It started out so well! We had our smoothest start yet to our Valentine's Day camping weekend. We took advantage of having nothing on the calendar since Valentine's Day fell on the weekend this year. Tom realized that the camper needed to be reinspected, so Friday he pulled it out of storage & took it for new stickers without incident. We quickly loaded up & found a last minute reservation at a fun RV resort in Canton that a friend had recommended that day during Tom's watchdog day at Mae's school. We got to Canton & hooked up then patted ourselves on the back for a smooth trip so far. We thought we had finally gotten the hang of this trailer thing! WRONG!
We had to hook up past dark & let the kids have a quick campfire before putting them to bed. We realized during bedtime that the outlets didn't work -- but after about 30 minutes of messing with things Tom realized that the hook up tower at the fancy park had an "on" switch. Crisis averted.
Tom & I sat by the campfire a while then headed into bed around 10:30. That's when we noticed that the camper wasn't warming up. The heater had been turned on for a couple hours & it was still really cold inside. This time, Tom spent over an hour trying to get the heater to kick on but the pilot wouldn't stay lit. We gave up close to midnight & put every blanket in the camper on ourselves & the kids since it was dropping to 40 overnight. The next morning Tom & I were fine - we had the cold weather sleeping bag on our bed - but the kids were popsicles! It was actually colder in the camper than outside. We hadn't really packed many cold weather clothes since we planned on having a cozy trailer to warm up in, so we just layered up & headed outside until the office opened so we could get repair shop numbers.
We pulled the trailer to the shop when it opened & headed back to the RV resort - homeless. What we thought was going to be a quick fix turned into an all day affair. We had to drive to Taco Bell for lunch. We had no extra clothes or shoes when Mae stepped into the pond & soaked her tennis shoe. We looked pitiful at our empty campsite! We finally drove to the shop before closing time hoping they would feel sorry for us & fix it - but the repair guy said our issue required a 4 hour fix & a part he would need to order. Waa waa!
We threw up our hands & drove back home without the camper. It was the last straw for our ill fated adventure in trailer ownership. We made plans on the way home to sell the Beast. We gave it our best shot, but owning a trailer was not for us! Everything that could go wrong did. It added more stress than fun to our lives & finding enough time to camp & address all the problems was impossible with our busy schedules.
After a month at the shop & an inexpensive (thankfully) fix to a gas line, Tom pulled the Beast back to our house & parked it out front. We listed it on Craigslist & prayed for a quick sale. God prompted us to pray around the camper (which we did at 10:30pm - I was in my jammies & robe) & He was faithful to find us a buyer. The sale was stressful, with last minute second guessing about accepting their cashiers check without validation, but went through. We hope that the new owners have much better luck with the Beast than we did! We weren't sad to see it go - we will be cabin campers for a while. Maybe someday when Tom & I launch all of these kids we can buy our own little trailer for 2!
No comments:
Post a Comment