What's the WORST Experience You ever had at a RV/Camp site?
Care to share any of your Worst Experience at an RV park/Camp site, do to Loud music, Loud neighbors, Intoxication, Burglary, Accidents (auto/RV/TT/5er) or whatever?
Forum Discussion
122 Replies
naturist wrote:
First time I was able to coax my young bride into a tent camping trip. We had a toddler, and borrowed the family tent from my parents. Arrived for a week's stay at a popular state park on a Sunday afternoon when we expected a bunch of sites to open up, but nope, there was exactly one open site in the park for that night, although several folks were leaving the NEXT day. One look at the site, and I saw that it was the low spot in the campground, guaranteed mud hole if it rained, but hey, weather guessers said no chance of rain until at least Tuesday . . . so we took the site.
You guessed it, gulley washer that night. Woke up at the height of the storm, and thank goodness we were sleeping up off the ground on cots, because there was 8 inches of muddy water inside the tent. Nothing I could do about it, and the water wasn't going to get deeper, due to the lay of the land, so I went back to sleep. Sure enough, dawn came and the tent was full of mud and water. We put the toddler in the car, packed up our now wet gear, dragged the tent (which had a floor, but it was a 100% cotton canvas tent and weighed a ton even without the mud) across the site, over the road, and into the river to wash out the mud, then back across the road and rolled it up to strap on the trunk lid of our car for the journey home.
It took several years to convince the wife that camping wasn't an evil plot for her murderIt took several years to convince the wife that camping wasn't an evil plot for her murder, but she did put one condition on me: camping trips absolutely require a daily hot shower, no matter where we go. That limited boon docking somewhat, but she now goes camping happily. Especially now that we have a TT and her hot shower is lock-down guaranteed.
Now THAT'S FUNNY!!! I don't care who ya' are!!!
:B
Joe T.- Remember when I was young in the 1960's my parents and my moms sister and her husband - Uncle Bob would take us camping every summer. I was the oldest of 8 and there were 5 cousins in the other family.
We had big military style canvass tents that were heavy to put up. I remember one trip that it rained all week. When we arrived it was raining and Uncle Bob would not get out of the car to set up the tent. Just sat there while my parent and Aunt set the tents up.
Since there were several babies and no disposable diapers, the tents were full of stinky cloth diapers. I can still smell them since with the rain we were stuck inside a lot. My mom never went camping again.
Recently wife and I bought a 5th wheel. First time out we found a spot not quite level and sloping away from the truck.
In my haste to set up I go to release the hitch while my wife is in the bed of the truck removing the cables. Well...I didn't put the chocks down and I watched in horror as the trailer rolled back crushing the back of my new pickup and fearing my wife would die. Fortunately, the trailer stopped moving before it left the truck rails, so I only lost some money - Too many encounters with drunk loud people to count. Loud talking and loud music can be a problem. Always best to talk to the camground host. In the old days we could ask them to be less noisy. Now it is risky.
I had one experience in the fall a long time ago with my new wife. We were on a 6 week trip across the country in a VW bus. We ended up in a remote campground in northern California. The only other campers were two derelict looking guys with a large pile of empty 1/2 gallon wine bottles. They were not very smart and made little sense. They were both eye balling my wife who was a looker in those days. We packed up everything and took off as fast as the bus would go and drove about 2 hours before stopping. - The trip from Hell, ah yes remember it like yesterday. 2 years ago.
Booked a spot in a campground about two hours from us that we never had been to before. This was in close proximity to my Daughters college and we were going to have her and a friend over for a campfire. We get to the park and find that they overbooked the main sites but they had an "overflow" kind of area that was a big field (probably 3 acres ish) with a nice pavilion in the center of it. The outside edge had full hookups and the office told us we were in luck because it's a nice quiet area outside of the main area where the rec hall was. Well, rain was in the forecast so we cancelled the daughters visit and took them to dinner instead. When we got back to the campsite it was pouring and saw a bunch of golf carts surrounding the pavilion. Apparently all the seasonal campers met there to have a party due to rain. My first thought was, cool they are having a cookout and maybe I would even venture over later. Well, that was short lived as the swearing and yelling that started soon after made sure I wasn't going over. Now, I'm no prude and can party and swear with the best of them, but I had our two small boys with us and they were getting quite the education. I figured they would quiet down come curfew....but no, this went on until 4:00 am, loud cursing, mostly from one drunk chick. Golf carts doing donuts in teh wet grass. Even someone yelling over (sarcastically) "Good Night" followed by laughter when we shut off our out door light. No sleep rain and rude people make for a horrible night. The next morning when the office opened I went and complained to the owner (young 30's female who inherited the camp when her parents passed), and was told point blank that she could not control the group of seasonal campers that come every weekend to party and get passed-out drunk. Basically she didn't even apologize or offer a refund, so I didn't push for one but made sure every review I could find online on this place included the "party" atmosphere seeing they left that out of their online profile. She did reply to one of my reviews stating they are trying to change the way people act there. PUCampin wrote:
I know from reading other threads that people have lost their rigs, lost family, and such my stories are not nearly as terrible.
