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First camping trip bloopers...

Started by runningwriter, August 16, 2014, 05:00:58 PM

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wcuhoppytoad

[p]We have been camping for almost 15 years now and we are on our 4th unit. The thread should read " have you ever not had a blooper while camping". It sure seems that way for me!!!! Years ago my wife and I owed a small pop up camper. We both had to work late that day, so we knew we would not arrive at our spot until around midnight. My wife wanted to pull over for the night at a hotel but there was no way I was not to going sleep in my camper. She was not happy but finally agreed it was stupid to spend the extra money. We arrived very tired and decided to just set up unit and go right to sleep. It was dark and I was very sleepy so I popped up unit, pulled out beds and climbed inside. As my wife was brushing her teeth, I decided to just climb in bed. As soon as I did the whole camper felt like it was falling down. Before I knew it my wife and I were leaning against the back of the tent with the other side of camper pointing up in the air. FORGOT THE STABILIZER JACKS!!! 15Years later, the first thing I hear when I climb in bed is, "Did you put down the arm things". Should have just stayed in hotel[/p]

billmoore

A few years ago, my wife and I had a good one... This was our first time ever camping off a motorcycle - a lot like backpacking, in that everything you need for the next few days is carried either on your person or strapped to the rack on the back of the bike.

We were doing a series of dirt roads and trails that required one overnight on the trail seriously out in the middle of nowhere, at least 20 miles from the nearest paved road. We got to where we planned to camp at about 8PM, quickly set up the tent, unloaded all of the gear off our motorcycles into the tent, and then proceeded to hike around the area to catch the views and the sunset.

Spent about an hour exploring and then decided it was time to finish setting up camp. Go to set up our bedding and discover that we only have one sleeping bag. We both absolutely were certain that we had our sleeping bags strapped to our bikes, so what happened? We were kind of freaked out... is it Bigfoot? Is it bad guys lurking in the woods who stole our bag?

Then I got the bright idea to go through the pictures on our camera, and sure enough, the pictures from earlier in the day show bags strapped to both bikes, but later in the day (within 30 minutes of where we stopped) there was a picture of my wife's bike, and clearly the sleeping bag was no longer strapped to her bike.

By this time, it is 10PM and pitch dark, our bikes don't have great lighting. We decide to brave the trail in the dark and backtrack in the hopes of finding the bag. No luck in the dark, so we're stuck with both of us having to share a single backpackers mummy bag for the night. Now it is 11:30, and the temperature has dropped to about 35 degrees. The nearest town is a good 2-3 hours away in daylight, and who knows how long it would take in the dark on pretty rough trails.

So we both wore every item of clothing we had packed, lay on top of our therma-rest pads and spread the single unzipped mummy over both of us. It was a really, really, really cold night, and not much sleep to be had.

The next morning around 8AM, two bikes come up the trail and stop where we are camped to check out the views, so I walked over and said hello to them, and one of them asked if we were missing a sleeping bag. They had found it on the way up, and one of them had it in his panniers.

Lesson learned... when packing gear on a motorcycle, make sure all of your straps are well secured and properly tightened!

hogtyd

Great stories and lessons (maybe) learned!  My very first RV experience was in a rented motor home with several friends that were attending a multi-day Belgian beer festival in upstate NY. So basically a recipe for disaster/hilarity.  One thing I quickly learned on that trip is to never pull a lever on an RV if you don't know what it does!  Safe to say it wasn't the fresh water tank drain that I thought I had found.  

Graham

wcuhoppytoad

[p]Here is another one!! A few years ago we purchased a very large Coleman Westlake. If you are not familiar with Coleman Pop ups, they had a very large door step that dropped down allowing a very decent step to enter the unit. One spring day I was preparing the unit for a trip when my wife walks outside and asks me to go get more chicken for a dish she was making. Without thinking, I jump in the jeep and backed up. When the rear of the jeep lifted up in the air, I still had no idea what the heck was going on. I pulled forward to find out I just drove the jeep over the large step to the camper. I broke the step and bent the frame. I was sick!!!!![/p][p]
[/p][p]Next day decided to take the camper to the camping dealer to see how much it would take to get repaired, but needed to find a way to get the step door to close. After much work, I was able to get the door somewhat closed using bungee straps and rope. When I attempted to lower the top, it would not close all the way. I said heck with it and decided to pull it down I-40 about one hour around Western North Carolina.  I was driving down the highway with the tent flapping in the wind, bungees all over it and embarrassed as heck. [/p][p]
[/p][p]Came home with new camper!!! Way to much money to repair.[/p]

