My First Camping Trip

My First Camping Trip

My husband had been bugging me forever to get a camper trailer. I was all for an Airstream. What's not to love? However, until we knew if we were "camper material" he said we should probably get a small one like a pop-up. I conceded.

Luckily, he found a good deal right away. The trailer was like new-even smelled like new car or new camper as the case may be.

We decided which weekend to go and were excited to explore this new part of our future. However, some things came up, had to postpone, lost money on the reservation and planned again for the next weekend.

It was almost here, the weekend we'd been getting so exited about. We got the dog groomed on Thursday so she'd have a summer cut and hopefully attract less ticks and fleas. We had to use a new groomer since our regular was booked solid. We had been packing for a couple of weeks and only had a few more things to take care of to begin the three hour journey to Southeast Missouri.

By Friday morning, trip day, I was wheezing more than I had been for the past three weeks and decided I should finally try to see a doctor. As soon as he began examining me, he said I had pneumonia, gave me a breathing treatment and prescribed a ton of medicines: Cough medicine with codeine, Prednisone, Z-pack, Amoxicillin, a puffer, and an electric breathing machine to use twice a day. Okay, with all that, why shouldn't I think I'd be okay to go camping? After all, camping is all about relaxing in the great outdoors-back to Nature and that was what I needed to heal my body-relaxation and fresh air.

By Friday afternoon, the dog had started hacking. No doubt she'd gotten Kennel Cough from the new place we took her even though she was caught up on Bordetella. It happens. The vet was kind enough, being triple booked and since we're a regular customer, to prescribe the antibiotics for her without an office exam. That saved some time and money. She'd be fine now with the antibiotics in her system.

My husband said he didn't think we should go since both the dog and I were sick. I said that would be ridiculous to cancel again and lose more money when we were both on antibiotics. Everything would be fine and we'd have so much fun.

We got to the campsite about 6:00 Friday evening. We started popping out, securing, unpacking and thinking about what to have for dinner. We were getting pretty warm from all that prep work so needed to get the air conditioning going. My husband kept trying and trying but nothing was working. It was getting dark and there was no way I could sleep in that heat. I knew I should have brought a fan. Finally after about an hour and a half, he figured out where to put the female end of a chord that had been hanging with no home. It should have been plugged in before we raised the camper up because now we couldn't reach it as the plug was at the top of the camper. Everything was already popped out and raised up so it would have been crazy to fold up everything just to plug in that chord at the top of the camper. We figured it out with some acrobatics and viola-AIR! I have to wonder what the "neighbors" were thinking as they were watching our escapades.

We were too tired to do anything fun that night and decided to hit the rack early, get a good night's sleep and get up ready to take full advantage of our new venture. Since I had pneumonia and medicine hadn't shown any effect yet, I was hacking all night. Since the dog's meds hadn't kicked in either, she was hacking on the syncopated rhythm of my coughs. My husband was managing to snore off and on but according to him, he wasn't sleeping at all.

I NEVER have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom but maybe since I had been lying awake for hours coughing, my biological clock was misaligned. It had also turned from a perfect temperature to COLD. It was too cold to move and certainly too cold to get out of bed. I laid there too long I think. Crawling over my husband was quite the feat since the pop-out bed was at a downhill angle for me. It was kind of like recon and I felt like I had been through a war at this point. When I got over the hurdle and to my feet, I couldn't see my hand two inches in front of my face because it was pitch-actually darker than pitch.

We'd had our new camper toilet for two weeks but my husband hadn't had time to read all about it so it wasn't set up. It was still sitting in the box in the back of the truck. We had figured we'd walk to the bathrooms until we got it set up the next morning when we had more time. We weren't worried that we didn't know where the public bathrooms were because we wouldn't have to find them until morning anyway.

