Your Worst Camping Trip???

[PNWGirl]

Originally Posted by CorsairIIAT

She decides to detour to Death Valley. Did I mention this was August? Don't ever go to Death Valley in Aug. It will live up to it's name.

I lived in Yuma, AZ for eight years. I have a pretty good idea! Death Valley is NOT a place that I would visit in August!

Glad that your rig did not overheat while you were there. Lot's do.

Sheila

[JazzZen]

My late husband and I had a favorite camping spot near Packwood, WA, but decided we should expand our horizons and went to Lilliwaup Creek on Hood Canal, WA. Ooops! Poured the entire weekend, very loud late night arrival in the site next to us, bears out and about, my oldest son buried a hatchet in his knee while trying to shave some kindling (requiring a trip to the Shelton hospital and stitches), and the neighbors four year old grandson decided we were the best playmates he could find. He was out of control and wouldn't leave us alone. Finally, grandma came to say "oh, is he bothering you?" and ended up staying 3 hours telling me her life story (I'm a recovering social worker!). And were we still tent campers! Waterproof is good, but not when met with a good Washington rain! Miserable then, but I laugh now!

What great stories everyone has! I don't feel so bad now!

[JMonroe]

If you've ventured out more than once, you probably have a story. We've been camping since one month after we were married, and that's over 35 years ago. We've had various RV's for the last 25 - 30 years. Every trip had it's highlights, for sure, but there were a few low lights along the way.

While still in a tent, and we'd convinced friends to joint us, it rained all 40 days and nights worth in that one night. We abandoned 'ship' when a small creek formed, cutting directly through our site and under our tent.

Then there's the trip through Colorado, and over the Rocky's. Beautiful sunny day, as we passed through the small mountain community of Oray. As we left the west end of town and made the first switchback turn we were greeted by an electric sign, "Four wheel drive or chains required past this point". What, did they forget to turn that sign off last winter? This was a beautiful early September day. Well, after the next switchback, that placed us on the west side of one of the slopes, we were in an all out blizzard! By now we had progressed to an 18' travel trailer, towing it with a 4WD International Scout. The road is somewhat narrow and the highway department had been a bit frugal in it's placement of guard rails. There's no way you could turn around. One 'bright spot' was seeing the impatient BMW jockey, who couldn't wait to pass us at the bottom of the pass, now stuck, probably until the next spring, in the right lane, up against the shear rock wall. As a 'local', judging from the license plate, had already stopped to assist him we didn't feel it necessary (or safe) to stop and help, but we did get great satisfaction in giving him a friendly wave, as we drove past.

My wife spent the next couple hours hiding under the dash board. There was no where to pull over, or around, on that pass. We had no choice but to continue.I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd lost the trailer brakes, until we we back on dry land and surrounded by civilization.

Our next RV was a 30' TT, towed by a 4X4 Suburban. Thanksgiving weekend we hitched up and pointed south, to'wards Florida and Disney. Somewhere, near nowhere, in Georgia we decided to call it a night and pull off, intending to spend the night in an inexpensive hotel, just at the bottom of the off ramp, that appeared to have a large parking area for the rig. We had not yet 'de-winterized' the RV so were intending to rent a room for the night. To get into the motel property we had to drive past and make a 180, in the large parking lot of another business and head back. Unfortunately, the hitch, the part with the trailer ball, decided to shear off the end of the 2X2 shaft, that goes into the receiver, that it had been welded to. The 'A' frame of the trailer dropped down to the pavement, the chains are the only thing keeping the trailer behind the truck. I drag the trailer off the highway and into a bank parking lot. The motel staff and the local police department turned out to be great people. I was referred to a gentileman that owned a welding business, and this is now 10:30PM, on a holiday weekend. The welder offered to come to me with his portible equipment, but I told him that if he wasn't too far away, I could bring the entire hitch assembly to him. He agreed that would be best, he could use the more powerful shop equipment. A few moments later I was starting to wonder about that decision. Just a couple blocks off the freeway got VERY 'rural' south. And then we had to leave the main highway. The shop was nothing more than a tin shed with a dirt floor. He met me outside and when he opened the door and flipped on the lights about a million 8" long (or seemed like it) cockroaches, direct decendants from the jurassic period, went scurrying into every hidden crack and cubby they could find. The welding equipment had no doubt come over with the pilgrims, on the MayFlower, but he sure knew how to use it. That hitch will no doubt be dug up by some archiologist a couple thousand years from now, and still intact!

I've gone on long enough. I'll skip the stories about spending the night in local repair facilities, far from home (they never break down close to home), or the exploding tire that wiped out one side of the 5th wheel we had at the time, or....

But it's fun, isn't it?

[Grumpytrkr]

Originally Posted by PNWGirl

Grumpy suggested adding a new thread called 'Worst Camping Trips'. I think it's a great idea, so am starting it with something that happened a few weeks ago.
Would love to read your stories!

Sheila

Wow, these are some great stories. Didn't I read someplace that a bad weekend of camping was better then a good week at work?????

My wife and I took a trip to Pontiac, Illinois today with another couple who owns a trailer. We talked about this post, and my friend reminded us about the trip that we took to Columbus, Indiana and the trunnion and hitch head cracked on the trailer, and on a Saturday how the RV dealer and Reese worked together to replace the entire hitch system, at the request of Reese (in the interest of safety) at no charge.

These are just some great stories. I'm glad you started this.