pinstriper

[quote timestamp="1427234765" author="@wcuhoppytoad" source="/post/8389/thread"][p]We have been camping for almost 15 years now and we are on our 4th unit. The thread should read " have you ever not had a blooper while camping". It sure seems that way for me!!!! Years ago my wife and I owed a small pop up camper. We both had to work late that day, so we knew we would not arrive at our spot until around midnight. My wife wanted to pull over for the night at a hotel but there was no way I was not to going sleep in my camper. She was not happy but finally agreed it was stupid to spend the extra money. We arrived very tired and decided to just set up unit and go right to sleep. It was dark and I was very sleepy so I popped up unit, pulled out beds and climbed inside. As my wife was brushing her teeth, I decided to just climb in bed. As soon as I did the whole camper felt like it was falling down. Before I knew it my wife and I were leaning against the back of the tent with the other side of camper pointing up in the air. FORGOT THE STABILIZER JACKS!!! 15Years later, the first thing I hear when I climb in bed is, "Did you put down the arm things". Should have just stayed in hotel[/p][/quote][p]OK, you win. [/p][p]
[/p][p]Shut this thread down. It's over. We can't compete.[/p][p]
[/p][p]
[/p]
Let's eat, Grandma !
Let's eat Grandma !
Punctuation. It saves lives.

2014 14DBS
2013 4Runner | 2006 F-150 5.4 V8 (ruh ruh ruh)
2015 Hobie Outback

jeeps


[font size="2"]
Compared to the rest of you, we don't have much to tell and I hope it stays that way...(knock on aluminum).  But we're new and there's plenty of time....  

Our only one so far, ... after stopping to get something out of the trailer, then driving down the road and noticing in our mirror, the trailer door flapping in the breeze.  

Oh and forgetting to secure stuff in the fridge and after stopping, opening it and dumping the lemon meringue pie on the floor TWICE!

And thinking Corelle dishes aren't breakable if they happen to fall out of the cupboard onto a bare aluminum floor.  Wrong. 

[/font]

gnies

Before having my camplite I had a popup camper, on the first camping trip with it to a local campground my wife had invited her sister to come with us. So she was following us with her car and suddenly at the red light I hear a loud tire screech, I though oh maybe my brake controller setting is too high, a car then passed me and used his horn and was doing some sign, looked at my mirror and I saw my sister in law pulling over to the gas station with bad damage on her car. Her car was damaged so much that it was totalled! It costed too much to repair and the car was too old, the bumper on my popup camper was bent. At the campground we had a hard time to put the bed on because the bracket was attached to the bumper so I had to get it unbend later.

geezer

Reading all these blooper stories reminded me of one of my worst moments.  We haven't received our LL (end of April) so I don't have any stories related to trailer mishaps but I'm sure I will.  My craziest adventure concerns a 23' trailerable Hunter sailboat.  Our first year of ownership was filled with
many crazy times.  We docked the boat at a marina on Lake Erie.  The season was drawing to a close, most boats were already out of the water on cradles in the parking area.  I had to get it out. I backed the trailer down the ramp, motored the boat on it. Success!  The only thing left was to put the mast
down. This was November in Michigan. Cold and windy.  It was only my wife and I. The boat didn't have any means to mechanically lower the mast.  Being this was my first time I thought all I needed to do was climb on to the boat, release the rigging and slowly walk the mast down while leaving the bottom secure in the mount. Bad mistake.  As soon as I unhooked the wires I realized the mast was going down quickly and I wasn't going to stop it.  Down it went pulling the mount out of the fiberglass. There were very expensive boats surrounding me. The mast didn't hit one.  Wow! I had to figure out a way to make my wife share the blame of not helping enough.  She didn't buy it. I still haven't lived this down.

chuck893

I still remember our very first camp, up in the Stanislaus forest near Lake Alpine, a tiny campground called Pine Marten. I had determined that if we were gonna go camping, we weren't gonna rent, we were gonna buy. We were horribly fully equipped, and utterly unprepared.

