On the Road Again, an Original Piece.........

This camping is getting easier and easier...however there is sooooo much to learn and remember. We made a last minute decision to take a trip this 4th of July weekend. We thought we would have trouble finding a place, making a reservation at the last moment sounded impossible. However, Pat was able to book a space online and we had a great time.


We are going to be babysitting a couple of dogs for our son the next couple of weeks, so this weekend would be our only opportunity to camp in the month of July. Along with the trip, it gives us the opportunity to try out some more of our newly acquired camping skills, I USE THE TERM SKILLS LOOSELY, and other techniques. When we last blogged, we had yet to use the bathroom in the airstream. It is sad to say, we were walking a couple hundred yards to the bathrooms, instead of having to face the decision to carry around our own crap and actually have to hook up and dump it when leaving. For some reason, THAT JUST DIDN'T SEEM RIGHT !! Being a city boy, I just never took the time to even think about it, upon finishing my business in the bathroom. WELL... now you have to deal with it TWICE. That's enough about that.


The weather was rain, intermittent rain, with occasional sunshine. The really nice thing was the temp never got above 85. We were basically shut ins, leaving Pat time to sharpen her MARGARITAS skills. We rented videos and just chilled all weekend. Did I mention we have our new flat screen tv and antenna? We are really starting to bring this whole camping thing together.


To sum up our weekend quickly, we saw some fireworks in the distance, used our new toliet skills, watched television, drank margaritas, got wet and saw a lot of deer around the camp. For a holiday weekend there weren't very many people. PRETTY UNEVENTFUL, at least until we got home. Major screw up at this point.


We keep saying we are going to do a check list, but, well it hasn't happened yet. HOWEVER, I bet Pat will have one up and running in the next few days. I had to work most of the day Sunday because I shut work down early friday so we could hook up and get out of town early. We finally got into the driveway after holding traffic up both ways for several minutes. We went through all the motions to unhook the trailer, and being nearly through, Pat was in the trailer doing stuff to get off what she needed. WELL, we had put blocks underneath tires to level for the refrigerator, taken stabilizer bars off , unhocked chains and the electrical lines and I had put the front stabilizer arm down and was raising it,WHEN....the airstream rolled forward off the leveling blocks and came to a stop against the chainlink fence (thank god for that fence). I looked like Tom Cruise in RISKY BUSINESS...holding onto the bumper, trying to prevent the car from going into the lake. No damage was done, but it really did scare Pat. She was thrown around inside the airstream like a ragdoll.

SO MUCH TO REMEMBER, so until later, HE SAID, see what SHE SAID...

First Time in the Airstream

This is my first post, and to begin with, my daughter, Tomara (who posted earlier today), is a great humorous creative writer, but she stole the "HE SAID, SHE SAID" and "MEN ARE FROM MARS AND WOMAN ARE FROM VENUS" lines from me!!

WELL, the first adventure out with the Airstream was indeed an adventure. We weren't totally prepared, but we said what the hell. Friends from the Airstream community happened to drop by, so we got a nice refresher course on hooking the Airstream to the truck, which I would say is very important in the effort of getting from the house to the campgrounds.

Pat and I had driven through the camp areas the week before, scouting. We looked at hook-ups primarily in the shade at Lake Whitney. We got there, managed to secure one of the spots we had seen the week before, parked, and unhitched without any problems.

The Airstream seemed level, so we turned on the fridge and within 24hrs it cooled down. At this point, we consulted the manual, and it said to turn fridge on the night before you leave. We used the ice cooler for the first day, and I had to make several ice runs. Also, we turned the AC on, and once again Pat referred to the manual. She told me the AC unit would cool the vehicle 20 degrees cooler than outside. You do the math, 100 degrees outside, again several hours later, say after the sun goes down, it is under 80. Well, that was nice, but when sleeping it must have dropped to say 60!!

Another problem we had was decideding not to use the Aistream's bathroom because we didn't want to have to deal with cleaning up on OUR MADIEN VOYAGE, plus we didn't know the proceedure. Luckily, the bathroom and shower on the campgrounds was within a couple 100 yds. No problem for me after dark, if you know what I mean.

We also had to deal with our lab Maggie, who sounded like she was dying, PANT, PANT, all day. She was miserable, but she got through it.

We decided to hitch up sat. night before dark and leave early. I MUST SAY THAT HOOK-UP WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH, no pun intended.

We did enjoy ourselves, but realized we need TELEVISION and BOOKS to survive in the wild.

ALL kidding aside, it was fun, and we are looking forward to next our adventure. We will try to be more prepared. He said, see what "she said"