Ever had a Bad trip?

[thirtydaZe]

The kind where everything goes wrong? We've been at the camping thing 4-5 years now, and have never really had a sour trip.

So i spend Wed. evening last week prepping for a 3 night stay a few hours south of home, a place we've never been. Indian Cave State Park, in Neb.

We set off like usual, and my first stop at a truck stop, i hop into the camper to use the bathroom, to find water everywhere, and pools in the carpet. I forgot to plug the cooler, and my 20 lb bag of ice melted and leaked right out.

So we arrive, and drive right past the campground, and end up almost having to back out 1/4 a single lane road, luckily someone came up behind us and notified, since the gate was open it wasn't yet underwater from the flooding Missouri river, and there was a turn around point if we kept driving.

It was stormed before our arrival, so the roads were wet, i had to back our TT into our spot uphill on wet blacktop, my tires spun trying to get situated in very tight quarters.

Since the storm, our site was covered, and surrounded by mud.

It was terrible humid.

It was Hot.

The bugs were crazy bad.

The next day, things dried out, so i re-parked the TT in effort to get better situated, and more level, things dried out around us and it was fine.

However, that night, thunderstorm, everything soaked, and again with the mud, and the biting bugs.

We left a day early, and came home.

Time to go out and wipe this trip off the books.

[Old-Biscuit]

We drove thru heavy, heavy rain for 200 miles....got to cg, still raining, road was narrow muddy with 2 foot ditch on both sides. While trying to back 5vr into site (perpendicular to road) left front tire of truck dropped off into ditch, tried pulling out and then 5vr dropped off into ditch.

Had to ask a fellow camper to help pull us out......got truck/5vr out of ditch and finally got 5vr backed into site......soaked thru & thru, mud everywhere still raining and GF & I are just laughing our rear ends off.

Camp Host stopped by early next morning with a large bag of freshly got perch.
Said "you guys took yesterday in stride regardless of what was happening....here is some fish I just caught this am. Hope you enjoy it"
We did!

Anytime we are out in our 5vr...life is good!

[fj12ryder]

Not any bad trips, but I stayed away from the red acid at Woodstock.

[rfryer]

I don’t recall having any bad trips, but what’s the old saying, the worst day camping/fishing/hunting is better than the best day at work. I had my solenoid go out in a cg in Mesa Verde many years ago and thought I’d have some real heartburn. I worked for a utility and it turned out a fellow working for the competing utility was a mechanic and was on vacation and moonlighting in the area. He came up and replaced it for $40.00.

Then I lost a generator late Saturday night in Raton, NM and spent the night in a K-Mart parking lot. Of course the auto parts store across the street was closed on Sunday. I talked to the manager at K-Mart and he said the owner of the auto parts would come down and open the store and he gave me his name and number. I called and he was in the shower, but he said he would come down. He did and I changed the alternator in the parking lot. What are the chances of that in any city anywhere? So I’ve had problems on trips, been through some ferocious storms and had things fail I had to repair. But I can’t say I’ve had any “bad” trips.

[skipnchar]

When my kids were young (5 of them) we took a trip to California from Topeka in our 1968 Pontiac station wagon. During the trip, we had problems as listed below:
1. Oil sender failed and dumped engine oil out in Western New Mexico
2. Engine swallowed a valve (right through the top of the piston) just as we entered the Grand Canyon Park
3. The emergency rebuild caused a blown head gasket on right bank as we were leaving Arizona
4. Stopped at a public beach in Oceanside California and spent the day on the beach. Returned to find a short in a wiring harness had melted everything into one huge glob of copper under the dash.
5. The roadside 're-wire" job left numerous shorts still un found which means power windows no longer worked and the horn honked when I signaled for a turn. I installed a 120 volt light switch in the ignition line to prevent battery melt down when stopped.
6. Blown tire while returning through Nevada (there was a 100 mile stretch of Interstate highway still not finished and no service3s
7. Shorts got into the headlights coming through Colorado causing lights to intermittently dim and go bright. Night travel out of the question now.
8. The Alternator went belly up in Colorado also.
9. Engine running on about 6 cylinders as we pulled back into town.

