Our Adventure

"It's not an adventure unless something goes wrong." That's what I always say. We recently took our summer family vacation. When people ask how it was, I simply say, "It was an adventure and we learned a lot.". It was and we did!

I prepared the camper and planned crafts to keep the girls occupied in the car as we made our trek north and back. It's kind of fun but a lot of work. We were prepared though with more than enough.

Our beginning location, Grayson Georgia. Our destination, Southport, Maine. My husband and I have wanted to go to Maine to have a world famous lobster roll at Red's Eats in Wiscasset. They were on a show in the Food Network about nine years ago. We have wanted to go there since before we had children but, somehow, life has had a way of keeping us closer to home.

We finally got a camper in January and immediately decided that our summer vacation would be to go to Maine. People thought we were crazy when we told them that we were going to Maine just to have a lobster roll.

We planned to take three days to get there and planned a couple of side trips on the way up and back. Our first day; 10 hours in the car with an eight year old and a four year old. It was a pretty good day. We are so thankful for great travelers. We figured this would be our long day of driving. It turned out to be our shortest. We had snacks in the car and stopped to have lunch in the camper. We pulled in to our campground in North Carolina and set up camp for the night. Overnight there was a nice little rain shower, just enough to settle the dust.

Our first concern. Before we left, I was not able to get the refrigerator to work on gas. It just never would light the whole trip. We had to depend on it running on 12 volt (off batter power) and the electric hookups at the campsites. Maybe I should have taken this to be a sign.

The next morning we unhooked and set out for Pennsylvania, our second stop. We were planning to take the girls to the Crayola Factory on the way to our campground. It was on the way alright. They were closed by the time we made it to the area. We decided that we would go on to the campground and set up for the night. It was getting dark and we couldn't see anything in the campground for all the trees. After about 45 minutes of trying to get the camper turned the right direction to back into the spot, we finally got it. It started to rain just as we were done hooking up the power and water. As our oldest daughter entered the camper, she says "Mommy, I found a screw.".  This was the beginning of the microwave fiasco. My husband screwed it back in and that was that (for today). The decision was made to take the girls to Crayola the next morning since it was only one and a half hours away. We thought it would be quicker without the camper anyway. We settled in for the night and listened to the rain.

Up at 6:00 am so we could make the Crayola opening at 9:30. The girls had a great time in the two hours we were there. Onward we go to pick up the camper and move on to the next location.  Our destination, Maine. Surely we could make it by dark. The one thing we didn't realize was that the toll roads we went through (seemed like 100) would slow us down. Every time we stopped to pay a toll, it ate into our driving time drastically. We decided to push on and make it to the campground so we wouldn't have an extra stop. Well, we did. After getting into the state of Maine, we still had to drive about two hours to our campground. It was pitch black dark going down these curvy little roads in and around the coves and bays in the Southport area. It was so dark that I had to get out a flash light to shine at the street signs just to see them. The signal kept going in and out on the phone and GPS so we had to wing it. We missed the street we were supposed to turn on so we had to go on. You can't just turn a camper around in the middle of a small downtown area with no light. We managed to move on and find the correct street to turn on. The next day we discovered that the street we missed was a cut through street that would have been hard for the camper to turn anyway, so it worked in our favor to miss the street. We finally found the campground and once again got out the flash light just to see the driveways there.  There were no other lights whatsoever. Parking a camper at midnight is testing in many ways, on nerves, on line of sight, and on tired children. We got the camper parked temporarily in a very crooked manor and decided to straighten it in the morning.

Plug up lights and water, level, go to bed. That's what we did. So we thought.... about 3:00 am a huge rain storm hit. Thunder clashed and woke up our four year old. As I went to the front of the camper to calm her, I noticed as I passed under the bedroom skylight, it seemed to be spitting out water and dripping. I called to my husband in all the loud rain noise on the roof. "We have a leak." We scrambled to find buckets and other plastic containers to catch the water leaking in. After about 15 minutes, he checked to see it the skylight was actually closed. Sure enough. It wasn't completely closed. Evidently, the rough roads jarred it enough that the handled unscrewed a little. We found the skylight open several more times during our trip.

We slept in and hung out at the campground all day. No rush or reason to go anywhere. Daddy took the girls down to the rocky beach while I made a delicious dinner and then we got ready for bed anticipating our next day. As I was trying to open the bathroom vent, the handle broke and I noticed that it had be repaired before. Oh well, we can replace it but, in the meantime, the bathroom would get very hot. It's breakfast time. Oh no! The microwave isn't level. No wonder! The microwave was barely hanging in the cabinet and I found screws all over the floor. The rough Pennsylvania roads had shimmied and shook the microwave out of the cabinet. We discovered that there was no support underneath the microwave in the cabinet. The only fix we could come up with was to sacrifice two of our leveling blocks to provide some support for the microwave. Thank goodness for the painters tape we keep in the tool bag. We taped in the blocks, reaffixed the microwave in it's stripped out screw holes and taped it to the cabinet with more blue painters tape. A lovely site it was. My question now is, is it going to rip off the paper finish on the press board cabinets. I guess we will find out when the time comes. Now.... it's breakfast time.

A trip to the Maine Botanical Gardens and a one and a half hour wait in line at lunch time waiting to order a lobster roll at Red's Eats. We had done it. We finally got our lobster roll. It was pouring over with lobster and was delicious with my sweet potato fries and saucer sized whoopie pie. We waited so long for the food that it ended up being our dinner.  Back to camp we went and settled in for the evening after a quick walk down to the rocky area on the beach.