I had selected a huge 6-man dome tent since I could stand upright in it. The tent barely fit in the site it was so huge. Getting it up was an adventure. Getting it back down was worse.

The camp is at 7,400 feet elevation. We had sleeping bags, but also pajamas and night dress. Do you know how cold it gets in the mountains at night? No? Neither did we.

We had with us three rolls of paper towels. We used all three. In two days.

I made a fire. I thought I knew how. I spent an incredible amount of time waving little aluminum plates over it, frantically trying to fan it into life. They say that where there is smoke there is fire. In my case it was, um, just smoke. Neighboring campers kept looking over at us.

I had a brand new double-mantle Coleman lantern. It put out enough light to wipe out the star fields.

I fished in Lake Alpine. Got skunked. A kid was hauling 'em in two rocks away. He left. I got his spot. Still skunked.

The miracle was that we did it again. And again. We've been doing it for about 40 years now. We're getting better at it.  :D
Chuck Haacker, Madison, Wisconsin
Proud owner of "Rose," 2010 QS 8.1, VERY heavily used (not a "weekender" at all), holding up GREAT!
Rosie has her own massive album of pictures on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/gp/43619751@N06/21cN3M

nmken

We checked in late to a nice state park in Texas and the woman assigned us a 'very level' site.  But turned out to have a dramatic pitch downhill - right into a very nice lake.  We used our Anderson ramp levelers - up hill which was the mistake and then chocked with the camco wheel stops.  But as soon as I took the trailer off the hitch it started to slide towards the water.......  both those wheel stops flew off and the levelers gave it just that little extra 'push' to get it started.  Thank god there was a parking stop about 2 ft away - she bounced to a stop but at least stopped.  We had grabbed the chains thinking we could hold a 4000 lb trailer from going downhill - ha!  I can laugh about it now but that was a serious fail of both equipment and procedure.  

The lesson learned is to always chock downhill

mary59mac

I just found this thread and I'm getting a good chuckle and I don't feel so alone about my gaffs.
When I was much much younger we  used a small tent for camping trips. One year on our way out west we got to our first stop for the night and realized we left our sleeping bags at home. We decided to "de camp" and go home to get them. We got home late that nite and headed out early the next morning.  When I think about it now, I wonder why we didn't just find a place to buy new sleeping bags but it was probably because we couldn't afford new bags

My first trip this year we camped at Kentucky Horse Park. We had a great time and stayed warm and toasty despite the cold and somewhat rainy weather. ( At least it wasn't snowing which is what was happening the morning we left home!)
When it was time to leave we got everything packed up and ready to go and I had no problem getting my little Quicksilver hitched up to the Honda Element - not always a smooth operation for me.  The camp sites are cement and at the far end there is a cement bumper. I had parked the car on the far side of the bumper. As I was taking one last look I realized that the car was on one side of the cement bumper and the camper was on the other. OOPS! That could have been bad!  So I had to unhitch and start over. Luckily it went smoothly again. But I will always take one last look around before driving away!  

Keep em coming folks! There has to be plenty more!

dh50

As a teen, my family tent-camped and like all kids, my 2 brothers, sister and I trusted that our parents knew what they were doing.   We all now know that parenting is anything but....


We were tent camping at Toledo Bend in NW Louisiana back in '72.  On this day that I won't soon forget, our family had spent a fun day catching perch/bream, followed by fish cleaning and a fish fry using a dangerously deep oil fryer....all this while on the water in a rented pontoon boat!   Fortunately, we didn't catch the boat on fire.  I did, however, get a fish bone stuck in my throat that just would not move.  It is one reason I now prefer 'catch and release', but I digress.



The campfire roared brightly later that night, but only after we noticed that no fires were allowed.  Our family was gathered around the fire when Mom quietly slipped away to our family tent not many feet away.  Sleeping bags/cots weren't yet out....only the collapsible toilet, you know, with the disposable  'catch' bag?    It was dark and my dear Mother had to 'go'.  Bless her heart, she failed to see that the bag had been disposed of, but not replaced.   All was serene until the SCREAM heard 'round the park....when the poop hit the floor!


Forgive me, Mom, for sharing this with our new LL friends.   I sense you're still laughing about it too. I sure miss You...


