Camping mishaps...

TheRustyScupper said:

But, the Single Rider Line would be small.

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Single rider line? Pffft...it would have been the first of the rumored "FP+ only" rides...

Since we have been camping for years we have lived through most of the already mentioned adventures how ever we did have one that took the cake. On one trip we had to live with waking up to a German Shepard that had had the "squirts" all night which of course made the kid sick. Not a fun time...Oh and we blew a tire on the way home. Ahhhh the joys of camping

I think my favorite is the time we were at Lake Rudolph in Indiana on our very first trip in our brand new class A. My entire family was camping with us and whilst the hubby and I were at Holiday World with our daughters, my uncle apparently decided to dump but failed to notice that he did not have his hose connected all the way. My mom and two aunts were sitting at a picnic table talking in front my camper when they see a turd go by. They start yelling and uncle shuts the valve. We came back to a hosed down site. We still camp on that same spot every year that we go there and we affectionately refer to it as the "poop site." Here is a picture of our camper on the poop site, though this was taken a few weeks ago and this actually happened 2 years ago. There is no camper behind us in this picture but you can kinda see the little hill where everything "rolled down........"

JETS70 said:

OK........ you shamed me into it. A couple of mishaps that involved our dog Bernie who loved to camp. He passed after 17 years, we miss him much.
One night about 2 in the morning we heard a thump. We realized Bernie was not in the bed anymore. In my haste to set up the pup, (before the teardrop) I forgot to secure the tent under the slideout bed. As he snuggled in the corner the tent gave way. When I went outside to get him, he still seemed to be in a state of "what the heck just happened". Also, when he was just a little dog learning the ways of the wild, he went to introduce himself to the local wildlife. The skunk was not in a hospitable mood. Bernie wasn't real crazy about the tomato juice bath and spending the rest of the weekend in the back of the truck.

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I have to tell you that this made me lol literally

PaHunter said:

My first trailer I filled the water tank to sanitize it and let it set. I started to drain the tank, opening all the faucets up and let them run, went outside the trailer and noticed that there was water coming out from under the trailer. Oh that can't be good. Turns out the factory either did not install the trap under the sink in the bathroom, or it had vibrated off of the new camper during delivery and the whole back was full of water. Now I check my connections every time we arrive somewhere. Better safe than sorry.

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Funny you mention this. I had a similar experience in 2013. My family and I went up to your neck of the woods for a weekend at Knoebel's. Now since the weather was turning, I have a habit to turn the faucets on and then shut the water off. With this being said, my wife and I working to get the trailer set up for the night and want to get to the park with our daughter. My parents got their site set up and were ready to go as well. So go around and close the faucets at the sinks. Then kick on the pump. now I hear the water pump running. I stopped and scratched my head. I checked the faucets again and then noticed some water at my feet in the bathroom. At the same time, my wife is running into the trailer saying there is water coming from the back of the trailer by the bathroom area. She turned the water pump off. It turned out the fitting for the cold water supply failed. For that night, there was tape over the switch for the water pump and all bathroom trips required a walk to the bathhouse. The next morning we had to get a few things so I found a local home improvement store to pick up a fitting to make the repairs. Now I carry a T fitting and 2 90s just in case. Luckily, my dad had a small fan in his trailer so I could dry out the under side of the vanity. Changing the fitting was not fun either.

SouthAlabama5er said:

Haven't done that one yet!

Had a good friend of mine unhook his fifthwheel, set it up and everything done except for letting down the legs on the front.... it left a nice dent on top of his truck bed!

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They always told me there were 2 types of people with fifth wheels, those that have dropped it on the box and those that are going to. I happen to be in the first, lol, walked into the insurance company and asked the gal what sounded less stupid, I dropped my 5th wheel on the box or was trimming a tree and dropped a branch on it? I would take the one that sounded less stupid. LOL. In 2012 we were at Ft wilderness. DS flew down to stay for 5 days in camper with us, DW and I leave for park one morning, DS was going to take day off from park so slept in. I locked door from inside when we left, DS gets up, goes out to truck to get his headphones, closes door behind him, yep, it locks. He has nothing except what he has on. Goes to office, tries to get them to call us, of course, our numbers are in his phone still in locked camper, doesn't know our number, they couldn't give him our number for cell phone because of security reasons, asked then for locksmith numbers, someone gives him locksmith numbers, asked if he could use phone, no have to use the one outside, ok, goes out, pay phone....no money, all back at camper that's locked, goes back in begs to borrow enough to make phone call to locksmith. Finally someone gives him enough to make phone call to locksmith, gets camper unlocked, $50, and lesson. We still laugh about it, when we get home 2 weeks later, there is message on our home phone from Ft Wilderness from that day trying to contact us, LOL, I know we gave them both my and DW cell phone numbers when we checked in for emergency but they called the home phone. Later that night walking around campground, locksmith unlocking a rental care in loop too, just laughed!!

