This trip is one for the books. I just have to write it down, not that we'll forget it any time soon, but just to keep the memory of the bad luck that we had.
We went camping at Fort Whaley in the fall and the kids had fun and we really liked it. It was a small campground, but had things for us to do and it wasn't a bad price for a full hook up. We decided that we wanted to go camping while Aiden was on spring break and thought that would be a good place to go back to.
We left on the Tuesday after Easter and had a smooth trip down. Aubrey squealed most of the way because she was so excited to be sitting close to Aiden and Emma and she could even see out the back window.
Once we got there I had to do my best to keep them out of Patrick's way while he got the camper unhooked and all that man stuff. You can see they were pretty excited!
Then it was time to head inside for a snack while Daddy finished up getting the camper all ready for our stay.
Then something terrible happened. As Patrick went to turn on the water for the camper, water started pouring out of the bathroom. From under the sink. Where all the spare toilet paper and all that stuff was. He ran out and turned the water all, but there was a lot inside. So the towels we brought for the shower were used to soak up all that mess. Immediately, I panic. I can't stay here with no water!! That means, no toilet (most important in my mind), no shower in the camper, no baths in the camper, no water in the sinks for dishes, cooking, brushing teeth. Yeah, I was panicked. I wanted to go home. Patrick was determined to fix it. Luckily, we were only about 15 minutes from the closest Walmart and Home Depot. So off he went to get some kind of bracket/connectory thing. I took the kids up to the playground to avoid that stupid camper. He called some time later and said that Home Depot should have the part he needed, but they were out. Oh no! I told him to head the other direction, Salisbury wasn't that far away and they had to have a Lowe's or something. So he did and luckily, they had what he was looking for. Yay! Once he got back he tried to get it to work, but the damn piece wouldn't fit. He tried to stretch it and get it on there but it was not happening. Panic again. He came up with the idea to super glue it. Men love some super glue. I was convinced it wouldn't do any good, but it was worth a try. I think by this point my belly started hurting bad. I know it was me panicking about having no private toilet. Great. So here we are, 3 kids in the camper, Patrick trying to fix the stupid pipes and I'm having to run back and forth to the bathhouse. Not fun. On one of my trips back he had it rigged up with super glue and duct tape. Maybe this could work. He went out to turn the water on while I was on the phone with him to tell him if it worked...nope! The water still came out, but from the other brackety thing now. Son of a bitch! At least it wasn't gushing like it had before. He then tried a stopper? This idea would let the water flow to everywhere but that bathroom sink. That would be okay with me. Nope, didn't work either, water still leaked out. I think he could tell by my about to burst into tears face with my belly acting up, that if he didn't figure this out...we were out of there. He told me that he really thought he could build a whole new tubing/pipe that would fix it. Worth a shot, so around 8:30 or so that night back to Home Depot he went to get what he needed. Finally, finally that did it. It worked!! I was so happy! And who knew Patrick could be a plumber?!?! Woot! Woot! So our whole first day there had been spent on this stupid pipe and water leaking. that had to be the worst of it!
We finally got the kids to bed and it was just too late to worry about a fire so we settled in to watch tv and relax. We were hanging out on the couch when we heard a pop and GUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. More. Water. Everywhere. This time it was coming from the cabinet where the kitchen sink was, with all the games in the camper and also just so perfectly lead to where all of Aubrey's clothes were. Yeah. You can't make this stuff up. Patrick jumped up and started to try and do something to stop the water, while I'm yelling, but trying not to wake the kids up, "what do we do?" I yelled at him to go turn the water off. As he did I'm trying to get under there to stop the water, like I'm going to be able to cover a little hole with my finger and it'll work. Meanwhile the water is spraying me all in the face and it's just everywhere. I think we both almost cried at this point. We grabbed the only towels we had left to soak this flood up and then try to set all the games out to dry and also hang every bit of Aubrey's clothing to dry.
Patrick said it looked like the tubing that went to the kitchen sink had just exploded and that if he got a new faucet, it could be fixed so back to the Wal-mart he went. Thank God for the mart!!! Here he is trying to get it fixed when he got back. Someday this will be funny.
After that mess, we went to bed and hoped things would only get better from there. We hung out inside the camper a lot this trip. It was cold. Very cold. I guess Mother Nature didn't get the memo that it's April and it was spring break. It was okay for a little bit for the older two, but for Aubrey, it was just cold.
Did I mention it was cold??
Aubrey was thrilled to be back in the warm camper for the night!
Patrick tried his hardest to get the fires going, but it was so windy and the wood was wet so that just didn't happen this trip. At least he got them going long enough to cook dinner on!
On Thursday to venture out the cold wind we took a trip to Ocean City and went to an indoor mini golf place. That was really fun! And Patrick won a free game by getting his ball in the oyster!
After golf we went to Dough Rollers for some lunch. The kids were happy because if you eat your food there, you get to go pick out a toy. Here they are modeling their rubber duckies.
We even found a left over Easter egg when we got back. Aiden was pretty excited that it had a penny in it!
We tried to play outside a for a little while since we were leaving the next day, but again it was so cold!
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| I had just caught Aiden dancing the Gangham Style on the picnic table |
And why not throw rocks in the pond?
I should also mention that after that first disastrous first day, the second night when we were there Patrick woke up around 1 am and it was freezing. One of the tanks ran out of propane and he had to go out and switch it over to the other tank and it took a little while for it to finally catch. Then the third morning we were there, I went to turn the water on and nothing, the hose had frozen so I had to go up to the bathhouse for water for coffee and shower there in the freezing cold air.
Yeah, it was definitely a memorable trip. Hopefully our camping bad luck is over for the year...
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