MESSDECK INTELLEGENCE

[cmypay]

  I can identify!  My job when parking the trailer is to direct which way it has to go...so, I had to learn the appropriate hand signals as approved by Hubby.  First time I had ever read the CG Aircraft Taxi-ing directions.  But, hey, it works...and in a pinch I could help taxi an aircraft.   

[spacecowboy]

Nice posts..I am typing this from the computer cove (a cyber cafe) at the naval base in mayport fla.

A huge pool in the front a beautiful beach in the back..and our rooms (rented the kids one too) are facing the ocean.

The only thing i did,nt plan on was the weather..its raining now which is why i left the beach.

gotta go.

nice camper buoyjumper..even though the rooms are cheaper here 75 a night i won't be doing this every year ...well maybe depends on my overtime (if i get any) well see.

gotta go..

[BuoyJumper]

I really think that this trailer camping has brought our family much closer together.  Wish we could have afforded one a bit sooner...we really spend sooooo much quality time together when we go out exploring.  While stationed in CA, we went on a 1 month "tour of the Southwest," saw the London Bridge in AZ, went to Davis-Montham Air Base and saw the airplane Boneyard, went to the Painted Desert and the Gila Cliff Dwellings, camped on the Colorado River which was very cool...the campsite was maybe 10 feet from the river.  We have met so many really nice people and just been able to get to enjoy our kids.  Next year, the plan is to do a tour of Civil War Battlefields.  Another big benefit is the cost: we have yet to spend more than $45/night to accomodate the 5 of us and our dog!

I know it brought our family close together Paulie.  In fact my grown kids are still very close with their grandparents because of camping.  We met some really great people camping all over as we did and saw things like bald eagles, free ranging buffalo and more that we may never see again.  At this point in our life my wife and I really thought we would be caravaning part of the year with other retirees we know and traveling all over the country.  Oh well, guess some things were never meant to be.  

By the way ... an update on my wife.  She's doing great.  It's been four weeks since she had the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy and she's feeling stronger every day and has already lost thrity pounds.  

As I said before my first time camping was nearly my last.

WARNING:  If you spew what you are drinking all over your monitor or keyboard while reading this be advised that
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE for any damage to your computer.  You may proceed with the story at your own risk.

FIRST TIME CAMPING

My wife's folks John and Corky and their remaining two kids came east one summer for their family vacation to go camping in New England and talked us into going along with them.  So I got a trailer hitch put on my 66 Buick Sport Wagon and then I rented one of these tent campers and towed the camper to our house to get all of our stuff loaded for the trip the night before we were scheduled to shove off early in the morning.  That evening her family arrived at our house after they had set up camp at the local campground and rather than cook we went out for dinner.

After dinner we returned home, said goodnight to her family and went in the house to get some sleep before getting on the road at 0630 the next morning.  About a half hour or so after we returned home my stomach and intestines start rumbling and then I started feeling worse and worse until I'm in the bathroom praying to the toilet bowl to kill me at about midnight.  

FOOD POISONING ... just what I need to start off the day.  I finally nod off to sleep with my head on the nice cool toilet bowl at around 0500.  Then at 0600 I get up and I can't believe my eyes.  A front has moved in and it is raining so hard that I can't see my neighbors house across the street.  I turn on the tv and catch the morning weather and on the weather map the entire eastern seaboard is shrouded in heavy rain and flooding.

So we get on the road at around 0730 and I’m absolutely a mess.  We’ve decided to make a run to Mystic Seaport and since much of the exhibits are inside the rain shouldn’t bother us much.  So we hit the road.  It’s pouring rain, I feel like **** warmed over, I have a splitting headache from being dehydrated, I’m pulling a camper for the first time in my life in the pouring rain and this damn camper keeps yawing back and forth on the hitch which makes me have a white knuckle death grip on the steering wheel so tight that my hands are cramping.

To make a long story shorter we tour the seaport and then get back on the road only to hit Providence at rush hour and the rain is coming down in sheets.  I'm having to drive through water in the lower areas that is up to the rocker panels on the Sportwagon.  We finally work our way through the city and head north to where we will be camping for the night.

We pull in to the campground and it’s a pitch black night, no street lights in the campground and the rain has turned the campground into a quagmire.  I get our camper backed into the site and unhitch.  I told my wife why don’t you go to your folk’s trailer and dry off while I get the camper set up, which she does.  Standing ankle deep in the muck I make repeated attempts to try and level the camper only to have the camper sink deeper into the quagmire with each attempt.  Finally after several failed attempts and having slipped and fallen into the muck, I get the camper leveled, the tent erected and the end beds pushed out and locked in place.