It seems many of the "Camping Mishaps" are good learning experiences. While I am not new to CAMPING (I have been camping most of my life. Usually with either a Tent or parents NO FRILLS Pop-up), my DW and I got our first TT (27' Coachman Ruby Edition) and she was eager to try it out. She managed to get a reservation at a close campground to us, Knoebel's, which has a nice amusement park too on Labor day weekend (less than a month after we got the TT).

Our tow vehicle was an older Suburban 2500 which towed it fine....... That is.......Until, we got about half way there. For those who don't know Knoebels is in the country and coming the direction we are coming, you have to go up 2, rather large, hills. The first one wasn't too bad starting but I very quickly got slowed down to about 30 MPH on a 50 MPH road. Shut off the AC and anything not needed on the truck to save "Energy". Whew! Made it up that hill. The problem is, is the NEXT hill we will have to encounter is much STEEPER.

Plan. Ok, Let everyone behind us, in front of us before attempting the hill. Then make a fast (or at least as fast as we can) running start on the hill. Well it worked... For about a quarter way up. Then we were ultimately doing about 15 MPH (and the Suburban was choking fast and the temperature was rising) as we went up the hill which is about a mile long.

We did finally make it, but ended up taking a "Different" (and longer route) the next time (with this tow vehicle). Still had a hill but not as bad.

Then as we got there, they don't have any "Hookups" for water or sewer. "Ugh" PLUS the electrical panel wasn't ideally situated and the Power cord for the camper was about 2 fee short. Ok... Went to their shop to see if they had one (for a 30 amp). Yup they did, but I didn't realize how expensive they were, particularly when you are buying them AT the campground.

I now have a good extension cord and an even better tow vehicle (F-250) granted this is about 6 years later. But I also have a better sense of what the heck we are doing. Since then, we have had our TT to FW twice and have a third one planned in about a year from now.

While I hope the mishaps are over, I am sure there will be more, especially if we get a 5er that I'd like to have.

Anybody else ever pull up to the site, back in, level it out, unhook, and then get stung right between the eyes by an angry wasp that had his nest inside the power panel at the campground? I can still see him coming at me in slow motion.

I can't say I have yet, but you never know.

tiggerdad said:

Anybody else ever pull up to the site, back in, level it out, unhook, and then get stung right between the eyes by an angry wasp that had his nest inside the power panel at the campground? I can still see him coming at me in slow motion.

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Well if you were on his site can you blame him?

ruthies12 said:

Well if you were on his site can you blame him?

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Well, I guess this is true. So it was the campground offices fault...I see where you are coming from.

tiggerdad said:

Well, I guess this is true. So it was the campground offices fault...I see where you are coming from.

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BAN THE POWER OUTLETS!!!

My most memorable mishap camping happened when I was a kid. My parents got their first TT and were so proud of it and wanted to take it out asap to show it off. They invited my relatives to join us on its inaugural trip. The site we were in had a number of trees relatively close to the gravel pad including a close one to the back of the pad and another directly to the left of the pad. My Dad didn't want to hit the tree behind the pad so he asked my uncle to direct him into the site. My uncle was so worried about the tree located at the back of the site that he forgot to look at the distance between the tree on the side of the pad and the TT. Sure enough, Dad hit a couple of branches with the TT, leaving these horrible deep gouges into the trailer. I learned a lot of colorful language that day

Another memorable moment happened a few years back when I was tent camping with friends. We arrived at the site late in the evening. I left the trunk open in my car for a little bit while I was setting up the tent but closed the trunk before we went to bed. The next morning, I went to the trunk to get more of my belongings out and a bat flew out. I'm pretty sure my scream woke up the whole campground. Sorry to those who I woke up, but damn that scared me to death!

peg110 said:

She managed to get a reservation at a close campground to us, Knoebel's,

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Have you tried their other campground Lake Glory? Much nicer site set up.

Ok, I have never camped at the Fort. But, I have been camping since I was a kid. We were camping at Knoebels' Lake Glory campground It was a group of 5 TT and a tent. There is a creek that runs behind Lake Glory. Needless is stared storming around 4:00 that afternoon and decided to not stop. I was standing outside smoking and I couldn't figure out what the people across the road were doing. After about 5 minutes. I realized they were tearing down the camp site. As I walked over to check the creek. It was just cresting the bank. As I quickly walked back to my camper. I was stopped by an employee and was told "you may want to be ready to leave if we flood". Well 5 minutes later as I was standing about 3 inches of water. We were just about ready to pull out (it is amazing how quick you can hook up a camper and be ready to pull out when you can feel the current of the water). I look over at my parents camper and my dad as done nothing yet. I am not exaggerating when I say the water at this point was up to my knees. I rush over to help my parents get hooked up. When I reach down to grab his chains I was shocked. After I quit shaking. I asked my dad if he still had the camper plugged in. And he said " Well yeah the air's still on. It's hot out here". Everyone got out safe and sound without loosing anything. We sit and laugh about it now. But, whenever we stay there we always make sure our truck are back in front of the campers.

Well, we've only ever tent camped, but if you don't mind me sharing....