As we spent our days in the Booth Bay area, we noticed the drastic difference between the low and high tides. It was way different that what we are accustomed on the Gulf Coast.  We also noticed lobster pots everywhere as we drove in and out of the coves on very curvy streets. Yes, they there there for many fishermens' livelihoods. We could see them anchored out with multicolored and unique buoys all over the coves.

The next morning, we packed up and headed back toward Pennsylvania. It was another long day and we pulled in to our campground just before dark. It was perfect timing for lightning bugs. The girls had been trying to catch some in Georgia before we left but they were very elusive. The lightning bugs kept the girls busy while we set up the camper for the night. It was hot and there was an additional charge to run the air conditioner. Open up the windows and let the air blow in. That became a common theme. It finally got cool enough to fall asleep and about 3:00 am our radio came on full blast warning of a tornado in the area. As we got it turned off and got settled back in. It went off again. We decided to turn down the volume so we could sleep. It is equipped as a weather radio so we figured it would continue to wake us.

The next morning, we unhooked and made our way back to the interstate. Today was the day for our adventure to Hershey. We drove about an hour and a half and finally found this wonderful chocolatey town. Along the way, we saw trees down and smalls areas of damage due to the tornado that came through in the middle of the night. After our entry into Hershey Park, we found broken trees and leaves all over the place. Luckily, the employees came in early enough to clean up most of the mess so, it was business as usual. It was hot and we all sweated buckets. The girls got to ride the kiddie rides while my husband and I watched. We stood there watching the cars on the big roller coasters go zip zip overhead while we dreamed for babysitters so we could ride. Yep, $185.00 to get into the park and we didn't get to ride anything.  We spent a combined two hours in the park and shopping in Chocolate World. You can't go to Hershey's and not buy chocolate! The whole time we were there, I was on pins and needles about the fridge not working on gas. We left it on 12 amp to try to keep it cold for as long as it would. We knew the battery probably wouldn't last that long. Sure enough, the battery was drained when we returned to the camper.  Luckily we had unhooked the electrical cord from the car so it wouldn't drain the car battery. We hooked up the electrical and hoped the fridge would start cooling again when the battery started recharging. It finally did about an hour later. Shewf.......

We soon decided that we would not make our destination for the night in North Carolina. I started calling some KOA's along our interstate route. I managed to get an easy pull through spot in Virginia. We got there with daylight to spare. I had time to make lobster rolls with the lobster we had cooked at our campground in Maine. They were yummy, even though they were on hot dog buns. We even had time to venture down to the main house and do a little shopping.  I also had time to wash a load of clothes. My husband went to the laundry room later to put them in the dryer and while he was there, an anticipated wind and rain storm came through. The power flickered and played havoc with the air conditioner.  I had to turn off the A/C. Here we go again. Another hot night.  About 45 minutes later, my husband came back from the laundry room and we waited out the storm and the girls fell asleep as we listened to limbs fall all around the campground and on top of the car and camper. As the storm quieted we went on to bed and, thank goodness, the storm brought through some cool air and circulated through the opened windows. We made it through the night with some much needed rest. We soon found out that there were about 4 million homes without power across the country due to that storm. As we left the campground, someone had already cut trees and limbs from the road so everyone could make their way out. There was destruction everywhere we looked while driving down the interstate.

Our last day on the road. This was an adventure. As we neared home, everything seemed to go wrong with the camper. We stopped to get gas at the Love's gas station and I noticed a loose wire hanging almost on the ground from the axel. Repair time. We figured it was a brake wire and we are still not sure. We prepared the camper levelers, pulled the camper up on them so my husband could get underneath, laid a blanket down on the 120 degree pavement, and commenced to zip tie the wire back to the axle. Meanwhile, I am standing in the 106 degree heat with rolling sweat beads soaking into my clothes. I don't think I have been so appreciative of A/C as after that repair. We verified that the brakes were still working, packed our supplies back up and hit the road.

One hour later. GASP..... I hear from my husband's mouth. I quickly looked at him with a terrified look on my face with a loud "WHAT?" coming out of my mouth. He says, "We have a rope or someth.....oh, it's the trim from the camper dragging on the road and flapping behind us. We look for the next exit and pull over to see what we need to do. A quick look and we decided that we could easily remove the loose trim. Trim removed. Packing up tools. It's hot. Remember, I mentioned it was 106 degrees. As I start to close the tool box, I quickly find out that this one is different than the one at home. The tools in the bottom section are not 'snapped' in and they all came tumbling out. I was standing there, trying to quickly put each piece back where it belongs and my husband could see that I was extremely frustrated at this point. Commanding words, "Just go get in the car". He wrapped up the tool fiasco and we were on our way again.  About two hours later, we pulled into our driveway. Finally. Home. And with daylight.

We unloaded the camper and also noticed as we chocked the wheels that one of the wheels was radiating with heat. The other one seemed cool in comparison. Upon checking out the radiating heat, we found that the tread on the tires was completely worn out. This camper is only a year old and we have only used it once before. We wore it out on it's first real trip. We did, however, go more than 3000 miles. I guess it was probably two years worth of regular camping trips. It was decided then and there that we would take the camper to the service place first thing on Monday to have everything fixed. Maybe we will get a virtually new camper when we pick it up.

To wrap it up, we had some good times, we had some hot times, we had some laid back times. All in all, it was a good trip with a lot of learning opportunities.  I do believe that we were all glad to walk back through the door to our home after such an eventful trip.