Worst Trip Ever - Let's compare!

[Purplefans & Harvey]

It took six years, but our last trip was arguably our worst trip. We've gone through dodging tornado's, dodging wildfires, and motorhome mechanical problems, but all of those were on separate trips. The last trip we had included almost all of the above, including a death in the family in which we had to cut the trip short, and try to get home in time for the funeral. Not one, but TWO major mechanical problems, and the primary driver who had a knee injury and then had to drive DOUBLE the normal drive time because of all the above. Please let me know that you have had it worse - I'm beginning to feel sorry for myself. Woe is me. ---- I forgot to mention - we met some wonderful people on the trip, from Canada, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. That is in the end, what the trip is about, meeting great people, and we have unbelieveable memories!

[W4RLR]

Like Dickens said, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. When I was a boy, my mother got a brand new Mercury Marquis Colony Park wagon. Dad got a new Jayco pop-up (this was when Jaycos were still being built in a chicken coop). Dad planned a two week vacation of the Eastern Seaboard and Canada. We had some great times in the Appalachian Mountains, went to Niagara Falls, saw some of my dad's friends in Ohio.

Did I mention this was during hurricane season?

We were watching the news about Hurricane Agnes, which was headed our way. We wound up driving THROUGH the storm, back to a state park in Tennessee. It was my first time driving a car towing a trailer, the only thing I did before that was back it up to hitch up the trailer. But my dad could only drive so long.

We still have film of that trip that my sister converted to DVD. I finally got to watch it for the first time in decades. Some of the stuff on that DVD belongs on America's Funniest Home Videos.

[chaperon]

The wife took a new job a couple of years ago, which meant we lost one week of our two week summer vacation.
Within 20 minutes of leaving home the drivers side mirror extension fell off and dropped on the highway, but didn't break, we made a quick circle to pick it up and as the wife went to run out and pick the mirror up - some very nice youth ran over the mirror and smashed it, fragments nearly hitting her.
So carrying on to a very beautiful provoncial park - we managed to get one of the very last camp sites, loved it.... until the next day when there was torrential downpour, totally flooding the camp site - drenched everything left outside, lasted for hours, quit and started all over again. Regardless when we packed up everything was either wet or very damp.
The next day was better, this time in a private site unfortunately the rain returned and instead of gravel, we ended up in a mud pit - made the previous night seem very desirable.
The next day, we threw all the mud soaked items in the back of the pick up and headed south - out of the rain. We travelled for a couple of hours, but were unable find an available site. Kept travelling and travelling, until almost dark...started getting pretty grumpy. We took a chance and travelled about 15 miles up to another provincial park with a posted full sign. We actually got a site, our luck had changed, we grabbed the last empty camp site.
Seems other campers had the same idea as us and the last site was right beside the park facilitator... A new diesel pushing RV stopping every 5 minutes right in front of our site, Uh Huh the reason for the last site. Was actually a great park and we had a fun filled couple of days.
On the second night, I had to get up to go to the washroom. Unfortunately, I woke up the wife who had to relieve herself as well.... I get the "Come here quick"..... seems she took the same route to the can as me but detoured slightly right and managed to entangle herself in a giant spider web that stretched from my daughters top bunk to the bathroom door - she was staring directly at a thumb size wolfe spider when I turned the light on for her...seems she has a spider phobia.
We left and travelled several hours the next day to another private site to empty the tank, recharge the batterys and fill the water.
Got put in a tight sight, not enough room to put out our lawn carpet or extend the awning right undernieth a wasps nest - got attacked everytime the trailer door got opened.... several stings later it was bed time.
Got up early the next day to head to a favourite fishing lake and resupplied on the way.
We got to the lake by late afternoon and checked out the many different sites, got to the end of the lake and made a U-turn in a cow pasture. Even though there seemed to be no problems, for some reason it took a tremendous amount of diesel power to finish the turn.... the Left front leaf spring on our Komfort trailer broke clean off allowing the front axle to walk into the slide frame, in other words we were stuck and the nearest community an hour away on dirt road.
I managed to block the axle and limp back to the first available camp site.... We set up camp and I got on the cell phone to try and find a new spring without any luck.
After supper and before a restless night of repair deliberation, a little critter crossed the floor looking for a cheese snack - the mouse hunt was on and defeat was not an option - the field mouse was released after being trapped in a shoe box.
The next morning my son and I drove to town and got a clamp made up to hold the broken spring together and to borrow some tools from my cousin - returned to find I had miscalculated and returned to town to have it modified, but it paid off and several hours later with a little enginuity, the trailer was road ready enough to get us home.
Finally got the boat off the rack and went for a beautiful evening fish. Got up the next morning and went for a morning fish.
That afternoon was really hot 100 degrees plus, had a nap and waited for a late afternoon troll - asked the wife to mix me a drink because I was going for a fish, when all of a sudden several ATV's and a truck went speeding past - could hear a cell phone call from across the lake that went something like "We are camped at ____ Lake - this is an emergency! There is a wild fire spreading quickly up the mountain side!"
I ran to the edge of the lake to see if I could see anything and to my surprise there were flames fanning above the tree tops less than 2 miles away. The family quickly jumped into action and packed up all our stuff in record time,. I bet we were out of there in 10 minutes flat. Thank God I didn't leave the trailer repair another day.
We figured we'd had our fill of camping for the week and headed home.
All and all a very memerable holiday, looking back it was a great character builder for the entire family, but wouldn't want to try again.

