Camping Bloopers or Funny Stories

[Justice12t]

After reading several posts over the last month I though this would be kinda of fun. Share some funny stories about the adventures we have all had...I will start with 2 (1 longer 1 shorter)...

1) About 10 years ago I was in my early/mid 20s. I bought my first camper a 28ft TT with no slides. We (GF at the time) bought it used from a local dealer. Now I have camped for years with family prior so I wasn't really "new." A few weeks later we took it for our shake down trip...4 day long holiday weekend local park it was great...everything worked as it should.

Packed up the last morning and headed to the dump station(BW/GW)...did what I had to without issue I thought...after I closed the valve I noticed fluid still dripping out...took a closer look and noticed...(Family Site Remember)...I rubber device used for protection had became caught not allowing the valve to close all the way...what do I do now...at this point people were starting to back up behind me...well I knew I was mostly empty so I opened the valve back up some fluid came out but not much...but the "device" was still stuck...grabbed a trusty long flat head screwdriver...worked at it for some time before an old timer approached...

He asked if I needed any help......I said well that is a good question...I explained the situation and what he said next still makes me laugh..."Well at least you young kids are being safe" ...I looked at him with a smile on my face and said..."um yea this is not ours we just bought the camper and this is our first trip" His face looked like......He said good luck fella and walked away...

Few minutes later I was able to free the "device" wash it down the station and throw my screwdriver away...

2) Camping with family and friends a few years back at a state park. Family friends were there with us...they were finishing a week long trip and a few days drive to meet us all...

As they were backing into their site...apparently DW was not paying enough attention...the camper hit a root...however you could not see it so I am guessing nobody noticed it...well with a little more gas pedal the camper jumped backwards...ripping the plumbing out from underneath it...

...Well the last 2 days they stayed at pull off areas so the tanks were far from empty...well until this happened...

Boy was it hot that week...and boy did it smell and make a mess...thankfully after lots of clean up and a few days they were able to repair the plumbing...

These stories are best told while and ...but it's winter so...

PS sorry they are so long...I hope you find these funny and share some of your own...always

[KenHwy61]

Always plenty of action to be found in campers and in campgrounds! Last October we were camping on lake Superior and it was only in the low 20's. A Chevy van camper was camped near us. A nice fellow and his daughter. He had set a propane tank outside to run his furnace. The next morning he started to drive away and as my wife and I watched in horror he began to drive right over his tank. He was right in front of our camper and I had visions of us and our campers going up in flames! Fortunately I was able stop him before it exploded. Close call and a good reminder to always to a walk-around before you leave.

[Kels4g]

When we first bought our TT, we had to store it at the dealer because our HOA didn't allow them in our neighborhood. Anyways, when you wanted to use it, you could call and tell them and they'd move it over to their campground so you could pick it up even after they'd closed.

Our very first trip, we made the drive to the dealer to pick up our TT (about 2 hours). By the time we got there it was dark and this was to be our first time hitching up by ourselves. So we find out trailer and hitch up- which was quite the process even involving youtube

Right before we get in the truck to leave, I said let me make sure the back stabilizers are up. I walk to the back and the next thing out of my mouth is "I don't think this one is ours." Of course my husband says "why" and I respond "Well, it has a paper license plate still and a slide" (neither of which ours had)

We unhitched from it as soon as we could and tried to find our actual trailer. Before we hitched a second time, I checked that the tag on the trailer matched the tag number on our insurance card

[Iwritecode]

I've got lots of stories to tell in this thread. Be back after lunch...

[Buck1032]

Our last camping trip last year, Thanksgiving camping trip. We met our friends from Arkansas at a campground that is almost half way between their house and ours. We are starting our 4th year of camping this year so we are still think of our selves as newbies. Our friends get there before us and are set up by the time we get there. He reports the pads are level so we get there pull in backwards so our doors face each other and get set up. The next morning we notice that we are not as level as we would like and figure 1 Lego block would do it. Friends head into town so DW and decide to level the trailer. Since we are going forward we didn't disconnect water, cable, power or sewer. Raised the stabilizer jacks and hook up. I really had to give it gas to move. Who knew chocks actually worked. Lol

[Iwritecode]

Ok, here's a couple of good ones. Both happened at the same CG, on separate trips.

#1: We had a 10 ft pop-up and had just recently bought a Suburban to pull it (which it turned out, we were lucky to have). It was Memorial Day weekend and we were camping with another couple that also had a pop-up. Well it started raining and pretty much didn't stop.

We realized we might be in some trouble when the carpet we had laying in front of our steps started floating away.