Trip #1 with a toddler and a preschooler. We packed down the car trunk with our small tent, coolers, cooking supplies, sleeping supplies, etc, etc, and off we go. Get to the campground and start setting up the tent. Only to realize we forgot the hammer, and the pad is hard packed dirt and gravel. After watching us try to hammer in the stakes with a piece of firewood, a fellow tent camp took pity on us and let us use their hammer.

During a weekend getaway to Little Nashville, IN with my sisters' family, we had a camper and three tents. The camper for DS and her husband and the youngest kids, one tent for DH and I, one tent for the bigger boys and one tent for the girls. The boys tent was our oldest piece of equipment and hadn't been waterproofed in quite a few years. That night a huge storm came up, and before long the boys tent was leaking. Since there was no room in the other tents or the camper, DH used a tarp to cover the whole tent, and we all went back to sleep. The next morning, after the sun came out and breakfast was eaten, DH decided to pull off the tarp so the boys' tent could dry out a bit. When he pulled back the tarp, he was face to face the biggest wolf spider we had ever seen. (I guess he didn't like the rain either.) DH let out a bellow that had every campsite looking up, whipped off his ball cap and slapped away the spider. And I kid you not, that spider flew at least 15 feet, and I HEARD it hit the ground. (Shiver...)

On our latest trip to Disney World, we camped for four wonderful days at Ft. Wilderness. On Day Two, the squirrels broke into our food stash and ate our bread and bananas. But the sky really opened up on our last day. And I mean that literally.
We planned to leave Disney super early (like in the dark) because we were spending the next three days at Universal. We were staying at Royal Pacific for Express and Early Entry, so we wanted to get there bright and early.
We started breaking down the campsite by the light of our lantern, so we had no idea what the sky looked like above us. And there was no thunder to warn us...
About the time we had every last belonging out and had collapsed the tent to the ground for folding, a Florida storm opened up above us. For a split second, we stood there dumbfounded, before ordering the kids to run EVERYTHING to the bath house or into the car. It took us 45 minutes to get everything wrapped up, and we were saturated. We had to shower and change clothes before we left.
We arrived at Royal Pacific begging for ANY room they could give us at 7 a.m. so we could spread out our bedding and shoes to dry. They had mercy on us and found a room. DH spent most of that afternoon in the laundry, rewashing and drying our clothes that had gotten saturated before we could get them in the trunk.
BUT, there were a few items we just couldn't bring up to the room or run through a washer: like our soaking wet, sand covered tent, that spent the next three days brewing in the trunk of our car.
The drive home to Indiana was .... interesting.

oylerfam1 said:

Have you tried their other campground Lake Glory? Much nicer site set up.

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We have also been to J&J campground. We looked at Lake Glory. Knoebels campground, in our opinion,mostly has location going for it. It's truly a "Rack and Stack" campground and is NOT our ideal campground except that it allows us easy access (back and forth) to the park without having to worry about a "Parking Spot" or a bus. We do like J&J's too. It's a nice campground but could use a lot more trees.

I drove our 30' class C with only DS (young child at the time) and elderly beagle to FL four summers in a row many moons ago. Our experiences at FW were WONDERFUL, but one time DS really wanted to see the ocean, so we rented a spot in a will-remain-nameless campground on the Gulf. Got there, saw how tightly they were packed in, and absolutely PANICKED because I am the worst backer upper in the universe.

The sweet young surfer dude who pulled the short straw earned his employee of the month (maybe of the summer) as he spent the next 45 minutes quietly and calmly talked me through how to squeeeeeze my MH into that teeny, tiny spot. (No room for awning or slides, heck, you could barely open the door all the way .)

And then there was the time that the pooch got away at a truck stop/gas station, and I didn't realize it until a huge trucker carried him out of the truckers' side of the restaurant while feeding him a hamburger...

Terri

I've told one story, but we have more. We were camping in very rural Northern NH over the July 4th weekend nearly 20 years ago. DH and I hadn't been married long and had purchased a very old pop up camper which we had lovingly restored. We had our dogs with us and were aware that the bigger dog was afraid of fireworks. We had our day planned out to be at the campsite with the dogs for the fireworks as cuddling calmed him. Someone set off a few fireworks on their own prior to the scheduled show and our dog exited the pop up via the screened side of the camper. He was gone. There were 100's of acres of forest all around and no sign of him. We searched well into darkness and could not find him. Thankfully he found his way back about 5 AM the next morning. It was so very scary to have a lost loved one in the vast wilderness.

My experience originates in Fort Wilderness (Loop 100) in a Pop-UP. It was a lovely rainy night for sleeping. I love those because there are so restful! I was sleeping cozily in the pitch dark with my glasses perched on the table. In the wee hours something big landed on my forehead/hair! I can attest that it is entirely possible to go from "deep-REM-sleep-horizontal" to "wide-awake-WTH?-vertical" while performing a "Three Stooges" whoop whoop whoop maneuver with my hands wind-milling through my hair. This stunt included a black flip over the couch (so as not to land on my glasses). I grabbed those glasses and a flash light to find out WHAT creature had decided to escape the rain by joining me in the camper. On my pillow? A fat, neon green tree FROG! He just sat there staring at me... he better not have kissed me!