[Seajay]

Worst trip ever......


Back in 2009 we had some friends call from California and ask if we were doing anything special. We answered no, so they told us to meet them in Vegas at Sams Town in two or three weeks for some Gambling, Drinking, Eating and going to a show or two. Cathy agreed to reserve us some tickets to see Bet Middler and plans were made to meet in Vegas. We told them that we would head out early because we had to come from North Carolina and they from California and we would keep them posted as to our progress so they could plan their trip and meet us out there.


We left NC and headed west. We were pulling Willas new custom made car on a trailer that I bought for this specific purpose. All went well until I noticed that the trailer was not pulling right and upon inspection I found a weld joint that had cracked and the trailer was sagging. We stopped in ''Hicksville'' for groceries and I found a garage that would weld the trailer. Four hours and $150.00 later the trailer was repaired and we went on down the road heading west. The next day we stopped at a rest area to let the dogs tinkle and when I tried to re start the coach all I got was a low growel out of the starter. I kicked in the house batteries and the engine spun and came to life. I told Willa that our starter was going south. She got on the net and checked the next town for an Advance Store that would have a starter for the Triton v10 Ford engine. The manager in ''Podunks ville'' said they had one on the shelf for $137.00 plus exchange. We told him we were on the way. I asked him if I could change the starter in his parking lot and he said no problem and he would even loan me a creeper. When we got to the store it was raining cats and dogs. I went inside and got the creeper and eased under the coach and removed the old starter. Where we had to park the coach was over a drainage ditch that was running water about 3 inched deep. I took off the bad starter and when they checked it in the store it blew up their machine for checking starters. I got the new starter and installed it myself. I returned the creeper, changed clothes and we headed west. We got out around Chaco Canyon and a guy at a stoplite told me that we had no tail lights on the trailer. We went into a state campground to spend the nite but it was full and they let us stay in the parking lot for free. That night Cathy called us and told us that Bill, her husband, had been killed in a hang glider accident that day and could we please come on out to California to be with her. Not a problem. The next day I fixed the short in the wiring and we hit for Upper Lake, California. We stayed with her for a couple of weeks and I presided at Bills ''Celebration of Life'' ceremony . It was a really sad time in our lives and I felt very sorry for Cathy. Such is life. We finally said our good byes and headed back for Vegas. We figured that this might be a good distraction from losing Bill. We missed the Bet Midler thing and the tickets were non refundable. We got to Sams Town campground in Vegas and the jacks would not go down. I finally figured out that the house batteries were shot and we went and bought two house batteries. Our old batteries were only 6 years old. The next day we backed Willas car off the trailer for some exploring around Vegas. We found out that Bobby Venton was playing down in Laughlin so we bought tickets to go see him. We went out to ''Red Rock Canyon'' and I noticed that the steering in the car ''felt funny''. I pulled over on a side road and got out to look at the front wheel while Willa turned the steering wheel. The steering wheel went all the way around with out stopping and the front wheels did not move. ''WOW''. We had no phone service but a man stopped to ask if we had trouble. He took us back to Vegas for one hundred dollars and I got the coach and headed back toward Red Rock Canyon with the trailer.
After three hours and lots of saying SHUX... I got the car back on the trailer by steering it with a pair of vice grips on the steering box shaft. The next day we gave our tickets to see Bobby Venton to a couple from Canada because they were non refundable. We stayed one more night and I won $500,oo playing Texas Holdum at Sams Town casino. We hit the road for home and as we were coming into Denver I noticed that the transmission was ''acting funny''. It finally quit pulling about 20 miles outside Denver and a wrecker pulled us into a garage where we sat for ten days waiting on a new transmission for the coach. We were lucky in that we had a 15 amp drop cord and a water hose but no sewer. We put our gray water on the ground with the owners permission and I dumped the Black water in a sewer system about one hundred feet from the coach. I had a five gallon bucket for this purpose. $4000.oo later we started home with snow coming down on the roads. We got to Knoxville and my cousin called me and told me that there had been a rock slide on I-40 and the road was closed at the Nc line. I said Shux again. We had to go by Johnson City Tenn. And then back south to I-40 to get home...


