Our Humorous Camping Escapades

In the beginning all most all of our camping trips had some humor in them. We hadn't camped in many many years, and then suddenly got the urge to try it again. The kids were all grown now, so it would be an enjoyable relaxing time, or so we thought. I have many humorous tales, but I'll pass on a couple of my favorite for you to enjoy as well.

When we first decided to get back into camping, we didn't want to spend much incase we really didn't like it anymore. At our age, tents were out, so we geared our interest to pop up campers. My husband was always one to please so; it didn't take him but a day to find an old Apache pop up setting in someone's yard. Apache's are pretty unique with their hard sides and all, so I decided I was interested enough to go look.

Well, we bought it and drug our treasure home, excited about getting it ready for our first camping trip. It had been used as a fishing camper, and the insides were not for the faint at heart. I guess I have a strong heart because I cleaned it up, and it looked quite presentable! We even figured out how to set it up without to much cussing or too many pinched fingers.

We rented a camping spot at a very rustic campground and thought we were going to have a wonderful weekend. The mattresses for the full size end beds were missing, but we compensated by buying air mattresses for them. They fit perfect. The camp area was set up quickly and we were pretty proud of ourselves.

Exhausted, we turned in early, expecting to enjoy a great night's sleep. That's when the rain started. It was not just a light enjoy it while you sleep rain, it was a torrential downpour, and guess what? Yep, our wonderful little bargain camper leaked, and I do mean it leaked.

The water began to run in so fast that the air mattresses were floating. Of course my husband was thrilled saying, "Hey, I guess we didn't leave the water bed at home after all!" I don't have his sense of humor apparently, because I didn't find it funny...at least not at first.

It was raining to hard to be out outside trying to put the pop up camper down, so we decided that staying inside, trying to bail the water out was the best choice. We spent the entire night soaking up water with towels, and then hanging out the tiny camper door, trying to wring the towels out in a downpour. We really didn't accomplish much!

By daylight, we were soaked and everything in the camper was soaked. We were exhausted, but yes, believe it or not, it had been an adventure. The rain had stopped, so we folded the sides down and continued to wring our towels out of the openings. Then we folded it all the way down and went home to dry out.

You would have thought that would have done it, but I guess we were diehards, because we continued dragging that little popup over to that campground. (We had replaced the insulating strips that kept the rain out!). When we were offered a permanent spot to leave the pop up in, we jumped on it, thinking this would be great. We can leave it set and it will be ready when we get here.

The first weekend in our own little spot was great. We got the camper all set up fairly quickly, and the weather was beautiful. Just right for a camping weekend. The weekend went off without a hitch and we figured our camping luck had finally changed. On Sunday, we packed up and went home, feeling quite proud of ourselves.

After putting everything away that we had brought home, we decided to indulge in a bowl of ice cream, since we had some left from the weekend. Uh-oh, no ice cream here at home. That could only mean it was still tucked in the tiny freezer compartment of the camper refrigerator. It was sitting over there, in a closed up pop up camper with no electricity.

So, back to the campground we went. Do you have any idea how fast ice cream can melt in just a few hours, in a very hot camper? Let's just say that it got another thorough wipe down and this time I was not wringing rain out of the towels!

And of course, the campers next to us asked what we were doing back so soon, and of course, my good natured husband had to tell them about the ice cream fiasco. After that, whenever we pulled up on the weekends to camp, our camping friends always asked if we had brought any ice cream!