Vacation season is upon us, and this year, my wife, daughter and I scheduled a week off during Memorial Day so we could trek over the pass to Missoula.

This year's vacation was totally different than anything we had done before. That is because our living quarters for the week were attached to the end of the Family Truckster.

Yep, it was the inaugural voyage of Casa de Hitchcock, a 17-foot trailer we recently purchased.

We spent a good amount of time the last few weeks getting the unit set up and stocked. Finally, getaway day arrived, and we loaded up and moved 'er out.

Our first destination with the towable was the Missoula KOA. After checking in, I chugged into our pull-through site and dropped anchor. Actually there is no anchor - just the fun task of leveling the unit and then dropping down the stabilizer jacks.

After hooking up all the comforts of home (water, electricity, cable TV and, of course, the grey and black water hoses), we got our first taste of the gypsy life.

As you can imagine, a trailer so small gets even smaller when you have three people and a dog sharing the quarters during waking and non-waking hours. If you're not a "close" family, the closeness will suffocate you.

I quickly realized that if you're the one person standing up, your name changes to "servant." It's always "Honey, since you're up can you grab the (insert refrigerator item here)?," or "Dad, can you pass me my phone?" It almost becomes musical chairs at times, when all three of us enter the trailer. Who gets their task done first and nabs a good spot on the dinette?

We had a good time in downtown Missoula, which has three farmers market/craft fairs within walking distance of one another on Saturdays. The girls got some shopping done (tax free!) and we tooled around the outskirts of town. I marveled at how much Missoula had grown since my college days, when it was less than half its present population.

The weather cooperated as much as possible for a Memorial Day weekend. Reserve Street (the main north-south route) was a traffic jam Saturday and Sunday, with vacationers and chartered buses of youth sports teams vying for space with the locals.

Evenings were spent with some type of game strewn across the dinette table, and it took us all at least one night to get used to the sounds of the campground, with late arrivals motoring in with their colossal mansions in tow.

We bought a little 'travel-sized' ping pong table and my daughter and I spent some time getting good enough at rallying back and forth to make a game of it. It worked great, set up on the picnic table outside.

We loaded up mid-week and made our way back to I-90, and once again successfully traversed Lookout Pass and backed the trailer into its dock beside the house.

All in all, we had a good time. Trailer life has plenty of details that need to be tended to that those staying in motels never have to consider. How much clothing, bedding and towels do you need for your trip, and do you have enough storage space for it? Already we have learned what does and doesn't work, and what type of space-saving items are worth their weight in gold, and which aren't used at all.

So the next time we drop the tongue hitch down and head out, we'll no longer be newbies to the gyspy life. And no, none of us will be doing our karaoke version of Cher's "Gypsies, tramps and thieves."

At least not while anyone is listening...

Jerry Hitchcock is a copy editor for The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2017, or via email at jhitchcock@cdapress.com.