Christmas Camper Miracles
“Let’s go away for Christmas this year.”
It was a great idea while we were swimming in the Gulf of Mexico over what New Jerseyans call “November Break.”
“We can bring the camper down to Florida, and leave it there for the winter. We can visit it like a second home whenever we want.”
This is what I convinced my family into doing and it sounded like a great idea.
We planned on leaving at 2:30 pm on December 21st after my daughter had a singing engagement. As we were about to leave, I turned on the tire monitor and realized that the air in the camper tires were low.
Now, at 80 psi, you can’t just roll into the closest gas station to fill them up. So we have an air pump at home. But it takes forever.
We get them all up to 80 and hit the road around 4:30 pm.
Everyone is in good spirits and we are ready to have an adventure! First stop – Kings Dominion KOA in VA.
About 30 minutes into our trip and BOOM! The tire blows out. Chris did such a great job. He was calm and pulled over to the side of the road. We were only going about 40 MPH, and couldn’t believe it had actually happened! We called the RV roadside assistance, CoachNet for help. The lovely woman told me, “you’re in the middle of nowhere! We have no one to respond to your call…I’m going to have the police come help.”
Fast forward 2 hours later, very little damage to the camper (thank goodness!) and a tire on, we were on our way.
We get to the campground around 1am and go right to sleep. Next stop, Jacksonville KOA right on the border of Georgia and Florida.
First stop on the morning of the 22nd is gas. As we are pulling in, Chris says, “I think another tire is flat. It looks like it in my side mirror.” We get out to investigate and it looks totally normal. I have him go drive the camper to see if I notice anything and as the tires roll, I noticed a huge bubble on the OTHER tire.
At this point we are in Virginia…on a Sunday. Not many options for us at this point. So after lots of Googling, I find a place and thankfully they have 4 tires for us and can do it right away. 3 hours later, it was a Christmas camper miracle (number 2) that we were on our way unscathed.
As Willie Nelson says, we were on the road again.
Good old i95 kept us entertained as we listened to top 100 countdowns of 70s and 80s songs.
We make it to North Carolina and all of a sudden, Chris’ truck dings a warning “engaging low power mode – check engine” and won’t go over 35 MPH.
What-the-what.
We try the old, pull-over-turn-off-engine-restart-car regimen and it doesn’t work. So I find the nearest campsite and make a reservation for the night and cancel Jacksonville so we can figure out what is wrong.
We pull into our site and realize that we ran out of propane, which is what fuels our heat. It’s cold in NC still, so Chris is going to unhook and get us some propane.
Only we can’t unhook.
The hitch is completely bent.
(For those of you non-camper readers, the hitch is what connects the camper to the truck. Ours, being a fifth wheel sits in the bed of the truck and connects similar to a tractor trailer.)
It must’ve bent when the tire blew. (Or when they got fixed…either way.)
At least I had a ton of blankets…and a microwave…and hot dogs. 😂
Chris finds a diesel truck and rv place about 30 miles away and calls as soon as they open. Thankfully, the said they would take us right away. We were up and packed and out in 20 minutes.
The man on the phone tells Chris to park on the pad in front of the shop when we get there. Unfortunately, there was a huge A Class parked there and it was pouring rain. So Chris says, “I’m just going to pull past the shop and park by that truck on the side.” Before the “noooooooooooooooo!” can even come out of my mouth, Chris pulls onto the front lawn of the home next to the shop on a decline that seems like a 45 degree angle. I’m telling him to back up and get off the grass, but it was too late. The tires were spinning in the wet grass (now mud) and the 16,000 lbs of camper behind us will not let us go anywhere. So he decides he is going to drive forward and make a u-turn going up the front lawn on the other side. Luckily, the break allows him to stop sliding about a foot away from the house.😳
He reports to the shop owner that in addition to the hitch and engine, we now need to be towed out of the lawn. Unfortunately, this was on a busy highway. So the owner had to call the Sheriff to stop the traffic on the road!
I took the kids and the dog into the shop and made ourselves comfortable in our home for the day. After getting it towed out, Chris came back with what would be breakfast, lunch, and dinner of Dr. Pepper and Pringle’s.
9 1/2 hours later, a trip to the welder to flatten out the metal of the capture plate (fifth wheel talk again), two trips to “town” to get parts for the truck, we were on Christmas camper miracle 3. The family who owned that shop were so accommodating, nice, and helpful. I couldn’t believe they helped us the way they did (without it costing an arm and a leg, either). At 6:15 pm on Monday, 12/23, we were on our way.
“I’ve got four Monster energy drinks and I’m ready to go. We are driving straight there.”
That was what Chris proclaimed as we pulled out of the shop.
Three gas stops and a dinner of Wendy’s in the car later, we pulled into the Campsites at Fort Wilderness (Disney) at 6:15 am.
We missed one day of our reservation.
We had to cancel our plans for the day renting a golf cart to drive around and see the amazing decorations.
We had to change our Discovery Cove reservations from the 24th to the 26th.
But we were determined to make this week great and fun and all the things vacation should be. We pulled into our spot, took a nap, and went on with our Christmas Eve at Disney which included decorating our own campsite with lights, a trip to the Wilderness Lodge and all the hotels on the monorail to see decorations, and an amazing dinner at The Grand Floridian Cafe.
We even asked if we could extend our site for another day since we lost one day and through Disney Magic, we were able to do so…and not move spots! How cool is that??
Waking up in our camper, our home away from home, in Disney on Christmas morning, in the warm weather was an experience we will never forget. It turned out to be an amazing vacation.
This post is getting long, so I’ll do another about the actual trip.
We ended up bringing the camper back home. We have to get a few things fixed now and I’m thinking there was probably a warranty on those tires, so I needed to have it here.
Who knows…maybe we’ll do some other winter camping. 😉
Moral of the story is, we kept calm, didn’t yell at one another, worked together as a family, and leaned a lot about tires and hitches and Diesel engines that we didn’t know.
And that’s what these adventures are all about. Family time, making the best of every situation, and going with the flow. That, and seeing some cool places around the country!
Happy New Year, readers! Hope everyone had a happy holiday season!