A few other things that happened on that trip were,


The step stop working for a while and then kinda ''fixed its self'' and started working again. After I bought the new house batteries it worked fine.
I found a hernia in my tummy about three inches long..
The gas furnace worked really good some of the time and other times it would not come on at all. I finally figured out that the problem was a dirty thermostat slide...
Our CD player died....
Finnie got a stomach virus and puked in my left shoe..... Twice.... the second time I did not notice until it was tooooo late ….... Yuck.....
There is probably more but I have blanked them out of my mind and memory but this was a trip from Hell......


We finally made it home and were damn glad to be there.


Lets all pray for our troops and ask God to keep them safe.........

[Kammy]

You said it all at the end of your message.

Did you find the pony after digging through all that manure??????????

[Seajay]

[QUOTE=Kammy;850214]You said it all at the end of your message.

Did you find the pony after digging through all that manure??????????[/QUOTE

Hummmmmmm? someone help me here. Is Kammy just teasing me about the manure or is this person calling me a liar please?
This actually happened folks. There probably was more but I have forgotten the details now. You can look back in my posts from 09 and read where I posted a lot of this in ''real time'' during the trip.
Nuff said I guess....... Someone help me on this please.....

Lets all remember our vets on Memorial Day, May 30.......

[Kammy]

I believe you.......The manure and pony is about a little boy with a positive attitude! The jist of the story is that he went into a room filled with manure and started digging through it saying there has to be a pony in here somewhere?

Keep a positive attitude when things go wrong. There is something positive about everything. Look back and ask yourself what you learned from this experience? You'll be better prepared the next time.

Happy Trails to You.........

[wa8yxm]

Worst trip nomination,, Now understand I've not done this and I sincerly hope I never do.

Check out any thread with the following in the subject line "Motor home fire"

And even that may not be the worst.

Motor home crash results in the death of ....

now that's the worst.. Beyond a doubt, that is the absolute worst.

[Ramzfan]

I don't know if I can top Seajay's story but I've got one that comes close. We bought a used Winnebago Journey motorhome from a guy in Albany, New York last year. We live in Reno, Nevada. We packed everything that we thought we'd need into our Jeep Grand Cherokee and took off for New York early in October. My wife had never seen the changing of the leaves back East and everyone told us that Mid-October was when it happened. We drove for six days and finally arrived in Albany about 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. We were relatively happy with the motorhome even though several items were not as advertised and the coach was filthy to say the least. During my inspection, I tried to check the heater & hot water tank but I was warned that there was very little propane in the tank. I tried everything else on Generator Power but could not run that for very long as that too was fueled by propane. I finally accepted the coach as it was getting dark and I noticed that the fuel tank was completely empty. The seller reassured me though that he 'thought' I had enough fuel to make it the seven miles to the nearest truck stop. He then left and went home while I pondered exactly what the word "thought" meant.
To make a long story short, we spent several days cleaning and fixing items on the motorhome and then headed for So. Carolina to visit my wife's cousin. We were following our Garmin GPS and I noticed that "Lola",
(our GPS's name) was taking us down the coast towards New York City. That was definitely NOT the way I wanted to go, but after stopping at a rest stop and checking our atlas, it appeared to be the way we had to go if we had any hopes of reaching our first stop in Pennsylvania that evening. We were doing 65 MPH on the Bronx Expressway as it began to get dark. The road was filled with typical New York drivers who were cutting us off and waving their one-fingered salutations as we sailed along. I was following Lola's instructions and trying to avoid getting out of my lane when my wife asked "Are we a truck?" "Well", I replied, "We're the same size as a truck." I was pondering why she would ask me a question like that when she hit me with the bombshell..."Are we over 9'-6"?" I was in shock..."Hell yes, we're over 9'-6"!....why?" "Well, we should have gotten off at the last off-ramp" she says. I looked up and here was a low bridge coming at me and it was too late to stop... I tried to get as close to the center of the bridge as possible without running anyone off the road. We hit that overpass at 65 and never slowed down. I could see headlights behind me going left and right as they dodged all sorts of debris that was coming off of our roof. That bridge scalped our motorhome closer than the Indians going after Custer...all you could see inside were Fantastic fans and Shower skylights hanging from what was left of the ceiling.
I patched things up the best that I could the next day. Home Depot made a fortune off us on duct tape and Oversized plastic roller trays. We limped on for the rest of our trip and turned it over to our insurance company when we got home. Two days later, they totaled our motorhome and paid us off. The good news was, we made more on the coach than we had paid for it. I took the money and bought a truckers GPS immediately. I figured we were extremely lucky that that bridge had not really been 9'-6". Otherwise, we would not be here now to tell you this story!

[bakerkids]

OMG, Ramzfan, that's hilarious! I had to read the bridge part out loud to my daughter. Glad nobody was hurt, but gave us a great laugh.

