Finally Camping in Our Trailer, Part One

One of the most delightful things about camping with a trailer as opposed to just tent camping is that there is far less last minute packing to do. Many times when we have left for a short weekend of camping, the biggest hurdle to leaving in a timely manner has been packing the car. Usually I have to run errands and take the kids too and from school, so packing in advance does not work. But with the tent trailer, almost everything we needed was already packed inside the trailer. We only had to fill the ice chests and add few things in the car before we could leave. Doc took a half day off of work to try to get out a little earlier than we might otherwise.

We packed the car, attached the trailer to the car and headed out. Doc was still figuring out the electric brake so every time we stopped, we stopped HARD. I was waiting for Opal to come through the back window. She did not.

We found a way to pull the van and trailer into a drug store parking lot so Doc could pick up a prescription. So we waited and waited. Finally we were off.

I had entered the address for Vail Lake into Google Maps and had a plan. We took the I-15 south of Temecula to the Immigration check point. According to Google Maps, Vail Lake should have been very nearby. But Google Maps was wrong. I do not know what we would have done without Daddy Doc's iPhone but we fortunately had no reason to find out. I found the Vail Lake website on the iPhone and learned that we should have exited the freeway much earlier, in Temecula. We took side streets back to the road to Vail Lake. In traffic. So we waited and waited.

We finally arrived, I hopped out to check-in only to find a really long and slow moving line.

I waited and waited.

I do not like to wait and wait. I just wanted to get to my spot! Finally we checked in and were able to leave. The Enablers and Very Good Friends had already checked in.

As we drove into the park, we witnessed a child on a bike who hit a curb and landed hard. He was bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose. Doc and I, along with others, stopped our cars and jumped out to help the child. One woman grabbed a towel. Another man who had come by on a bike, tried to comfort the boy and clean his face. I grabbed my overnight bag in which I always carry certain supplies, no matter what. You just never know when you will need them. I opened the sanitary napkin and said to the man tending the child "I know this may seem gross but it was made for absorbing blood." He said "Oh, I don't mind at all. You're absolutely right."

At that point I asked the crowd "Does anyone know where this child's family is so we can find them?" That was when I learned that the man tending to the child was actually his father! Everyone's first instinct was to help the child, as it should have been. No one asked questions until we knew he was tended to.

Knowing that the father was there and seeing the situation was under control, we decided that we had contributed all that we could to the scene and proceeded to our campsite.

As we drove up the street, I was very glad that the operator had advised against the sites I had originally asked about reserving. They were unshaded and looked rather dusty. That said, I was a bit disturbed that she did not mention that the sites I selected sat right on the edge of a very steep cliff. The back side of our sites dropped straight down to a dry river bed below. There was no fence between our sites and the edge of the cliff. While the sites were lovely, they made for a bunch of nervous mothers watching our children very carefully all weekend! The Very Good Friends had parked their trailer in the middle spot. Mrs. VGF hoped to block the campfire smoke from embedding in the tent fabric of our trailer! She said once that gets in, it never comes out. She hoped we could postpone that as long as possible.

When we came upon our site, Mrs. Enabler and Mrs. Very Good Friend were waiting for us, all right. One had a digital camera and the other a video camera. They were determined to film Doc backing the trailer into the spot... and hoping to mock him in the process! Alas, Doc disappointed them as he very capably backed Opal right into her spot! Mrs. Very Good Friend complained that the experience was entirely too boring.

Captain Stubborn started to crank the trailer up.

Sweet But Sneaky, who is most often found in his father's shadow, took a turn cranking, too.

The boys all got right to business helping Doc set up the Tent Trailer. And our friends came up with ways to help us. Mr. Very Good Friend pulled a "step" out of his pick-up bed for us. It was a box built out of 2x4s, great for stepping up and stomping dirt off our feet on our way into the trailer. He also had a slunky we used... Now, Opal does not have a sewer hook-up. We have hoses for fresh water and grey water drainage, but the toilet is a cartridge. Doc just pulls out the cartridge "box" and dumps it into a sewer dumping station. But the kitchen sink drained very slowly. In order to help solve the sink draining, we tried the slunky.

Note Mr. VGF's 2x4 step.

Please note the cute little buckets from the Target dollar department. They're no wood ducks but they're cute and practical at the same time.

The Pantry.

SBS really wanted someone to come play a game with him. Please note the PVC pipe trash bag holding system to the right. We also tied a grocery sack to the frame to collect recycling. I might need Doc to just build another frame.

With the trailer set up, I wanted to start getting my pieces of dinner ready. Before heading up to Temecula, we planned our dinner menus. "Many hands make light work!" Each family brought something to contribute. For Friday dinner we planned carne asada, tortillas, beans, rice, cheese, salsa, guacamole, with the most traditional of camping desserts: Chocolate Dump Cake with Trader Joe's Amazing Jars of Cherries. I kept wanting to show off the trailer but the Village wasn't coming over. I couldn't figure it out.

That is until Mr. & Mrs. Enabler and Mr. and Mrs. Very Good Friends came over together with a beautiful wine gift bag. And they were giggling. They had planned an absolutely perfect Trailer Warming Gift for me:

A cheap bottle of merlot!

A cheap bottle of Merlot is the most perfect Trailer Park Warming Gift ever. It's pure brilliance. But most of all, I felt special that my friends knew me well enough to know just what to get me. I suggested that I might mix it into spaghetti sauce so it wouldn't go to waste. They laughed and said that this is one time they don't mind that a wine "gift" would be used for cooking.

We all shared a very good laugh and then Mrs. Enabler and Mrs. VGF came in to check Opal out before everyone went back to cooking dinner.

Dinner was delicious and the Banfi Rosa Regale sparkling dessert wine which I brought paired perfectly with dessert by the campfire. Yes, I can even pair wine for Dutch Oven Dump Cake, thank you very much. And the non-wine drinkers enjoyed it, too. Best of all, Mr. VGF brought out his shovel and graciously put warm coals under our chairs to keep our bums nice and toasty in our camping chairs.

Creating Doc's Famous Dutch Oven Dump Cake.

Mrs. Enabler's friend came along with her adorable little ones and we now had even more reason to worry about the cliffs behind our trailers but we all slept nicely in our trailers that night. And thanks to the full-hook-ups we were able to keep the heater thermostat turned on all evening.

SBS slept on the dining table the first night.

Mr. Genius.

Captain Stubborn is in there somewhere. Really. He is.