Well, we survived so my previously stated victory conditions were met. As I predicted, the pack up just prior to leaving was a last minute hatchet job. We were grabbing anything we could think of and piling it into Bluebell. I didn't want to raise up Frostbite to pack her better since we were pressed for time. I wanted to get to the park and have her set up before it got dark. I only partially succeeded in that effort.
Here is a list of things we forgot:
- weather radio
- radio of any type
- orange juice
- milk
- eggs
- towels
- dish cloths of any type (we did manage to remember paper towels)
- 1 table leg
- a fan for outside
Looking sharp!
another angle
Notice the new stripe decal that I added to the side of Frostbite which matches Bluebell. The safety chain, which I replaced with a shiny new, and stronger, one turned out to be too short. I had to attach it to just one side of the hitch instead of both the way it was intended. I'll get to the tool box and have them add another couple of feet to it later this week. Since we were just going 20 miles down country roads, I figured it would be OK.
We arrived at the park before dark. The cost for a site with electric/water was $20 per night. My wife's state employee discount kicked it down to $16 per night. Total cost for the campsite this weekend was $32 which was, oddly enough, the exact same cost as our crappy lunch at the fair last weekend. There was a creek that ran along the campground and all the sites adjacent to this creek were already full. The opposite side of the loop, however, was completely empty so we opted for one of those fairly close to the bathhouse. We had no neighbors on either side or across the street for the whole weekend which was nice.
I got the set up started good before it got dark but still had to finish in the dark. The water hose was too short because they has the hookups for this particular campsite just a foot away from the water hookup for the neighboring campsite both of which were actually next to the neighboring campsite rather than in the middle between them. I'll have to make sure that I check for this prior to choosing a site to set up in.
I got the awning up, amazingly, without any problems at all. I figured out the mistake I made when I set it up at home last night and it went up stronger than ever. I didn't need to use any guide ropes to secure it. Eventually, I finished setting up. The AC and fridge were going strong. We started a charcoal fire and cooked three hamburgers around 10pm. My daughter was already asleep, though, so she didn't eat. My wife and I set up our chairs outside and sat up until around 12 or 1.
I opted to leave my CPAP machine at home for this weekend thinking that I would be fine.
I wasn't.
I actually experienced the most significant sleep apnea I ever had this weekend. I was constantly dreaming about being underwater and would force myself to wake up gasping for air.
I won't make this mistake again. CPAP goes wherever I do from now on.
The next morning, we realized that I forgot the milk, eggs, and orange juice so we altered our plans a bit and went to the park restaurant for breakfast. After that, we went to town for the planned errands. We couldn't get the tires rotated because Bluebell needs 2 new tires. That sucked. We did pick up some plastic bins of various sizes to better organize the myriad of junk inside Frostbite. We also picked up a cool fan at Big Lots that can easily be stored inside Frostbite between trips.
When we got back to the campsite, it was noon, and hot. Very hot! My daughter was hungry so I cooked some hot dogs on the stove in a sauce pan of water. My daughter wanted to go swimming but my wife and I put her off claiming that it would be cooler later in the afternoon. We both sat outside under the awning with the new fan pointed at us while my daughter watched a movie inside. There is a neat outside table that hooks up to the wall but I couldn't set it up because I forgot the stupid table leg.
I snapped a few pics of our set up:
Notice the awning doesn't really stretch tight across the top? This will become significant later in the afternoon.
See my new white RV water hose laying across the picnic table? Well I couldn't hook it up because of . . .
. . . the fact that the stupid water hook up was in the other @$#% campsite next to us. I was a good 2-3 feet too short.
Here is our nifty new fan that has a remote and oscillates and can easily fit underneath the storage bench in Frostbite.
After a couple of hours and a couple of hundred reminders from our daughter, we decided it was time to take her swimming in the lake. We forgot her swimsuit so we picked out some shorts and a t-shirt she could swim in. We didn't really know where the swimming place was so we opted to turn right heading out from the campground (it was a 50/50 shot) and traveled several miles. It turned out to be the wrong way. Turning around and heading back we noticed signs for swimming. We traveled several miles before we realized that we didn't bring a towel (we picked some up at Wal-Mart). We turned back, returned to the campsite and pick up the new towel. Finally, we made it to the swimming area. Now during all this running around, it was getting steadily darker and darker and low rumbles of thunder were starting. When we arrived at the campground, the rangers had just closed it due to the impending rain.
My daughter was upset so I promised to take her to our rec center in Fairview to swim after we got home. Actually, had we gone out when she first asked us, she would have been able to swim a couple of hours before the rain but who was to know. Not us, we forgot the weather radio!
We made it back to Frostbite just as it started raining. My wife and daughter went inside to watch a movie. I stayed out underneath the awning to make sure rain didn't collect and pool up. It was a steady rain. That kept getting stronger,
and stronger,
and stronger, until the thunderclaps were almost upon our very site. I had dropped one of the awning poles so that it was only 3 or 4 feet off the ground and pulled the awning down off the pole on that side so the rain could run off. The rain (monsoon, actually) was so strong that I couldn't see the campsite across the street. There was no place underneath the awning that was dry due to the strong winds. The water running off the road was flowing across our campsite and down the hill towards the creek. I was standing in at least an inch of water everywhere in the pad that Frostbite was sitting on. At times, it was a bit unnerving. It sure would have been nice to have a weather radio to check and see when/if this was going to end.
My daughter screaming inside Frostbite didn't help.
I kept checking with my wife about how Frostbite was doing inside. Were there leaks? She always reported negative so that was good. I continued to sit outside underneath the awning making sure it was dumping water OK and wasn't about to fall down. There were some tent camping neighbors several sites down from us and I was thinking smugly about how neat it was that my wife and daughter were inside high and dry and watching a movie in the AC.
and then the electricity went out.
I figured it would pass when the storm was over until I noticed a neighbor across the field still had lights on inside their camper. It wasn't out in the whole campground, just our site. I went to check the breaker in the pouring rain and it had tripped. I reset it and the electric came back on.
Within five minutes, it was off again.
I repeated this a few times and finally just opted to wait until the storm passed. Which it did eventually pass,
an hour later.
When everything was over, the sun started to come back out. I reset the breaker a final time, raised the awning, and everything was golden again. Frostbite was high and dry. There were a few damp spots on the mattress against the far edge of the bunk end but I was very, very pleased that it did as well as it did.
We cooked the hobo dinners that night and they were wonderful.
The rain, however, did force us to realize that we desperately need a floor mat inside and outside Frostbite's door. Despite trying to take off our shoes before entering the camper, Frostbite still had muddy floors.
The weekend did result in some damage, however. The rebuilt support for the utility bench on the galley side cracked almost in half. My rebuild there was a complete failure. Also, I still need to install the shelf underneath the sink and reinstall 2 drawers for the door side storage box.
Nevertheless, the AC worked smashingly. The gas worked. (Unwittingly, I also accidentally tested for gas leaks as I forgot to turn off the outside tank after lunch on Sat. and didn't notice it until Sun. morn) The beds were comfy. The awning worked great. All this and a major thunderstorm too!
Frostbite was tested well this weekend. I'll make the necessary repairs and rebuilds and the next trip should be even better.
The next camping location is a toss up between Natchez Trace State Park and Paris Landing State Park.
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