[shortlance]

Remember--- Worst trip ever is still better then being stuck at work!

[bluepill]

Haven't had a worst RV trip yet, but almost every vacation trip we took as a kid had some serious drama. My dad was a firm believer in NOT maintaining the car, so we had epic break downs. 3 days in Lake George while they replaced just about every part in the brake system. A week in Albany while they replaced the engine. 2 days in Utica while we searched for a used car to replace the car with a second blown engine.

I seemed to spend most of my vacations hanging around garages.

Must be the reasom that I became an auto mechanic.

[TXiceman]

Our worst trip...
Started with the TV going out the first night....Walmart and a new TV.

2nd day, the frig did not latch closed and we had everything all over the floor...yogurt lids off, milk spilled, jelly jar broken.

Couple of days later, DW was making a marinara sauce fro dinner and opened the anchovies and with the stubborn lid, slung the anchovies juice all over the kitchen. Remember it had been well scrubbed a couple of days earlier.

To calm things down after the cleaning, I opened a stubborn bottle of red wine. It wound up with the cork coming apart and in getting it out, I spilled red wine down the front of my bath robe.

A few days later, we were out sight seeing and while at slow speed, a deer ran in front of me and I hit her with the right front fender of the ONE MONTH old truck.

Muffler on new truck was rattling and the dealer did not have a replacement so he used bailing wire to clamp the heat shield in place. Rattle stopped until we could get back to Houston.

On the way home, we planned a stop at Lost Maples S.P. for the fall color during the peak week. It rained all night and all of the beautiful leaves were on the ground the next morning. So much for the hike in the maples for the fall color.

The truck was repaired and OK, all of the anchovies and wine were cleaned up.

We made it back home without farther incident...Thank Goodness.

None of the trips since have been as eventful....anyway in one trip.

Ken

[ptysonjr]

Originally Posted by Ramzfan

I don't know if I can top Seajay's story but I've got one that comes close. We bought a used Winnebago Journey motorhome from a guy in Albany, New York last year. We live in Reno, Nevada. We packed everything that we thought we'd need into our Jeep Grand Cherokee and took off for New York early in October. My wife had never seen the changing of the leaves back East and everyone told us that Mid-October was when it happened. We drove for six days and finally arrived in Albany about 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. We were relatively happy with the motorhome even though several items were not as advertised and the coach was filthy to say the least. During my inspection, I tried to check the heater & hot water tank but I was warned that there was very little propane in the tank. I tried everything else on Generator Power but could not run that for very long as that too was fueled by propane. I finally accepted the coach as it was getting dark and I noticed that the fuel tank was completely empty. The seller reassured me though that he 'thought' I had enough fuel to make it the seven miles to the nearest truck stop. He then left and went home while I pondered exactly what the word "thought" meant.
To make a long story short, we spent several days cleaning and fixing items on the motorhome and then headed for So. Carolina to visit my wife's cousin. We were following our Garmin GPS and I noticed that "Lola",
(our GPS's name) was taking us down the coast towards New York City. That was definitely NOT the way I wanted to go, but after stopping at a rest stop and checking our atlas, it appeared to be the way we had to go if we had any hopes of reaching our first stop in Pennsylvania that evening. We were doing 65 MPH on the Bronx Expressway as it began to get dark. The road was filled with typical New York drivers who were cutting us off and waving their one-fingered salutations as we sailed along. I was following Lola's instructions and trying to avoid getting out of my lane when my wife asked "Are we a truck?" "Well", I replied, "We're the same size as a truck." I was pondering why she would ask me a question like that when she hit me with the bombshell..."Are we over 9'-6"?" I was in shock..."Hell yes, we're over 9'-6"!....why?" "Well, we should have gotten off at the last off-ramp" she says. I looked up and here was a low bridge coming at me and it was too late to stop... I tried to get as close to the center of the bridge as possible without running anyone off the road. We hit that overpass at 65 and never slowed down. I could see headlights behind me going left and right as they dodged all sorts of debris that was coming off of our roof. That bridge scalped our motorhome closer than the Indians going after Custer...all you could see inside were Fantastic fans and Shower skylights hanging from what was left of the ceiling.
I patched things up the best that I could the next day. Home Depot made a fortune off us on duct tape and Oversized plastic roller trays. We limped on for the rest of our trip and turned it over to our insurance company when we got home. Two days later, they totaled our motorhome and paid us off. The good news was, we made more on the coach than we had paid for it. I took the money and bought a truckers GPS immediately. I figured we were extremely lucky that that bridge had not really been 9'-6". Otherwise, we would not be here now to tell you this story!

I started 30 minutes ago trying to tell you how funny this was to me and I just now was able to breath long enough to type this. Holy cow that was a good one! Sorry to laugh at your situation but that is too darn funny to not laugh and tell you about it!