Friday, June 1, 2007

the April camping trip......

this is quoted, word for word, from the AS forum where i first posted it:

well.... the story behind the impromptu camping trip...

the idea to start off on the trip had several factors... one, my parents have been driving us nuts since we got down here, and it finally boiled over. two, we hadn't seen hubby's mother in many months now, when we were used to a at-least-twice-a-month schedule. three, we were starting to get tired of paying 90 bucks a month to store a bunch of junk in NJ that we couldn't use... soooooo..... we said "screwit!" threw a piece of foam in the back to use as a mattress and took off.



now... this was with a totally empty shell.. no inner shell, even. all we had was insulation...that sure was fun when we hit CT in April. remember how odd and chilly the weather was this past April? oh yeah. and my stupid self was up in CT freezing my backside off in a "absolutely nothing works glorified metal tent on wheels" trailer. we stayed for the weekend with her... and it rained.... the whole.... weekend. that sucked. altho on the bright side, it DID show us all the minor leaks around the windows and seams that we'd missed we even had a short run-in with the local animal control . we brought our dog... (didn't want to leave her alone for the several weeks we estimated the entire trip would take) but the mom-in-law lives in an appartment. we got permission from the management to park the trailer over on the far side of the parking lot for the weekend, and we got permission to have our dog on the premissis as long as she stayed in the car, and wasn't brought into the building. ok... sounds good. we slept with her in the trailer (with a little buddy heater and 4 blankets) and during the day she stayed in the cab of the truck... big bag-o-food sitting on the floor and a bowl with water propped up in the seat... and we'd come out about every two hours or so and start up the truck and run the heater. she didn't like being alone, and barked herself horse over it, but she was ok. well, the people in the complex see her out there and call animal control. we go out for our regular check on her, and there's two cop cars and the dog-catchers van all clustered around our truck. hubby walks over and says "what's going on?" and the cop says "We're taking your dog." WHAT?!?!?! "why???" and that quickly turned into a session of "look how bad a dog owner you are... see? see? see?" and my hubby shooting down every single point systematically (she doesn't have food or water. food is in the bag, water is in the bowl on the seat. i've been out here 45 minutes. well, yeah, you must have got here right after the LAST time i checked on her. well, uhh.... the door was locked. no duh, i don't want someone stealing or otherwise screwing around with my dog. you aren't allowed to have dogs in the appartment complex! i know. thats why i got permission first... thats why she's out in the TRUCK and not with ME inside (growl) ) ... and them finally saying, "oops, well, i guess she really is ok, you're going to be gone by Monday, right? ok. have a nice day."

so... we took off Monday morning... following the tail of the storm... so we were STILL getting rained on every single day, and drove to our old stomping grounds in NJ. we ended up driving thru High Point State Park on rt 23 on the 16th of April... and guess what. it was SNOWING. just in the park (and in a few other areas of very high elevation) so of COURSE we had to stop and get a pic.



from there, on to Succasunna NJ, where we stopped and, i'm sorry to say, we loaded the poor airstream up like some common utility trailer... packed to the gills with all the junk we'd had in storage. off we went again.. finally headed back south to sunny FL... making nearly 2 mpg less than we did unloaded



i had remembered my parents driving down from VA to FL to visit THIER parents when i was a kid, and something that really stuck out in my mind about the trip was South of the Border just over the state line in SC, so we HAD to stop there. it was still a little early in the season for tourists, but we had fun walking around and looking at the place. i got a bumper sticker. need one of those! that was where i got the funny pic i used in the April photo contest.... we were coming back to the truck stop where we'd parked, came around the corner of the building, and saw that. i HAD to take a photo of that!

the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful... we slept in truck stops the whole way... the only RV park we stopped in was our last stop before getting back home... Evergreen AL. they were nice and cut our cost down to $5 because we didn't need to hook up to ANYTHING.