So we shoved the bed that was over the hitch in, hooked it up to the suburban, and moved it (while the roof was still up) to a different site that wasn't underwater. When we pulled out that Sunday, we nearly didn't make it because the ground was so soft. I spun my tires, splattered mud all over the trailer and left ruts a few inches deep but we finally got out.

#2: No rain this time around but the CG had recently cut down a few trees. They left the stumps though. I was turning a corner, didn't see the stump and ran directly over it with my front drivers side tire. Ended up with the frame landing directly on top of the stump and two wheels off the ground.

With the help of a few boards and some leveling blocks, we were able to get it back down again. The only damage was from the food that was in the crock pot in the back. It spilled all over.

[doc73]

Ah... Yes, I have flattened a few of those cheap yellow camco chocks!

[KFX450RXC]

Many years ago at a state park, a better spot opened up one day. It was first come, first served at this park and I wanted it. I hooked up and started moving the TT still with the slide out. But I made sure everything outside was unhooked. Everything went well until we started setting back up at the new spot. The television that just sits on a high shelf in the bedroom was never taken down. It was down now. Oops

[JustB_Rad]

Last fall I removed my X-chocks right before we were ready to leave. To my dismay, the camper started rolling! Luckily it stopped as soon as it was off the camco blocks and didn't hit anything.....I had used the plastic chocks to stop it from rolling forward (downhill) before I unhooked it from the truck upon arrival. Unfortunately, that was before I leveled the camper, so there was nothing BEHIND the tires to prevent it from rolling the other way off the blocks! Really glad it stopped, and really glad I didn't take a hit on the head from the slide dropping 2" on top of me!

I've also been in a hurry while unhooking the older camper, and pulled the truck forward WITHOUT unhooking the safety chains! Pulled the jack off its block but did no damage!

Lessons learned from these....Don't be in a hurry...and think about EVERYTHING you're doing!

[Justice12t]

Some great stories here...keep them coming and thanks for those who have shared already...

[5picker]

We were sitting in a campground one evening when a young couple in their 20's pulled into the site next to us. These weren't well defined sites as there were no concrete pads or gravel parking spots, just green grass and and a post with electric and water.

They had a brand new pop-up and we could tell immediately this was their first trip out because they went over every detail of setting this thing up many times over as she had a check list and he kept looking in a manual or a book.

They finally got the thing backed in where they thought they wanted it and after agonizing over each step, got it uncoupled from the tow vehicle, got the unit level, put down the stabilizers, cranked the top up, pulled out the slide ends, unrolled their awning and staked it down and put out their welcome mat.

As they were standing there smiling, admiring their handiwork and congratulating each other on a job well done, the guy says to the girl... "oh, we forgot to hook up the water and electric."

As he pulled a tote out of the storage compartment which had the water hose in it, she was pulling the shore power cable from the side of the camper and low and behold they were parked about one foot too far away from the post for either to reach.

We giggled and watched them scratch their heads for a bit and when it was evident they were going to reverse their whole set-up procedure to hook back up and move over one foot, I went over, introduced myself (with the obligatory 'been there done that') and gave them a power cord extension and a short piece of water hose to use for the weekend.

We made some wonderful friends that night. She supplied us with some huge pieces of cake and some other goodies which she had brought along and he set his beer cooler halfway between our rig and his with an offer to get in it anytime we wanted.

Ah... the camping life!

[lstall00]

My trip involved rain also. This was the first trip with this camper (we have camped for many years). We had week vacation planned to go to my nephew's wedding. My husband got a new job the week before the vacation so he wasn't able to go with me. The campground was only 1 1/2 hour from our house so I told my husband I plan on going by myself so he towed the camper up and we set it up. He spent the weekend with me and went home so he could go to work. Well it started raining on Monday and it did not stop. I was stuck in the trailer and on Tuesday night the alarms starting going off for flood warnings and since I wasn't from the area I did not know if I was in the flood zone. Wednesday morning I got up and was sitting at the table looking out my window and my campsite was under water. There was a couple kids "walking" their German Shepherd who swam through my campsite. I decide then I was going to visit some family in the area. When I left my campsite the campground was over half full. I was gone about 4 hours and when I came back there was only 2 campers left. The campground was being shut down. When I got to my site to hook into my camper and I did not have key to the hitch lock. So I called my husband and he had to drive up with the key so we could get the camper out. I had to put everything away while walking through knee deep water. Lucky the campsite pad sat up higher the ground so the camper stayed out of the water. I watched a boat that had broken loose from a dock float within 20 feet of my camper before it got beached. Normally the lake would have been about 250 feet from my campsite. A worker who had been there for over 25 years said he never had to close the campground due to water, this was the worse he had ever seen. It took almost 2 weeks before the campground could reopen. I now watch weather reports very closely whenever we go camping.