I walk over to the folks trailer and being about half-dead and feeling like a zombie I step inside where they are all sitting all comfy and dry.  They look at me with this look of total disbelief at what they are seeing and I stare back at them through the rain water running down my face and into my eyes and I say to them,  
 
“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT PEOPLE REALLY ENJOY THIS ... YOU MUST BE OUT OF YOUR MIND”

And then they had the audacity to laugh at me ...                        

[EX-CG-GM]

I think I can beat that Ron.

let me set the scene.  It is 1980.  I drive a small Ford Courier pick up.  4 cylinder, 2.0 liter, 4 speed stick.  It has a small aluminum camper on it.  Carpet kit inside so there are two benches to sit on and a little storage space. My sons are 10 and 12.  Every year we go to Pinecrest Lake, in the Sierra's not far above Twain Harte.  We have tent camped there and we have rented a townhouse there.

This particular year, during a brief lapse in sanity, we decide to rent a tent trailer and also to allow each son to bring a friend for the week.  We decided to rent a trailer because I was curious to see whether I could deal with towing anything and my wife was getting REALLY tired of tents.  In other words....I had never towed ANYTHING!

So, 4 kids, two adults, one very small truck.....we need to pack a LOT of stuff.  Tent for the kids, food and beverages for a week, and on and on and on.  I rent the trailer and eventually get it backe, kinda crooked, into my driveway.  We load up and are off.  All is going well.  We start into the mountains.  The 4  kids are stuffed in the back and, naturally, are beginning to fight.  I slide the window between the truck and camper shut.  We exit Sonora and start climbing.....and climbing....and clombing.  Really really long stretch of uphill.  2.0 liter is working it's heart out.  I'm downshifting.....and we are still climbing......and going slower and slower.  temp gauge is pegged.  Kids are now threatening to get car sick....."Are we almost there?"  Shuddup ya' little.....

We make it.  The campground is big and formed on a bunch of narrow twisty little one lane roads.  We find a spot.  And I will now need to back at a right angle.....but there's also a curve right there.  I back.....nope, didn't work.  Cars begin backing up behind me as I try and try and try.  Finally I drive the loop again to free up the traffic jam I have created. I stop at our chosen site, unhook that damn trailer and we muscle it into the spot.

There Dammit!  Done!  Gimme a beer.  The kids are fighting.....   And they are hungry.  We get everything settled in and spent the next several days enjoying ourselves.  The wife and I have the tent trailer to ourselves and the 4 boys are all in the tent.  Last night there we decide not to cook.  We give the boys money and send them to the general store, where they load up on junk food.

Sleep...Middle of the night...."What was that?"  "Sounds like someone throwing up"....  Yup, one of the boys is puking.  All over his sleeping bag, the tent, etc.

Morning, time to pack and head home.  One boy has to be home by 1:00 to attend a wedding.  I pack that friggin' trailer.  It is stuffed.  It is SO stuffed that I can't quite get the top down enough to latch it.  "You guys jump on the back so I can latch this!"  They do....the front wheel at the hitch lifts off the ground....trailer starts rolling backwards.  I run to the back and somehow manage to get it stopped.  And I have it latched!!!   

"OK, give me the keys Honey so I can hook up."  "I don't have the keys."  Oh snap!  The friggin keys are in the now latched trailer.....somewhere.  Meanwhile, sick kid is still puking periodically.  Lovely....Unpack the friggin trailer, repeat process, catching wife's finger in between the trailer bottom and top in the process....now dammit.  Load up.  Strap puke covered tent and sleeping bag to the top of the trailer.

Four boys in back.....wife up front with me.  I have thoughtfully provided the sick kid with a bucket.  He hasn't thrown up in about 1/2 hour...so we should be good.  Start down the narrow 2 lane twisty road......retching sounds emanate from the back.......and there is nowhere to pull over.  And now the smell and sounds are making the other kids nauseous.  I stop the truck in the middle of the damn road.  Wife gets in back.....kid that is sick is now in the very small cab with me....and his puke bucket.  Now wife and 3 kids in back are starting to feel sick.

