone rang. It rang. Right there in the middle of the tour. Keith slipped out into the hallway, but could not escape the withering look from Guidezilla. I'm sure she would have happily forgiven the disruption if she had known that one of Keith's friends -- ahem, Corey Wall -- was calling to make sure that we hadn't thrown ourselves into an alligator pit in despair over the loss of our trailer.

The kids and I managed to ingratiate ourselves back into the guide's good favor. She made a remark about Charlie and Clare's good manners -- in fact, the children did a marvelous job of standing quietly and attentively through the rather dry tour, probably out of fear that she would beat them across their knuckles with a ruler if they got out of line. And I was able to butter her up by posing au courant queries ("Ah, is that an early 19th-century bedwarmer I see leaning against that fireplace?" and "Is it possible that this wall was not part of the home's original design?"), which seemed to please her. I've got to give props to my mom and all the historic home tours she took me on when I was young, which helped me identify a 19th-century bedwarmer when I saw one.

Next, we popped in on the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on a strong recommendation from our horse-drawn tour guide yesterday. We stopped only long enough to poke our heads in and snap a picture -- pretty! now let's go -- because by that time it was almost 1:30, and we wanted to fit in lunch at a well known eatery that closes at 2.

So we walked several blocks to Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room, a family-style restaurant where apparently everyone squeezes in at big tables and enjoys heaping helpings of southern home cooking. Mrs. Wilkes was the original Paula Deen, but without, you know, the racism. Although our guide book warns that there are always swarms of fans outside Paula's Lady and Sons restaurant waiting for a table, we passed the place a couple of times yesterday and didn't see any crowds. But at Mrs. Wilkes' today, a line of several dozen people snaked down the block. We couldn't even get close to the door to find out what kind of wait to expect. So we gave up on that idea and ate somewhere else. Bummer. The morning's trauma had really stirred up my appetite, and I had been looking forward to fried chicken and mashed potatoes for lunch.

As we walked along today, we kept peering into alleys and suspiciously eyeing carriage houses and garages, thinking that maybe the Teardrop was close. Or hoping that the Teardrop would go cruising past us down the street. It seems impossible to us that the Teardrop could be taken from us during our stay in this quaint, charming city. It also seems impossible that the trailer could have gone very far. Everything we've needed to do or see for the last few days has been neatly contained within these historic blocks. It didn't occur to us that the trailer could be anywhere else but tucked into a beautiful garden behind a gate, or rolling along a cobbled lane.

After lunch, we loaded ourselves into the van and drove to Bonaventure Cemetery, which our guide book recommended for its gothic atmosphere -- crumbling headstones and Live Oaks swathed in Spanish moss. The 10-minute trip took us -- gasp -- out of the historic district and into actual circa-2014 Savannah. We passed scruffy industrial spaces, overgrown scrap yards, strip malls with shady back lots, suburban houses with garages and a million other places where the Teardrop could have been hiding, and we thought, Aha, yes, this really did happen. Savannah isn't just made up of the idyllic historic neighborhoods that have sheltered us for the last three days. It's gritty and ordinary and real. Crime happens. And our trailer is long gone.

In the evening, we drove way, way out of town to an IMAX theater so that Keith and the kids could see "How to Train Your Dragon 2" on opening night. (We have listened to five of the audio books in the series, as read by David Tennant, so far on this trip.) While they watched the film, I sat in the car and made a list of everything I could remember that was inside the Teardrop when it was taken.

Except for our clothes, our cell phones and laptop, some of our food and, thank God, our matching collapsible coffee-drip cones, everything was in the Teardrop. Everything. All of our camping gear -- our tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, camp chairs, lanterns, flashlights, travel books, board games, medical supplies, all of our camp-kitchen stuff, and the whimsical yet practical things we had collected to make that space special and fun -- the his-and-hers embroidered Indiana and Minnesota pillows; the collapsible, nesting bowls and colander; the matching baskets that fit on the shelves as if they were designed to be there. Outfitting that trailer was a labor of love.

At least we didn't lose our collapsible coffee-dripper-things!

All of that can be replaced, of course. Certainly, even the Teardrop itself can be replaced. Still, we are devastated by its loss. The fact that someone took all of our things makes us feel violated. And the idea of our sweet little Teardrop being scratched or broken or just being hauled around somewhere unattached to us breaks our hearts. It was the acquisition of that trailer that ignited our smouldering wanderlust and launched us on our amazing adventures. In five years, we've traveled a lot of roads with that trailer. We've seen a lot of the country with it. And it has always been good to us.

Tonight, Keith and I discussed our plans moving forward. Tomorrow, we're supposed to leave Savannah and drive to Crooked River State Park, where we have a cottage reserved. So, for the next two nights, we don't need our gear. But after that, we had eight more nights of camping planned -- in St. Augustine, Orlando and Gulf Shores, Ala. We could just scrap those plans and head home. But here's the catch: We have already purchased a few days' worth of nonrefundable theme-park tickets for our stay in Orlando. They were not inexpensive. And if we cancel the rest of our trip, we will essentially be throwing away all those pricey tickets. But if we continue, we'll have to stay in hotels for eight nights, and that will add a lot of extra expense to an already costly trip.

I called Disney World today to explain our situation. We have a campsite reserved at Fort Wilderness, but now we have no camping gear to set up there. I had hoped that the agent I spoke with would feel so much pity for us that she would wave her magic wand and offer to put us up in a suite at the Grand Floridian. She certainly was very perkily sympathetic, but she made no such gesture. She simply pointed out that if we want to upgrade to a cabin at Fort Wilderness, it will cost almost $2,000 for four nights <<choke>> and she would be happy to change the reservation for me if I wished. Clearly, she did not know with whom she was speaking, or realize the amount of power and influence I wield through this blog (with its 13 total followers), or she would have fallen all over herself to accommodate us.

So here's the plan: We're not going to let this get us down. We're going to keep going. We'll stay in a motel in St. Augustine, and we'll keep our campsite at Disney's Fort Wilderness and rent Disney tents -- yes, my friends, rent tents -- so that we can stay there. Who knows what we'll do in Alabama. We'll figure that out when we get there. The show must go on.

Tonight, we are grateful that the five of us are healthy and safe. If this is the worst thing that happens to us on our trips, we will be okay.

(P.S. I know what you're thinking, and yes, when we finally put out our first album as a family band -- Keith on keyboards, Charlie on guitar, Natalie on bass, Clare on drums and me on lead vocals -- we will name it "Smoldering Wanderlust.")