All of that and we STILL thought the good outweighed the bad 🙂

[cyntdon2010]

we went out and it rain for three days straight.. camper was shaking from the wind. we watched red box movies and ate like Pigs.. we slept and played wii games.

Any day camping is a great day!!

[samhain7]

Never a bad trip camping. Always happy even with ups and downs..Funny though. This weekend my daughter does a break torque on her bike and burns right through the tire and tube. 30 min drive to Canadian Tire..
Get back replace it, for for a family bike ride and half hour later my son goes for a ride and his tire is flat....we havent had a flat tire on the kids bikes in the 3 years they have been riding...
So, back to Canadian tire again and came back with 4 spare tubes this time...

[JiminDenver]

Over the years we have been rained out, been injured, sick, had break downs and every time I am in a campground, someone just has to remind me why I don't like them. That said, we have never had a bad trip. Looking back it seems that the bad things that happen and how we handled them made for some of the most memorable moments of all.

[Shot-N-Az]

First year of RVing...Planned week-long trip to the NE and Niagara.

Realized four hours after leaving home that I forgot my passport. OK, no problem. Improvise and overcome.

Went to Plymouth Mass CG on first leg of trip. HWH levelers decide to go on an extended break.

Pull into CG in PA that was "plan B" instead of Niagara. Levelers still MIA. Go to leave CG...motorhome won't start.

That was my worst trip. I learned from it and have not had anything near that since.

[beemerphile1]

Never have had a bad trip in 40 years.

Some have just been better than others. :B

[michigansandzil]

Seems like a problem with every big trip for us. I almost look for it just to get it out of the way.

Going from southern LP Michigan to the UP on Lake Superior 4 years ago, our truck died....completely. We were 3 hours from home and had to pull over on the side of the expressway. Ended up taking 5 days to fix the truck at a local shop, we stayed in a local cabin and completely missed our UP trip. We still had a nice time with plan B, however and finally made it to the UP the following year.

Going from Michigan to Kentucky 2 years ago, our truck (different truck from the attempted UP trip) started overheating when we were 7 hours from home. We managed to nurse it to the campsite. Found out it was a clamp that came off of a hose. Luckily fixed it for under $100.

This spring, at 11pm at night, when we planned to leave for the Smokies at 6am the next morning, I found water all of the bunkhouse. Apparently our outside kitchen hose was broken from the winter. We had to fix it before we left and got a late start, didn't leave until 9am. Got to our campsite at 10pm that night. 5am the next morning, our LP/Carbon monoxide alarm started going off. We didn't have the LP or furnace on at all. The detector was bad. We replaced it that day, but we were up for the day by 5, when we'd had a late start the day before from other issues.

Could be much, much worse, but I think I will be suspicious of any trip that just seems to go too right.

[rmasonschneider]

Yes, I had one this past weekend.
I arrive at my site to find my neighbors are 20+ year olds all 6 of them staying with a 20ft trailer and tents. That's one pickup, two sedans and two tents all on one rv spot. They had blasted their gangster rap all day and night with a loudspeaker hanging from the awning. They kept this music on even when they went for a stroll on the beach. Then they flew some kites overhead which of course crashed few yards out beyond my rig, getting the string tangled on my bathroom vent cover which I had to climb the ladder onto the roof to undo. Then, they proceeded to play a game of horseshoes facing my unit drunk. Left early morning and was tempted to wake them but I just couldn't wait to get home.

[et2]

Other than getting sicker then a dog and going home way early. Bulges on two fiver tires the size of baseballs, damaged fiver hitch, backed dually into left open storage door, forgot to drop tailgate, fridge door not shut ( tomatoes and food everywhere), electrical problems, got locked inside fiver, etc.

Nope never had a bad trip!

[the_bear_II]

Once in awhile a bad trip will happen. But the good trips far outweigh the bad trips.

There is also a cycle... you'll go for many trips without any problem and then there will be several trips with small problems and then a trip with at least one big problem.

The cycle starts over and you have good trips for awhile. Knock on wood we are heading toward the good trips for awhile

[mlts22]

Never had a bad trip, but I don't visit places where people sell or imbibe the stuff that comes on small pieces of blotter paper, in sugar cubes, or in a vial.

[ottor]

Last bad trip I had was in the Army - 69' ... Other than that, life's been a breeze.