[Buck1032]

Twice last year, after breaking down camp, hooking up and getting on the road at our first gas stop I realize I didn't connect the safety chains. I need a check list.....

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by Justice12t

Packed up the last morning and headed to the dump station(BW/GW)...did what I had to without issue I thought...after I closed the valve I noticed fluid still dripping out...took a closer look and noticed...(Family Site Remember)...I rubber device used for protection had became caught not allowing the valve to close all the way...what do I do now...at this point people were starting to back up behind me...well I knew I was mostly empty so I opened the valve back up some fluid came out but not much...but the "device" was still stuck...grabbed a trusty long flat head screwdriver...worked at it for some time before an old timer approached...

He asked if I needed any help......I said well that is a good question...I explained the situation and what he said next still makes me laugh..."Well at least you young kids are being safe" ...I looked at him with a smile on my face and said..."um yea this is not ours we just bought the camper and this is our first trip" His face looked like......He said good luck fella and walked away...

Few minutes later I was able to free the "device" wash it down the station and throw my screwdriver away...

Lesson to everyone: NOTHING down the toilet except pee, poo and (RV) paper.

(And that device is probably caught in CG's septic tank. Hopefully it hasn't worked it's way to the drain field. (BTW - in NYC, they're called Coney Island White Fish!!)

In our tenting days, we got to a campground in Door County, WI late in the evening; it was dark. Pitched the tent in some kind of field they pointed us to. We had a queen size air mattress about 5" high. Started raining in the middle of the night. In the morning DW got out of bed into 4" of water. We found out we'd pitched tent in the middle of a large depression in the field. OOPS.

[Keisling]

Here's my story on a series of bloopers that made the worst first camping trip ever...

My wife and I purchased our first TT a few years ago. A 1 year old 27' bunkhouse with a single slide that seemed like a good fit for our family of 5. We had no experience pulling trailers and even had to borrow my father's truck just to get it home.
On our first outing, we pulled into a St. Park that was only 30 min away. We chose one close by in case us newbies forgot something and needed to run home. We register at the gate and went off to find our site. We get there and DW gets out to spot as I proceed to back the trailer into the site like a pro... Not!
This was my first time backing the trailer and I knew I would struggle a bit but not like this. After about 30 min, I had the trailer with one side pinned dangerously close to a pine tree that was a good 8' away from the designated pad and the front wheel of the truck was hanging halfway over a ditch on the other side. DW was almost crying, I was cursing and a whole crowd of campers were getting their evening's entertainment at our expense.
An experienced host camper finally offered to rescue us and get our trailer out of danger and back on the campground road. He then rode with me around the loop and talked me through another back-in attempt. He was able to coach me through it and the trailer was finally centered in the campsite. Now we can unhitch and enjoy a relaxing weekend.
I started unhitching and, after cranking on the tongue jack until near exhaustion, I noticed I was lifting the rear of the truck almost completely off the ground along with the tongue. I checked to make sure the hitch lock was open and it was but for some reason I thought, maybe it's stuck and I need to jiggle it a bit. As soon as I touched the hitch lock lever it came free and the rear end of the truck came crashing down with a loud bang and strangely, the trailer tongue started rapidly moving away from the bouncing the truck.
The tongue jack slipped backward off the boards I had placed under it and narrowly missed amputating my little toe as it hit the ground and buried itself a good 6-8” into the soft ground. With all the struggle of backing in, DW and I forgot to chock the wheels! The jack was extended pretty far already and there was no way we could extend it high enough to get it back on the hitch or even to level the trailer out. Thankfully I had a bottle jack in the truck and, after firmly chocking the wheels this time, I was able retract the tongue jack and then use the bottle jack to lift the tongue up enough to place some boards under the leg of the tongue jack and get it out of the dirt. This left the nose of the trailer very low but at least I was back on track. After once again cranking on the tongue jack until near exhaustion, I was finally sitting level. Next came the water and electric hookup.
By this time the kids were getting a little restless so DW takes them off to the playground to burn up some of that energy before it got dark. I stayed there to finish setting up the camp site. I hooked up the electric and water and grabbed a chair to sit and clear my head of the failures from the last 2 hours. A fellow camper came by and cheered me up some tales of his newbie camper follies and we had a good chuckle. All was well, I thought but then I noticed a heavy drip coming from the storage door.
When I opened the storage door I found a pool of water and steady stream coming from where the floor of the front bed met the storage compartment. I quickly ran around and opened the trailer door to find what could only be described as the Colorado River flowing all the way from the rear bathroom, across the linoleum in the main area and all the way through to the front bedroom. I could hear a water running in the bathroom so I dropped my beverage and ran around to turn off the water. I went around to the door again and looked in again, hoping that it was just an illusion and everything was fine.
Everything wasn’t fine, it was wet! Someone left the faucet in the bathroom open with the stopper in the sink and it was overflowing into the rest of the trailer. I knew the destructive power of water and knew the only way I could minimize the damage and keep my new trailer from disintegrating was to get rid of the water and get rid of it fast. I grabbed bath towels from the bathroom and beach towels from a cabinet and tried to spread them across the floor like terrycloth rugs. I don’t know if I was in shock or what but I never thought to stop and wring the water out of the towels and re-use them. Nope, when they were saturated I pulled them off the floor and threw them out the door. When I ran out of towels I started grabbing anything that could be used to mop up water. Shirts, jeans, kids PJs, even DW's undies were used as a makeshift towel and then thrown out the door.
Right about the time I finished soaking up the last drops of water with bed sheets and a quilt, DW made her way back to the campsite with the kiddos. The peace and serenity of the entire park was broken by DW loudly inquiring as to what the **** I was doing! I don’t know if it was seeing a big pile of muddy textiles on the ground outside the trailer, representing all we packed for the weekend or the stress of earlier events but DW didn't ask anymore questions, she just went from zero to “I’m going to kill you violently” in 2.2 seconds. I was tired, stressed and ready for a fight so I fired right back. We argued very loudly for a few min but soon realized the kids and everyone around us didn’t need to listen to us “airing out our dirty laundry” at 85 decibels.
We cooled off a bit and I explained the situation and how I sacrificed everything, including our clean underwear to save the trailer from rot and decay. Pretty soon we both started laughing and kissed to make up. A couple of hours and a roll of quarters spent at the campground laundry had us some clean dry clothes and we were able to spend a rather humid first night in the trailer.