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY  


peislander

One of our early and most significant bloopers related to the cassette toilet we had factory installed in our small but mighty CL11FDB instead of the regular toilet + holding water tank combo. I wrote about this "Thetford Incident" on my blog in an entry titled "Oh Shit...". Its a good (by that I mean bad - really bad) blooper so I'll plagiarize myself and copy the blog entry here: 

QuoteRV Tip #1... If your rv's toilet has a slide valve between the bowl & the waste tank, make sure -absolutely sure- that the valve is closed before you tow the trailer! My bride made the mistake of leaving the valve open. Before leaving the campground I did a check of the tires, signal lights, hitch etc. but I didn't check the toilet. I will never ever make that mistake again! The toilet had only been used two or three times so we didn't dump the tank before making our return trip home. I figured a little sloshing around wouldn't hurt anything. Ya right! Now if you dare, use your imagination. Think sewage. Think open valve. Think sloshing. Accelerate = backwards slosh. Braking = forward slosh. Oh the inhumanity of it!

Sewage + open valve + sloshing = a mess of epic proportions! Thankfully the toilet lid was down. No doubt it helped confine the worst of the mess to the bowl. That, in a "Thetford Incident" like this, is a very good thing. Far worse is the fact that the lid didn't fully trap the slosh - some escaped! Upon entering the trailer I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. I opened the washroom door and witnessed (and smelled) a horrendous scene I will not soon forget. Unfortunately it is now etched into my brain. Nobody should ever have to experience such a thing and I fear I will have nightmares about it. Being a good husband I only ranted on my sweetie for half a minute. (Enough to get that blank "deal-with-it" look). I proceeded to hold my breath and clean up the toxic waste site (even though none of the wastes involved were my own). Turns out the [a href="https://www.clorox.com/products/clorox-disinfecting-wipes/"]Clorox Disinfecting Wipes[/a], previously stocked in the trailer, were up for the job. It is hard to express how thankful I was to have that wonderful product available within 30-inches of the washroom door. The exterior door was also close by allowing gasps of fresh air. Small trailers have their advantages.

Our trailer is equipped with a [a href="http://www.thetford.com/HOME/Products/PermanentToilets/CassetteC200CWSCS/tabid/112/Default.aspx"]Thetford C200cs Cassette[/a] Toilet rather than Livin' Lite's standard toilet with its underfloor blackwater holding tank. When we ordered the trailer we requested the cassette type for the convenience of being able to dump the removable "cassette" waste tank in a standard flush toilet. Such cassette toilets are common in European & Australian 'caravans' and North American truck campers, but are not common in North American travel trailers. If more rv purchasers were familiar with their advantages I'm sure these toilets would be more popular. The way they work is the bowl drains to a portable tank that can be hygienically removed from the rv's exterior. It is simply taken to a standard flush toilet and dumped. That toilet can be at a highway rest stop, gas station, or a toilet fixture at home. Our cassette toilet has an electric flush (a manual pump model is available) and is plumbed to the trailers fresh water system. (The manual flush model has its own water tank). In general it is a simple, easy to use, system. It is possible to have more than one cassette so when one is full it can be swapped with the second cassette allowing greater convenience and practically uninterrupted service. It takes less than a minute to swap the cassettes. Another advantage is the waste cassette is not under the floor like a conventional blackwater tank. Being inside the rv (although accessed from an exterior hatch) it is less likely to freeze allowing camping cooler temperatures without a tank heating system.




swbc150

1st camper I put everything away but forgot to unplug the Microwave oven and left it sitting above the Frig.
40 miles later I pulled into the Campsite my Microwave was still plugged in but the wall socket was yanked out of the wall and the microwave oven was hanging in mid-air, oops. (back in them days the Micro wasn't even an option)
The Microwave still worked!

whoofit

Not our first trip nor really a blooper but our camp neighbor couldn't stop laughing.

Last weekend we were at the ocean. We were setup parallel to the road with our water side to it. I had rinsed the dog using the outdoor shower and the coil hose with the sprayer supplied by LL. I was packing to leave and a neighbor was chatting away about how solar panels were a scam or something. I was nodding and not paying too much attention.

There was a bike race that day. Bikes flying by for several minutes. I disconnected the coil hose and held the sprayer up in the air to drain it. A rider came whizzing by and mumbled something. My neighbor lost his breath he was laughing so hard. I'm a little hard of hearing so I asked him what the deal was? He chuckled: "The biker said No Thanks!"