The pup from hell part 1

One of the first things I did when I started looking seriously  was join  a facebook group for pop up camper owners . Still to this day it has been the best move I have ever made during my journey . This was where , and continues to be where I get great information, have asked many  many questions , and gotten many  valuable answers .  Second spot I hit was Thepopupportal.com  which I also find informational . And of course last but not least  was Thepopupprincess.com which I will save for future blog entries as there's just TOO MUCH  to list about that dangerous site 😂 and the other dangerous site I've recently found is thesouthernglamper  ! Again more on those later .

I started lurking on the facebook page and looking at posts and pictures from other  owners . All of the camping pictures made me long for a camper of my own .  I saw so many great families having so much fun , and couldn't WAIT to get out in my own pup .  So the search began on craigslist . I went and looked at several, but  I really had no idea what I was looking at  or for .  After a couple of frustrated attempts , someone suggested that I rent one for the weekend to try and see what I liked and didn't like . Although at the time I thought this was a sort of silly idea , to this day this was still the best thing I ever did !!! We found a very nice couple on craigslist Who rented us a 2004 Fleetwood with the following floor plan

The bonus was this had a tip  out kitchen and a toilet shower combo . I thought this was the floor plan that would probably be the same one we would purchase , so renting it was a no-brainer. We put our deposit down and made our reservations at a campground a couple of hours away in beautiful Julian Ca. In October every year they have what they called Apple days and we always go. That October ( 2016 ) we would take the rental and stay at William Heise Park . The nice thing about this park is they have electrical hook ups , which is a real treat considering most of the places we camp here in Southern California do not have hook ups at all.

 The pup was located about an hour from camp . When we got to their home we were shown the pup and told that the lights did not work  because of a spliced wire  so we'd have to use a battery operated lantern . Feeling disappointed I figured  we had already driven a couple of hours to get there  , paid the pet sitter , packed the truck  so on and so forth  . I decided we would take it out regardless and have a good time ,  because after all  it's at trailer is like a giant tent . I figured we could at least plug in to shore power  and have coffee in the morning wash our face in the evening , and brush our teeth with warm water  , Cook, do dishes, etc.  . One last run through the contract and we were on our way . Since they were only an hour away from the campground , we were able to take surface streets over to the 2 Lane Hwy. that we were very familiar with to get there . Last thing we wanted to do was get on the freeway when mom had never towed a tent trailer . I tried to explain to mom who's in her mid 70's  it was much like the dirt bike trailer she used to haul when we were kids and she quickly caught on. Up the road we went , winding through the hills until we reached our destination .  We pulled through the gates and purchased our firewood and got our site permit. We  slowly made our Way up the road and made the right into the RV loop. The nice thing about the spots  is they are on a  loop so pulling in and backing up was pretty easy. I had all of these fears that mom who doesn't back up well at all would not be able to back the trailer up and I would have to do it myself , and I'm legally blind and not supposed to be driving at all ! I only have about 20% of my peripheral vision remaining  and it's very foggy  at best. I knew parking someone else's trailer was not an option . I was smart and before we left I did a bunch of research on how to properly back up a trailer, asked questions about backing up on the Facebook group and went and got a trailer dolly just in case that was a disaster and I had to push it in by hand.   With a few tries and me directing mom the best I could at the rear of the trailer with a walkie-talkie  , she backed it up with ease! Go mom !!!!

Stay tuned for the next blog ! You won't want to miss what happens next 😱