[5er_tom]

A long long time time ago in a far away place.... While in the Army and stationed at Ft. Bliss, TX wife and I got camping equipment from special services and headed out to Elephant Butte, NM for a weekend. We arrived after dark, found a small campground, set up the tent close to the ports potties, had dinner and retired for the night. In the wee early hours of the morning, just before sunrise, we hear lots of voices, many of them not happy. Pulled on my pants and went out to find out what was going on.
We had pitched our little tent in the middle of the boat ramp!!! Lots of fishermen were not happy. We got up and moved the tent.
Will never forget that one.


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[wana65stang]

This was with my first MH a 1996 Glendale Royal Classic , we had driven to Newfoundland from Ontario and I knew the front brake pads where starting to wear, the trip out had just about done them in. We were parked for a couple of nights so I decided to replace them, while doing the job I heard a couple of guys from the next site making comments and laughing , one guy finely walked over and said " what do you think you are a mechanic?" I removed my mechanics licence from my wallet showed it to him and said " Yes I am why" He turned around walked back to his site and they went inside and never said a word again.

[The_Rhino]

Wasn't towing a TT, but you can relate... To pay my way through college I did construction & landscaping work towing a variety of commercial trailers behind 1 tons, etc... One day I was towing a 40' flatbed w/Kubotas when we decided to stop at our favorite eatery on a college campus. I pulled in the "Entrance" & snaked my way carefully through a packed parking lot only to find that the "Exit" was being paved!

There was no room to turn-around, etc. so I spent the next HOUR backing around corner after corner of parked cars (w/co-worker spotting me)! We had parked there dozens of times & I never thought to check to see if the exit was clear... So... when towing our TT I always have an exit strategy before pulling into gas stations, eateries, etc.

[Wobbles]

I wish I could say shame on you guys or scold somebody like the parental units used too. Not so. I am not worthy...

I have read and over thought so much about "How to do it" I am sure I will never do that, Ha. The rule is "not if but when..."

I would hazard a guess that some seasoned campers here have had an oops moment after years of performing flawlessly.

I am going to keep my mistakes quiet. People only know what you tell them.

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by Wobbles

I wish I could say shame on you guys or scold somebody like the parental units used too. Not so. I am not worthy...

I have read and over thought so much about "How to do it" I am sure I will never do that, Ha. The rule is "not if but when..."

I would hazard a guess that some seasoned campers here have had an oops moment after years of performing flawlessly.

I am going to keep my mistakes quiet. People only know what you tell them.

"Honest confession is good for the soul!"