Let's rewind, shall we? As I was saying on Thursday, we headed to our pool, preceding a trip to Goodyear for an oil change and tire rotation. Seems innocent enough? Normally J would do this, but he wanted this done before we hooked up the camper the next night (remember, we have a new larger pop up?)....well, this was officially our first time taking it out, since we purchased it in October. Anyway, we had everything packed, and the camper all hooked up, so we could wake in the morning and take off for a long weekend in the Smokeys! And we did it, almost....the check engine light came on in the Sienna...it was not on BEFORE I took the Sienna in the day before to Goodyear....thinking they possibly, accidentally did something to cause this, we called, and they had us come see them...camper in tow. They located the issue, made a quick adjustment. And then we were all set to hit the road right from Goodyear, when some metal bar thingie fell off the stabilizer bar (used for towing), in the parking lot at Goodyear. SO....we headed back home for J to fix that. THEN, we all hopped in the Sienna (again), didn't even make it down the end of our block, when J realized our brake control box (the controller for the brakes on the camper)...had no no power. (it did the day and months before?).....SO, we turned around, again...I mentioned that possibly the Goodyear guy knocked a wire out of place when he was feeling around under the steering wheel, as I noticed he had trouble figuring out where to plug in the diagnositics thingie (...thingie is a REAL word, at least in mechanical world, from my perspective...so there!)....J finally figured out what happened there, we drove around the neighborhood testing the brakes....and he felt confident, so we finally hit the road...again....only five hours later than planned.
So then we stopped in Columbia, enroute, to pick up a new axle for our boat trailer...saved us $150 in shipping!!!!!
We hit the road once again, to make our way to Cherokee, NC ....started seeing moutains, yeahhh!
.......made it to I40, and JUST missed getting through before they shut the interstate down...you know, by three or four cars....because of this:
but I saw the people and the dog on the sidelines, so nobody seemed harmed; which was of course very very good. And the wait wasn't too long, and despite our kinks and optisticals thus far, our day was not as bad as theirs!
So after probably a 20 minute delay, we started driving down I40 again....
when our camper platform door thigie suddenly opened...our camper was OPEN, ON the interstate....thankfully we were at our exit to head towards Cherokee, so we stopped at some sort of Fleet Farm store to get some part (they didn't have it)...and then, in the same parking lot, enroute to Lowes, something happened with the stabilizer bar...again.
And then we got to Lowes, J worked on both issues ....and then we hit the road to go the last 18 miles to Cherokee (which is actually a long ways when you're in the mountains...and somewhere on the Blueridge Parkway, the camper platform door thingie opened up...again.....but that's ok, because it happened at an overlook area where I was able to take some gorgous photos (yeahhhh, vacation, finally;)
Got the door to stay, and hit the road, again...made it to the bottom of Blueridge Parkway, and saw Cherokee was on our left...but our GPS was directing us to the right to get to the KOA campgrounds....and we made the grave error of trusting our Garmin....something to the tune of driving around for two hours within our few short miles of our campground...WHEN my phone could get a signal, we called the campground, asking for directions...nobody there knew what they were talking about (kids working), and got us more lost, sending us in the same lost direction....but, we finally found it found "Ice Age" was showing on their outdoor big screen, which made the kids happy...and we finally got the camper up and in bed, by 1 a.m. ...without further incident (unless you count J stepping in doogy doo:D)
checkout the new camper!!!
and the new stove and OVEN!! (we are camping and we have an OVEN!!!)
And the next day we were ready for our adventure of the day!!!! Tubing down the river!! The KOA rents tubes and drives you to a drop off location, and you tube your way back to the campground. Sounded perfect to us....
only it wasn't...far far from it :/
Recap:
News flash .....tubing in the mountain rivers ....NOT safe with kids!! The water was too low, currents were extremely swift! We are VERY lucky we, especially the kiddos are ok. Tubes rented to us by our KOA campground....they need to warn parents who want to bring children out. Btw, my hubby is an experienced level 4/5 whitewater rafter .....and this took him by surprise!!! We got out as soon as we could, we had a hard time holding onto the kiddos and getting to safe grounds..... found a safe place for them to sit, while I hiked back to the campground on narrow mountain highway roads (no we did not bring cell phones, they would not have faired too well;) back to campground.
