The Quick Camping Trip

Well, our quick trip with Dori’s boyfriend and family did not start out in the best of ways. Taking turns too sharply is not recommended when driving a fifth wheel…. It is hazardous for the rear window. We were looking for a spot to park in the campground and ended up on a road that was a dead-end. While trying to turn around I mentioned to Dori to keep an eye on the back window… as she asked “Watch it for what?” the corner of the fifth wheel went through the back window and the whole thing shattered! As shards of glass could be heard dropping into the truck bed we went and found a spot that seemed to meet our needs. Near the park… not to far from the showers…. And lots of space for the tent we wanted to set up beside the trailer.

I backed into the spot…. Much easier to do when you don’t have to worry about the turn radius since I no longer had a window!!! We started unhitching and setting things up when we realized that not only was there NOT a 30 amp plug… the only 20 amp plug was one we had to share with our neighbors…. Who had more lights on their little pop-up than most city airports used!! Pepper was not too pleased about the light situation but since she knew that I was in no mood to move to another site (with glass shards still pinging into the truck bed) she just pouted a bit silently. For the whole trip we could not use lights and the microwave at the same time…. Luckily the next door neighbors could light up their whole site and ours with their light decorations!! Pete asked why the neighbors could use so much power when we had so little and the only response I could come up with was that they were there first.

Once we were all settled and I was about to start making dinner, Macy noticed Carmel had something hanging in her fur. It was… a fishhook. One of those flies with actually 3 hooks welded together. Digging through her long fur to see what the hook was attached to was not fun. Plus, Ned’s (Dori’s boyfriend) mother is terrified of dogs but she has a medical background so she really wanted to try to help… without being anywhere near the dog. She went off in search of wire cutters and the kids and I tried to hold Carmel down to use scissors to trim around the area to see what was going on with the hook. One of the hooks was definitely through her skin and was bleeding. It was quite traumatic for me, the dog, the kids and Ned’s Mom… and the neighbors that came over to watch the whole scenario! But, we finally did get the hook out, cleaned the wound, checked for any more fishing equipment around the campsite, started dinner and called the insurance company about the broken window.

I said to Ned’s mom that all this excitement usually did not happen within 20 minutes of arriving at camp…. She told me she was impressed with how well I handled the situation and the stress and that she was having a good time…. Of course she had yet to taste my cooking!! LOL!
BTW… things only went UP from there. We had a great time and any other problems during the trip were minor and were far outweighed by laughter and fun ☺