Trip to Yosemite in November 2004. It was me, my now DW and her parents. We were in a 8ft 1981 pop up trailer. We were sitting at the table after dinner playing cards, it was getting dark. The winds had picked up. We heard a loud crack and crash, like an explosion. We went outside to see a tree less than 5 feet from our little pop up had fallen over. It fell away from us into the road. Had it fallen the other way, we would have been crushed inside the pop up. It was dead and marked for removal but apparently had been missed. Now we always check our site for marked trees!
Waus, that's some deep scary stuff. God was watching over you.
Another time my wife, myself, and our 1 year old were going camping to the San Bernardino mountains. By now we had our 22ft Pioneer and a 04 Explorer V8. It was a long drive from where we lived, and by the time we got to the bas of the mountains it was after dinner time so we stopped and got food, which too 30 min and was terrible. By the time we started up the mountain it was dark, and then as we gained elevation the fog rolled in. Fog on highway 18, rim of the world highway is almost legendary. It got so thick I turned on the flashers, locked it in first and had to roll down my window and watch the center line. I had some cars behind me and when I finally found a turnout they simply pulled in behind me, no one wanted to lead! Fortunately I am intimately familiar with this road so I knew the turns and where the campground was. Still, trying not to drop me my wife and baby with a 5000lb trailer off the side of the mountain was very stressful. Once in the campground I had to get out several times to verify where the road was going so I would not just drive head first into a site. Finally got to our site, DW and the now screaming baby went inside the TT while I unhitched. The site was sloped down towards the back with a steep drop I got the TT level and I though secure. At this point I had been running on adrenaline for a couple hours and was spent. I unhooked the car, walked back towards the trailer and heard chains dragging. The chocks had slipped on the wet ground and the trailer rolled off the blocks with DW and DD inside towards the steep drop at the back of the site. Thank God it did not have enough momentum for the second axle to get over the first set of blocks and it stopped. I hurriedly reattached it to the car, then sat and cried for a while.mr. ed wrote:
This is not a campground story, but one evening I was parked at the Walmart in Guymon, OK when a terrible storm approached. The straight line winds from the approaching storm were extremely strong. Strong enough that shopping carts were traveling all over the parking lot. I worried that a cart could damage my MH. Besides, I could feel the winds trying to overturn my RV. They must have been hurricane force, IMO. In desperation, I knew I had to get out and do something. I noticed a large building across the street. It appeared to be a car/truck wash with very large bays. I parked my MH in one of the bays, hoping I wouldn’t be bothered during the night. It was a good move. I spent a relatively peaceful night (any port in a storm, as the saying goes). :)
My other scary encounter with wind was while driving my Lazy Daze Class C motorhome to Palm springs some years ago. One gust was so strong that I actually felt the drivers side tires lift off the pavement momentarily. Needless to say, I went the rest of the way very carefully and slower and eventually reached my destination.
wow, scary stuff indeed. Glad you made it.Chainwright wrote:
T18skyguy wrote:
The wife and I we're in a remote campground, and a guy tried to invade our rig. I was in the back, and I noticed my wife struggling with the door which was not locked, and this in broad daylight. You would have thought my wife would have screamed for me but she didn't. I ran to the front and told my wife to release the door. The guy started right up the steps, and when his foot entered the coach, I punched him so hard in the face I saw the blood before he hit the ground. Then he up and run away. When I asked my wife why she didn't scream for me, she said " I knew you'd draw the gun" Which was true, so I give her credit for that good judgement.
wow, I'm gald it worked out well. Did y'all leave or stay?
We stayed. I'm only 185 pounds but have very long arms. I had the advantage of height cause he was lower on the step. The real advantage is the adrenaline flying through my veins, and I was in a rage with my family being threatened. I'm 65 and no powerhouse. I didn't care if he came back. Plan B would have ended it for him.
Trouble can come at the most unexpected times.hokeypokey wrote:
I thought I was the only one things like that happened to. I was loading up the truck with the drivers open. It was a very windy day, when suddenly a very strong gust slammed the door on my thumb,to beat all the darn thing latched with my thumb caught.To make matters worse the d&*$ door was locked and I was alone. Luckily I had an extra key I could reach near by and was able to rescue my thumb.
Got 2 fingers pinched in an aluminum door frame as we were setting up a pop up years ago. Pain didn't let up until 10 pm. I was pretty rung out from it, so I thought I'd take a shower at the shower house then go to bed. The sidewalk wasn't well lighted and I fell straight forward when I caught my foot on a substantial raise in the sidewalk. Got the wind knocked out of me and scraped both knees and palm of one hand. Next day I had a nice beach towel stolen from right under my nose at the pool. Camping trip from Hell.- Was camping in a cg in North Ga. and was pulled out of a nice early morning sleep when a lady next to us started playing her organ under her awning and singing. I swear folks I thought it was Cousin Pearl from the Beverly Hillbilly's. I was just waiting for the howling dogs and sure enough they started in.
- We also had a large tree break off and land right beside our camper. We were lucky to escape injury, I was standing there only a few seconds before it fell. The truck and camper were damaged but was still drive able. That happened 20 years ago, my wife still prefers open campsites if at all available.
