Another camping trip to reflect on around future campfires
Life sometimes gives us some strange twists. The place where I store my trailer lost their permit and I had to suddenly vacate. Since I was only a week away from a planned weekend trip I pulled the trailer home on Saturday with plans to spend the week securing new storage, then take the kids camping the following weekend.
Monday morning I get a message from my son that a Sheriff Deputy had left an unattended vehicle notice on the trailer giving me 72 hours to move it. Great I thought, that only gives me until Wednesday to get it moved, whereas I would normally bring it home on Wednesday to get the refrigerator cooling and the food loaded up.
So I had to unplug the shore power and move the trailer away from the house on Tuesday so I could bring it back home on Thursday (well within the 72 hour limit)to start loading. This change in routine threw me off rhythm and I never got to do some basic upgrades that I had been planning on doing the next time the trailer was home.
Friday was uneventful and we loaded up, drove out, and had a great weekend camping. It was a hot weekend though so I turned on the AC Friday night and left it on for the entire weekend. Come Sunday I repacked the trailer and kids and headed home.
About halfway home a guy drives by me and makes that dreaded motion of pointing back at the trailer. I immediately checked what I could see in my mirrors and nothing looked amiss. There road at this point was narrow with a guardrail on the right and a crash wall on the left so basically nowhere to pull over. I had to drive a mile before I could finally pull over. All the while I was running through my head all the possibilities of what the guy in the car was trying to tell me.
First check was tires, and they all looked good. I also checked the rear of the trailer and there was nothing wrong there either. So I hooked my fingernail under a window and it easily lifted up as if it had never been cranked closed. Now that I had a suspect I went in to crank the window closed and found a total of three including the emergency exit that were not secured. My guess is the guy saw the emergency window flapping and fortunately was kind enough to motion that there was a problem.
The rest of the drive home was uneventful and I parked the trailer at the curb and asked the kids to empty all the food out. While they were working I called and secured a storage space although at an additional $40 a month in rent.
Knowing that the rental office was closing in a few hours I did a rushed cleanup of the trailer. I also opened all the cabinets, the refrigerator, and microwave three different times to make sure there was no food left in the trailer and decided it was ready to go to storage. I stepped out of the trailer, closed the door and put the key in the cylinder. Then something in the back of my mind just gave me that feeling that I was forgetting something.
So I went back in the trailer, looked in all the cabinets, looked under the dinette seats (finding overlooked dirty laundry) looked in the bathtub and toilet. Everything seemed shipshape. Being hot from a morning of packing, driving and unpacking I sat down on the dinette cushion and just looked around the trailer one last time. I'm not sure what caused me to do it but I reached over and opened the oven and looked in.
There sitting in one of those cheap aluminum food trays was a pile of last nights leftovers including steak, lamb and potatoes. Knowing my camping schedule over the last few years, had I not found that tray of meat, it would have sat in the oven for months smelling up the trailer. :E
Finally the rest of the day went smoothly, I got the trailer nestled in it's new storage spot and finally got to just sit in my air conditioned house and reflect on an overall enjoyable weekend.
Monday morning I get a message from my son that a Sheriff Deputy had left an unattended vehicle notice on the trailer giving me 72 hours to move it. Great I thought, that only gives me until Wednesday to get it moved, whereas I would normally bring it home on Wednesday to get the refrigerator cooling and the food loaded up.
So I had to unplug the shore power and move the trailer away from the house on Tuesday so I could bring it back home on Thursday (well within the 72 hour limit)to start loading. This change in routine threw me off rhythm and I never got to do some basic upgrades that I had been planning on doing the next time the trailer was home.
Friday was uneventful and we loaded up, drove out, and had a great weekend camping. It was a hot weekend though so I turned on the AC Friday night and left it on for the entire weekend. Come Sunday I repacked the trailer and kids and headed home.
About halfway home a guy drives by me and makes that dreaded motion of pointing back at the trailer. I immediately checked what I could see in my mirrors and nothing looked amiss. There road at this point was narrow with a guardrail on the right and a crash wall on the left so basically nowhere to pull over. I had to drive a mile before I could finally pull over. All the while I was running through my head all the possibilities of what the guy in the car was trying to tell me.
First check was tires, and they all looked good. I also checked the rear of the trailer and there was nothing wrong there either. So I hooked my fingernail under a window and it easily lifted up as if it had never been cranked closed. Now that I had a suspect I went in to crank the window closed and found a total of three including the emergency exit that were not secured. My guess is the guy saw the emergency window flapping and fortunately was kind enough to motion that there was a problem.
The rest of the drive home was uneventful and I parked the trailer at the curb and asked the kids to empty all the food out. While they were working I called and secured a storage space although at an additional $40 a month in rent.
Knowing that the rental office was closing in a few hours I did a rushed cleanup of the trailer. I also opened all the cabinets, the refrigerator, and microwave three different times to make sure there was no food left in the trailer and decided it was ready to go to storage. I stepped out of the trailer, closed the door and put the key in the cylinder. Then something in the back of my mind just gave me that feeling that I was forgetting something.
So I went back in the trailer, looked in all the cabinets, looked under the dinette seats (finding overlooked dirty laundry) looked in the bathtub and toilet. Everything seemed shipshape. Being hot from a morning of packing, driving and unpacking I sat down on the dinette cushion and just looked around the trailer one last time. I'm not sure what caused me to do it but I reached over and opened the oven and looked in.
There sitting in one of those cheap aluminum food trays was a pile of last nights leftovers including steak, lamb and potatoes. Knowing my camping schedule over the last few years, had I not found that tray of meat, it would have sat in the oven for months smelling up the trailer. :E
Finally the rest of the day went smoothly, I got the trailer nestled in it's new storage spot and finally got to just sit in my air conditioned house and reflect on an overall enjoyable weekend.