[PNWGirl]

Originally Posted by Grumpytrkr

Wow, these are some great stories. Didn't I read someplace that a bad weekend of camping was better then a good week at work?????

These are just some great stories. I'm glad you started this.

VERY TRUE!! Even when things to not go like clock work, I always enjoy being out in my TT TONS more than being at work. Plus I never sleep anywhere as well as I do in that!

I have enjoed reading these stories, thank you to everyone who shared theirs.

Sheila

[75racer]

A bad day of camping sure beats a good day of work.

[smittyjr]

Been camping for a long time so I am sure there have been worse. This last trip went to San Antonio TX for Christmas and New Years and then out to Quartzsite for the RV show. Left San Antonio and stoped at the rest Area around Fort Stockton TX water is pouring out the back of RV but it isn't hot so it not the radiator don't have a clue what it is. Stop for the night and hook up water here a swoosing sound and trace it to the closet in the bed room Closet is flooded fitting on the hot water heater broke NO water for 2 days got it fixed in NM.Went on out to Quartzsite had a good time first time since the 90es it rained for 5 straight days even had tornaders. On my way back I stopped In San Antonio to see my friends. Leaving the RV park pulling out my spot the Awning snaged a tree branch and ripped it off. Get home and I have a ticket from the Las Cruces NM Police Dept for running a Stop Light
BUT LIFE IS GREAT THE SAINTS ARE WORLD CHAMPS

[smittyjr]

Been camping for a long time so I am sure there have been worse. This last trip went to San Antonio TX for Christmas and New Years and then out to Quartzsite for the RV show. Left San Antonio and stoped at the rest Area around Fort Stockton TX water is pouring out the back of RV but it isn't hot so it not the radiator don't have a clue what it is. Stop for the night and hook up water here a swoosing sound and trace it to the closet in the bed room Closet is flooded fitting on the hot water heater broke NO water for 2 days got it fixed in NM.Went on out to Quartzsite had a good time first time since the 90es it rained for 5 straight days even had tornaders. On my way back I stopped In San Antonio to see my friends. Leaving the RV park pulling out my spot the Awning snaged a tree branch and ripped it off. Get home and I have a ticket from the Las Cruces NM Police Dept for running a Stop Light
BUT LIFE IS GREAT THE SAINTS ARE WORLD CHAMPS

[PlayItForwrd]

I've got a few stories, most have to do with the journey rather than the actual "camping"... But out of all the bad things that have happened, the very worst was on a 30 mile trip to our weekend getaway...

Driving along in the ol' '78 Cruise Air, minding my own business, when I looked down, beside my seat, at the edge of the doghouse. There was a small dime-sized gap between the floor and doghouse. And there it was...

I started pulling over, and calmly told the wife: Sweetie, I don't want you to panic---
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--But our motorhome is on fire.

To this day I STILL don't know why I looked down, but I'm sure glad I did. As I looked down, all I saw was bright orange. When I stopped, I hurried outside with the extinguisher and looked underneath. Couldn't see any fire? Fortunately, I puttered with the engine so much that the doghouse was never clamped down. I slowly pulled the doghouse back, and off. There was just a small fire going on the intake manifold. We just threw water on it to put it out. After 20 minutes of investigating, I found traces of oil, but had no idea from where, or why it started a fire. So I fired 'er up, and everything seemed fine... And as lucky as I was to have looked down for no apparent reason, I was just as lucky that the sun was almost over the mountain, shining right thru the windshield. Because without the sunlight, I never would have seen the tiny stream of oil that was spraying from the cracked oil gauge feed line directly onto the drivers side exhaust headers! Probably wouldn't have been so lucky the second time... So I snipped the line, welded it together with a cigarette lighter, and the rest of the trip went off without a hitch!

[PNWGirl]

Wow, that is really scary!! Your guardian angel was working over time there!! I'm glad that it didn't turn out too serious. Just having flames is bad enough for me!

Sheila

[Teach]

The DW and I began camping right after we were married and I was in the Navy stationed at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington. Our first camping trip was over the 4th of July weekend in 1965. We had to borrow all our camping equipment from Special Services on the base and took off for the Olympic National Park on the peninsula. I went fishing the next morning in a small lake, I think it was/is call Mills Lake, with the wife tagging along. Per my normal skill level, I got the line tangled up in a dead tree branch about 15 feet from shore, so I started wading out to try to retrieve it. About 10 feet out my DW joined me in a splashing, screaming fit, knocking both of us off our feet in the frigid water. After finally getting my footing and standing upright with her wrapped around me like a two year old, I saw the reason for her loving embrace....a small (100 lbs. or so) black bear on the bank eating the couple of small trout I had caught. The bear was oblivious to our attempts to scare him off and he kept us standing in the frigid water over an hour waiting for me to catch him some more to eat, until a ranger just happened by and shooed him away. The ranger thought it was quite humorous and within hours we were the talk and joke of the entire camping community.

B-T-W, the DW doesn't tag along when I go fishing anymore and she always reminds me to be mindful of bears.

[desertrv]

Get home and I have a ticket from the Las Cruces NM Police Dept for running a Stop Light
Don't you love it. I live in Cruces and this has been a bummer for a lot of people.

[smittyjr]

Yea I really enjoyed my stay there had my Rv worked on had the dogs groomed at petsmart probably spent about a grand while there.But they won't get any more of my money unless they track me down on the Interstate.I wonder if any one else feels this way.Good way to kill tourism.