The Beginning of Our Adventure – Setting Up the Camper

Our summer of camping all began with the ride to where we were headed. Vehicle lights going out, engine lights coming on, and a camper almost falling over and falling down. It was quite a first day, I must say.

Packing Up

We still had some packing to do in the morning. Little background here. I am 5′ 1.5″. I can walk under the front of the fifth wheel without really ducking down much. When putting something in the truck, I walked near the camper but didn’t think I was right under it. I had my head down when I was walking and the top of my head hit the corner of the fifth wheel. I took about a 5 minute sit down after that because my head was pounding. It was a good start to the trip, and as I’m writing this and we’re actually 2 weeks in now, I’m going to say it pretty much was a warning for how this summer of camping was going to go for me. (You’ll see why soon enough.)

The Missing Purse

Now that we were all packed up and finally ready to leave 2 hours after we had planned, let’s begin with the ride. The ride was going to take just under 3 hours. My husband left before us so he could stop to fill up the propane tanks. I was in charge of getting drinks and meeting him at his first stop.

When I arrived at the gas station, I realized I didn’t have my small black purse that had my driver’s license in it. I drove back home after buying the drinks, and then parked in front of my house to run in through the front door quick. What I had forgotten about was the bird feeder my husband hung from the tree for my boys. Again, I was looking downward, and started running into the house. I really should start looking up, because I took a bird feeder right to the forehead. This also hurt quite a bit, but nothing like the camper did.

I went in the house and there was no black purse. I ended up calling my husband and he reminded me that I had packed it in the camper. Since I was meeting up with him, I didn’t have to drive too long before I got my black purse; however, knowing it was in the camper would have saved my head from the blow.

The Drive

The drive went smoothly until the last 30 minutes, which there was only a minor complication. I noticed my blinker signal on the dash blinking faster than normal. I called my husband and told him to pull into the McDonald’s in Mancelona. The boys were getting hungry and could use a minute to stretch their legs anyways. When we parked, I checked my lights and sure enough, a blinker/brake light was out. Minor complication. After we went in to eat, we headed back out on the road and made it to the campground with no other issues. This is when the real fun started.

The Arrival – Setting Up the Camper

The spot we have is VERY unlevel. The whole campsite is on an angle. We tried for 30 minutes to level out the best we could. When we had the bubble a quarter of the way in the lines on the level we called it close enough.

I told my husband I didn’t like how high the back stabilizer was. It seemed like one wrong move and we’d fall. He said “this isn’t going anywhere” while pushing his hand to shake the camper a bit. Sure enough, the camper started falling sideways with the stabilizer going out from under it.

When we reset it up, I walked into the camper and told him you could definitely feel it wasn’t leveled out good enough. This was after he already took it off the truck, so he said to make me happy so I wouldn’t complain the entire camping trip, he would hook back up and try again.

This was the worst part of the day. There’s this huge tree straight on from the camper. Due to the tree being where it is, he had to angle in to hook the fifth wheel back up to the mount. When I said, “you’re good” because it clicked around it, he lowered the fifth wheel and went to pull forward. What he didn’t do was put the pin in so that the fifth wheel didn’t come out of the mount. Well, as he pulled forward, down the camper went. It fell right onto the side of his truck bed. This camper is also manual cranking to move it up and down, so it was going to take a while for him to get it off the truck. He told me to go take the boys for a ride to get some drinks and it would keep them out of the way for a while. No problem.

The Saturn Outlook Has Issues Now

I get in my car, get the kids buckled up, look for the closest gas station on Google Maps and start driving. As soon as I started driving, my car dinged, a red light came on, and the dash said “Low Oil Pressure. Stop Engine.” I told the boys to never mind and to get back out of the car. I told my husband what happened. He’s still trying to get the camper off his truck.

He took a break and said “Let’s go see what’s wrong with your car.” When he checked the oil everything was good though. I got back in the car and started it and the warning message went away so we decided to go to the gas station still.

The car drove fine but halfway to the gas station the check engine light came on and never went back off. It didn’t have another message on the dash, but it’s a little worrisome. We bought our drinks, and after the day we had already had, I crossed my fingers and hoped that I would make it back without breaking down.

The Night Is Finally Ending

When we arrived back to the campsite, no break downs on the way, my husband had the camper mostly leveled out. (The bubble was now ¾ of the way in the lines.) Much better! After we put the awning out, we started getting everything all in place. After about 30 minutes a storm started coming our way. We hurried up to put the awning back and then decided to call it a night and get organized the next day.

A blinker/brake light out, a bend up truck bed, a mark on the camper, and a check engine light later, we were finally at our destination and ready to start our trip.