Attention to Details!

Location: Somewhere in Southern Louisiana

I did not witness the following event, but my Dad, who has since passed away, swore it was the truth until the day he died.

A young couple with two children pulled up into the campground with their 'Pop-Up' trailer. (a 'Pop Up' is a tent trailer where the upper canvas tent portion folds up and is stored in the bottom portion of the trailer for travel.) The man was driving and backed his trailer into the campsite, got out, unhooked the trailer from his car and began setting up the unit. He cranked the tent portion of the trailer up and pulled the beds out. (They generally pull out of both ends of the trailer.) He fastened the elastic cords that keep the canvas taunt. He pulled down his leveling jacks and carefully made sure that the trailer was level. He plugged in the electric cord and was all set, or so he thought.

There were two bicycles in a rack on top of the car. He took them down and each one of the children took a bike and they were off amidst the warnings of, "Watch out for cars," and "Be careful!" and "Have fun."

The man and the woman went into the camper and closed the door. All was quiet and serene on the campground.

After a little time had passed, suddenly one of the beds on the end of the camper came crashing down! The man and the woman both tumbled out of the camper off the broken bed onto the ground. THEY WERE BOTH AS NAKED AS THE DAY THEY WERE BORN!!!

The man jumped up and ran to the door of the camper. LOCKED! (of course!) He ran back to the end of the camper where the bed had fallen out and where his wife was doing everything possible to try to cover herself up! He scrambled up into the camper on the bed and in seconds had the door opened, his wife in the camper and the campground was once again quiet and serene.

After about ten minutes the man and woman again appeared. They immediately began to fold down the trailer. He lifted the leveling jacks and pushed both of the beds back into the unit. He cranked down the canvas portion of the trailer after unplugging the electric wire. The man and the woman hurriedly tucked in the canvas and latched down the roof. He hooked the trailer to the car and anxiously looked around for the children.

A few minutes later the children came by on their bikes. The parents flagged them down and told them they were leaving. There were a lot of protests from the children as the man put the bicycles back into the bike rack on the roof of the car.

"Why are we leaving? Where are we going? We just got here! Aren't we staying for the weekend?"

All complaints being duly noted the children were loaded into the car and the family sped off in a cloud of dust!

Now when you pull out the beds in a 'Pop-Up' camper there are usually two steel rods that fit between the outer edge of the bed and fasten into the frame of the trailer. In this case the man, obviously being in a hurry, forgot to put the bed braces in place, but, I'll bet he never-ever forgot about those braces again! Pay attention to the details!

Our First RV

Location: Morgan City, Louisiana

I bought a used Starcraft tent trailer (we called it a 'Pop Up') in 1975. I had to take the canvas completely off of the rig and bring it to an upholstery shop to get the holes in all four corners patched. I had to repack the wheel bearings, paint the frame and scrub the walls and floors. Finally after several weekends of repair we were ready to go on our first trip.

We could have taken our maiden voyage on a weekend trip to a nearby campground but, I was hesitant to go because my wife had absolutely no experience in the outdoors and neither of us had ever camped in any type of R.V. We had planned a trip to Florida for our first ever vacation and I thought that if we took a weekend trip and it didn't go well, or if she decided that she didn't like camping, then the vacation would be off.

Finally the day arrived and we headed down the road with our Pop-Up trailer following our Toyota Corolla smartly down the highway. (Toyota cars were much, much smaller then and if you came up behind our trailer on the highway you couldn't see the car, so you thought that the trailer was going down the road by itself!).

Think Before You Act

Location: Styx River Resort, Mobile, Alabama)

We arrived at our first campground. It was a KOA just outside Mobile, Alabama.

We 'popped-up' the trailer and hooked up the electric and water lines and we were camping. A heavy (and I do mean...