In retrospect about yesterday's tubing events (and we do own our the choice we made to engage in this)...I spoke with some shop owners in town....it sounds like there are much safer drop off sites, and much safer areas on the river. Further, reputable places will rope parents (with distance between the tubes) together. J and I kept getting stuck on the boulders, while the girls glided right over them. The currents were strong and swift. We lost hold of first Little Angel...and thank God she was able to intentionally get herself stuck and wait for J to get to her. And we lost Fairy girl, got to her and J got her on a rock to sit, where she was crying "MY SISTER, MY SISTER." Grateful, grateful Grateful; even if they were ok with shallow waters and life jackets (though the rocks and boulders were an issue, I was actually more concerned, they'd keep floating, and not be able to get out and go past the campround, and we'd lose track of them!!!!!!!
We finally got out of the river about a half mile down....the climb up the embankment to the highway was another challenge;). We found a driveway off the road where I parked J, the girls and the tubes, and I hoofed it on the very narrow mountain curvy roads with very little clearance between me and the traffic to go back to the campground to go get them...I stepped in the mud of the ditches several times....even the cop driving by didn't check on me:). My legs has mud caked on; that was the best shower ever last night:D
We will be phoning the KOA headquarters as we feel the campground was negligent in providing info about risk to parents bringing kids out. We don't want this to happen to another family, but with an entirely different outcome. We are blessed.
the area of the river where we were dropped off was not safe for tubing, at least not for kids...since we weren't given ropes, we tried to hold them by hand....which doesn't work under those conditions..way too many rapids, everywhere. It should only be navigated with rafts, and helmets....of course J and I both slipped several times trying to walk on the very slippery river rocks, trying to get to the girls.
Water parks and lazy rivers for us....James Island is calling us; our girls deserve a trip to the water park after their experience yesterday;)
I might have a before and after tubing photo, not sure, I didn't lose my camera in the river, but when I wound up in the water (several times), the ziplock baggie thingie didn't keep my camera dry. But if that's the worst that came out of this, I'd say we were DARN lucky....KOA headquarters WILL hear about this...they made it sound SAFE and CALM...and didn't even provide ropes to tie kids to parents...which apparently what all REPUTABLE places will do....shame on KOA, seriously!
Anyway, we made it back, mostly unscathed (J and I did hit rocks hard a few times, because river rocks, which are everywhere, are darn slippery).....so we showered up, when into Cherokee for a bonfire and story telling:
I have to be honest, what I thought would be really interesting history, turned out to be a lot of disciplining...the story teller was engaging and nice, but very much holds a grudge. So, Fairy girl and I took a little walk over the pretty bridge, as she got bored, fast;) Though there was a point, just before we left....we were sitting way off to the side on a picnic table...and on the table next to us, were sitting three (assuming) Cherokee, local folks. At one point, the story teller spoke of how much they LOVE their silver...at which point the gentleman on the picnic table right next to us, looked right at me with a huge smile showing me both hands filled with silver rings.....at which point, I returned the big smile, showing both of my hands, filled with Island Cowgirl silver rings :D
me and Fairy Girl, post tubing trauma, me no make up, and rather unkept.....RARE public appearance as my natural self;)
ok, so that was pretty much our camping trip....
but then we got back to the camper, for a good night's sleep...when I felt sprinkles...of course:) So we rushed fast to get all of our chairs, etc put away, to minimize having items to air out when we got back to SC
And we got to bed at a decent hour, except the seriousness of our day on the river finally hit me, and I just kept seeing my children floating away from me, swiftly...we were VERY VERY lucky!
Piper loves camping; though he feels he's "ruffin'" it :D
And we headed home...incident-free...except for I40 backing up and going down to one lane (we lose a lot of time on I40.....sometimes they shut it down due to landslides)....remember the engine fire on our way up.....this looked really really bad...the car had gone over the rail, was upside down, and completely burned.
So, while I know some would possibly view our camping trip as kind of a bummer as far as trips go; I say, we had a great trip...NOTHING bad happened when it easily could have...several times; we were well taken care of and protected, and we are very blessed.
Always be grateful; see the good....ALWAYS.
Me and my Vermont Teddy Bear, which I made at the factory...never leave home without him;)
the end:)
p.s. in case you were wondering, we duct taped the camper door ...so there!
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