The camper saga begins . . .
Chapter 1
This past Monday night was the night. The night we were to pick up our very first pop-up camper. The day dawned way too early for me as I had to switch to an earlier shift so we could get to the dealership in time for them to install the brake controller in our SUV. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The day dawned an hour after I had gotten out of bed bright and sunny. I arrived at work a little before 7 am (yawn) and somehow managed to make it to the end of my shift. When 3:30pm came I was out the door. I’ve never been so glad to live only 1 mile from work. Hubby was waiting for me so I grabbed a yogurt and we hit the road for the 45 minute trip.
We made good time and pulled into the dealership around 4:30. They whisked away our car and started the installation. Since our walk-through wasn’t scheduled until 5:15 we whiled away the time looking at really expensive (but gorgeous) RV’s. When it was about time for our walk-through we wandered back to the service area where we proceeded to wait until almost quarter to six before we started the walk-through. I’m glad we had the walk-through because we discovered that we were short one pole to support the bunks at the ends of the trailer. They stole found another pole and all was good. After the walk-through we picked up a few accessories (porta-potti, etc.) and paid for them. Now it’s going on 7pm and we still have to pay for the camper.
Half an hour later we finally get in to see the finance guy, sign our papers, write the check and all that jazz. By 8pm, I’m starving but I’m confident I’ll be eating soon as all we have left to do is hook up the trailer and go. I couldn’t have been more delusional wrong.
We hooked up the trailer just fine. Then it was time to test the lights. They all worked great. Awesome! Food, here I come! All that’s left is to find out how to work the brake controller and we’re off. The guy takes one look at the controller and says, “Hmmm . . . that light’s supposed to be on.” My heart (and stomach) sinks. So he goes back and messes with the wires for a couple of minutes. Yippee! The light is now on on the brake control. BUT . . . the lights on the trailer are no longer working.
It’s cold. It’s raining. And I’ve been cursed by my father. Every camping trip we took while I was growing up started with my dad spending hours getting the camper lights to work. So I take refuge in the car since it has to be running for them to test the lights and such. I turn on the heat and the heated seat but still couldn’t get warm. I sit. And I sit. And I sit some more. The guy comes and turns on the turn signal and walks away. Twenty minutes later the turn signal is still on and I’m about to put my head through the windshield. I finally reach over and turn it off.
I must explain at this point that I come from a family with lots of blood sugar problems. I think half my family is diabetic and the other half is on their way. I ate lunch at 11:30am, it’s now almost 9pm and all I’ve eaten is a yogurt. Hubby comes over to see how I’m doing and I’m in tears. I tell him to unhook the trailer and get our money back ’cause I don’t want this camper anymore. Instead of doing what I asked he asks me if I have any change. Huh? Turns out that he found a vending machine (from 1965, I’m not joking), and he wants to get me some chips. After losing 65 cents to that stupid machine I finally get a bag of chips which I inhale. That helped for maybe 5 minutes.
Finally around 9pm they figure out that the crazy people who owned the camper before us had changed the plug on the trailer to a 4-prong plug because they didn’t want to change the recepticle on their vehicle to accept the 6-prong plug that comes on this camper. So that meant that there was a wire missing and those geniuses were driving the 12′ trailer without using the trailer brakes. So we unhooked the camper with the promise that they would change the plug on the camper and deliver it to our door.
So by 9:20pm I was inhaling a Big Mac (ugh!) and ready to just be home. But they did do as promised, and delivered this to our door on Wednesday. (If you want to see more photos, click here.)