Since there was no alternative, it was darker than dark inside and out, and I'm sure there were copperheads crawling around on the cool ground outside, I decided to grab a plastic cup. Since I NEVER need to get up during the night for this I thought it would be doable this one time. I was surprised how much I really had to go. Was it the pneumonia meds? I put down one filled cup on the floor, grabbed another and started filling it up too. I was doing this by feel because, again, there was not a thread of light. I put the second cup down and as I was exhaustively trying to get my pajamas back on, tripped on the bottoms or one of those bump-outs on the floor or whatever, and knocked over one of the cups. That put me into a really bad mood (not feeling myself with pneumonia and all) and I was instantly mad at my husband. The toilet should have been set up. Neither of us had thought of needing a night-light in the camper either. At least I'd have known when the cups were full-and where the bump-out step was.

We had no running water because again, we were just going to fill the tank the next morning when we weren't so tired. So, I had to give myself a "bath" using Lysol wipes. This is probably not for what they were intended. Hopefully, I have no permanent skin damage. I used half the Lysol can along with all the extra rags I brought for emergencies to clean the a-fore mentioned mishap off the camper floor...three times. And again three times the next morning. I was praying our new camper smell was not lost.

Back to bed taking turns with my dog coughing. My husband said we were going to pack up first thing in the morning and go home. I told him I wasn't going to let Sam A. Baker Camp beat me. We were staying Hell or high water. I finally twisted his arm and he wilted.

I cooked breakfast in the morning while we talked about what we should have, could have, would have done and then I said I was going to hook up the toilet. He got it out of the truck and we figured it out together. Eureka. Thank God. Though, it wasn't easy to understand the directions clearly not written by an English major. At this point, I didn't care if it was inspector ready as long as I could relieve myself into something larger than a plastic cup.

We found the camp store where we promptly bought a night light, batteries for a radio and fire starters we hadn't thought of packing. The rustic handmade items made us reminisce about the reasons we wanted to go camping in the first place. The shopping at the camp store was the highlight of the trip so far.

I wanted to rent a horse for a trail-ride. I had read there were equestrian trails and thought that would make the trip worth-while. We took a ride in the truck to find the stables. What we found was that you have to bring your own horse. We should have brought our bikes, as I had suggested to my husband. We figured we might as well just go back to the campsite and start relaxing.

We were ready to use our new "hook ups" and enjoy a kielbasa dinner with icey cold refreshments. We were settling into our coordinating lawn chairs when a volunteer ranger approached. He wanted to know if we had registered yet. Registered? I had already filled out everything on line and paid in advance for this-twice. We were supposed to go somewhere ELSE and let them know we were here? Such formality.

My husband took the trek to make us legal. I had some questions for the ranger. My husband had been telling me everyone else had an extra water and sewage hook up at their campsites. Why didn't we? The ranger said everyone had the same and what was I talking about? I was ready to prove him wrong so I walked with him toward another campsite when he said, "Oh, they are not supposed to be hooked up to that! I'm going to have to unhook them." Uh-Oh. Had I just narced on people who saw me with the ranger, knew their way around the campground and to our site? I promptly pivoted and headed back to my lawn chair to wait for my protector-on the other side of the camper. My husband finally showed and I let him in on the water hook up confusion.

Finally, it was time to hit the hay again. It had been a much better day. I had seen a few beautiful bluebirds for the first time in my life and I knew the night would be okay since we had a toilet and a night light. I didn't have to get up this time and was glad we hadn't retreated. Had it not been for the coughing fits my dog and I alternated, it wouldn't have been so bad at all-until the cold set in.

I had decided to split the sheets and sleep in the opposite bed of my husband and dog. They had the bottom sheet and blanket. I had the top sheet. We have electric mattress warmers but hadn't hooked them up. After all, it was just right when we went to bed plus that was more literature to read. In the middle of the night it must have dropped to 30 degrees...too cold for either of us to get up to find the electric warmers to spend who knows how long figuring out (we had learned nothing was easy) and it was too cold to sleep.

The next morning, three tired animals were ready to go home. Sam A. Baker had not beaten us. He had only come close. We will be planning next month's camping trip soon...at a different campground so as not to run into any "old neighbors". The adventures continue. I'm hoping there won't be wild animal stories but nothing would surprise me.