Lovely.....this is making Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation look like a docudrama.  And I'm still driving down the twisty little two lane. My head is about to explode.   Suddenly the lens falls out of my glasses.  Just falls right out....no reasin for it, just "Plop" into my lap.  I am blind as a bat on a narrow 2 lane road with a kid puking next to me and nowhere to pull off.  I stop in the middle of the road again, find the lens, manage to get it back into the glasses frame, and I start laughing.  I had snapped.  Went from complete sheer murderous frustration to hysteria in one fell swoop.  It suddenly struck me that EVERYTHING that could go wrong had and it was just suddenly funnier than hell.

We made it back in time for the kid to go to the wedding.  All ended well and everyone said it was the best vacation ever.  So we ended up buying a trailer of our on.  None of this tent trailer crap though....

And we generated many more memories, although that one trip is the one we all laugh about the most.

[BuoyJumper]

I can sure relate to that Stan.  After I stepped into the inlaw's trailer and they all started laughing at me there wasn't anything else for me to do but laugh at how ridiculous the entire day had been.

There's one thing I learned for sure about camping ... NEVER SAY NEVER because if it can happen it usually will.

I don't know if you've ever seen Lucille Ball - Desi Arnaz in the Long Long Trailer but if you haven't you have to see the movie.  I laughed so hard and could relate so well seeing that movie that my sides ached.

[EX-CG-GM]

I agree Ron.  I have many memories, now laughable, about things that went wrong.  And I do remember the movie.

When i bought our real trailer the place told me they had filled both propane tanks.  We went off several times with no problem.  Off to Pinecrest again......the stove won't light.  No problem, let me make sure both tank valves are open.....they were.  They had only filled one tank.  Dinnertime.....no stove.....no propane open for miles and miles.   

Luckily I had brought a camp stove too.  After that I always checked EVERYTHING....TWICE!

[spacecowboy]

http://www.zazzle.com/1956_shasta_canned_ham_print-228924133233768880

Vacations over..found this print while surfing the web..neat imho.

I am home ..considering breaking out the bike..for a ride soon.

The best part of mayport was the naval base..the town it self has grown way too big for my liking..but you can't beat the lodge for vacationing ,that is if you like the beach..and we all do.

Now i am looking foward to winter..so i can do some outdoor stuff around the house.

[cmypay]

Space,

Glad to see you home and that you had a good vacation.

Chris and I both sort of grew up camping...him with his Grandparents in a HUGE rv and with his crazy parents who thoughts tents were fabulous.  Me, on the other hand, camping was our "summer cabin."  It was sooo difficult: two bedrooms and only one bath!  Okay, so I was a bit spoiled as a kid, but you can see where a tent doesn't even enter my mind as an option.

Maybe our worst (so far) event was when the water hook-up on the outside of the trailer decided to fall off. Middle of the night in a place called Thousand Trails outside of Morgan Hills, Ca.  We were visiting my in-laws who live full time in their rv in that area.  Anyway, I wake up about 2 in the morning thinking it's raining to beat the band...but then I got up and looked outside and there's no rain.  Ok, must be time to wake the man of the house because I KNOW I'm hearing water from somewhere.  He grumpily drags himself out of the bed and goes outside and we have like 6 inches of water around the WHOLE trailer.  He discovers the problem, shuts off the water, says a few choice words, comes back in and says "ok, it's fixed for now."  We spent a good portion of the next day trying to find an rv dealer with the right part...apparently, our trailer has threads that are backward from the "standard" for the hook-up for the water.  Total PITA, but ended well.

Because we spent 6 weeks traveling last spring, we've taken this year off.  Next summer or maybe spring break we'll be back out on the road exploring the eastern half of the US.

Pauli

[rustybayonet]

Saw Long Long Trailer - but now  "RV" with Robin Williams is the camping laugh maker for me.

[Gorilla24D]

Saw Him the other day on that show that brings real movie folks into a sit down conversation about thier careers ..Motivations,Influences and such.With that old dude with the beard[Name slips me ]and the film students...He talks to the Celeb and then there is ?and answer for a bit...Any way Robin williams was damn funny ...the addlibs and throwbacks like Mork from Ork were just ****in off the hook.....Mindy was hot..

Whats that old dudes name dammit.

[EX-CG-GM]

Whats that old dudes name dammit.

Stan?   

[Gorilla24D]

Stan What dammit?

[EX-CG-GM]

Stan What dammit?

Thought you were talking about me when you asked what the old guy's name was......my name is Stan.   

[Gorilla24D]

AW ****.     No no no...you know the old dude with the grecian formula beard.

[EX-CG-GM]

AW ****.     No no no...you know the old dude with the grecian formula beard.

You SURE you aren't talking about me?