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I Must Confess

I Must Confess

…that most of the things that make me want to give up are my own fault. I purchased this Grand Design “Imagine” travel trailer in mid-March. In May I forgot to tip one end of the awning and a heavy downpour of rain while I was at the vet with my cat, broke my awning. I returned home to find it hanging down and I was terrified. Was this already the end of my RV life? I have no photo of the damage, because I was so mad at myself that I didn’t think of taking a picture. The good news is that I was with several friends and one of them was able to replace the motor, unbend some bends, and all was well.

Just last weekend I returned from a trip to Ohio. I’m currently staying in a campground in Pennsylvania because I have a summer job at the Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park here. It was a long drive and, to my relief, I arrived 20 minutes before dark. My campsite here is very difficult to get into. The roadway in front of my site is only wide enough for one car and the RV across from me is also here for the summer and has four vehicles. I attempted to back into the site myself. No luck there. I walked around and spotted someone outside and asked for assistance spotting. Even with help, I still couldn’t get into my site. No room to swing due to the vehicles opposite me. The owner of the vehicles arrived and was able to move the biggest one. Also a man who is a professional truck driver arrived and he volunteered to back in my RV. By this time it was fully dark and I was exhausted after ten hours on the road. I’d have broken the drive into two days, but I’d told the other RVers I know here that I’d be back around eight o’clock Saturday. I knew I’d need help with “spotting” as I backed in.

The kind truck driver backed me in successfully and I thanked him, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

BUT THEN!

But then I, myself, got in my own way. In unhooking from the truck, I forgot to take off the stabilizer bars. Thinking I was fully unhitched, I started to pull away. Something wasn’t right. Perhaps the ball on the truck wasn’t clearing the receiver on the RV. So I backed up a little. More “something isn’t right” premonitions crawled up my spine. Getting out of the truck and going back to look, I was horrified. The stabilizers! Yes! I’d pulled the whole RV forward and then pushed it back with the stabilizers still connected. The RV hitch was leaning and the RV tires were completely off the blocks I’d had under them. I was too scared to figure out what else I’d messed up. More “this is the end and I give up” thoughts raced through my mind. Pacing back and forth, trying to figure out what to do, the woman in the RV next door saw me and sent two people to help. They were kind and quickly had things made right. By the time I went into my RV, everything was done and I had made new friends. We laughed and agreed that, for the next couple of years, they were going to sit around campfires recanting the tale of the woman who forgot to remove her stabilizer bars. It would probably be titled something like “See what happens when…” Sunday evening I sat around a campfire with several new friends, thinking to myself “this is what makes it all worthwhile”.

And so it goes. Things happen and you want to give up. Then whole bunches of somethings happen and you are happier and more content than ever in your life. Am I talking just about RV life? What do you think?