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Our First Adventure

Blogs: #6 of 9

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Our First Adventure

We bought our first (new to us) RV in 2009. It was a 10+ year old 27’ Winnebago Itasca we figured was in just in need of a little face lift. We were in for a lot of surprises!

We picked it up just a few weeks before my brother-in-law’s graduation from the Marine Corp, and we were anxious for our first road trip to Paris Island. We had spent those first few weeks cleaning and making small changes to make life on the road comfortable. Neither of us had much experience camping; we were ready to wing it!

The trip down was a blast! I had never driven anything bigger than a pick-up truck. I’ll never forget navigating what I thought was a beast through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Those narrow lanes and oncoming tractor trailers were nerve racking!

Even though it was November and our first campground greeted us with cold rain. White Lake in Elizabethtown was a beautiful place, even though it was out of season and we were about the only fools in the place.

Our next stop was Myrtle Beach State Park. Not as chilly there, and I witnessed my first sunrise on the beach. I wish I had a good camera, and knew what I was doing with it at the time. The attached sunrise was taken with the phone I had at the time. Broadway at the Beach had just put up their Christmas décor, and I remember it felt a bit odd seeing Christmas decorations wearing just a hoodie.

We continued beyond Paris Island and on to Savannah, Ga to spend several days sightseeing before the graduation day. We fell in love with that city, and also named our daughter Savannah. In fact, we are now scheduled to camp host at Skidaway Island at the end of this month (10/2014).

To this point, all was well. We enjoyed the sights, and the graduation, then set our sights on heading back home to Maryland for Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving morning, and the trip back was uneventful until we hit Alexandria, VA. Did I mention we had just found out my wife was pregnant?

The engine started overheating and we took the first exit, which was not a great (nor camper friendly) neighborhood. It is also pretty close to impossible to get a tow truck big enough for an RV on Thanksgiving Day. It was about 11am, and we were still an hour away from our destination and a nice Thanksgiving dinner. It was also around this time that I found out the hood of the RV had locks, and the RV company we bought from had not supplied us with a key. I had no way of finding out what was going on under the hood.

The tow finally arrived! …around 11pm. Eating at the Chinese restaurant was reminiscent of watching The Christmas Story. We were never more thankful than the minute we walked through the door of my parents’ house. We opted to ride in the RV as it was being towed. It was quite bumpy, so my wife was most thankful for the sink where she promptly tossed her Chinese.

So that’s it! Even though our first adventure ended on a sour note, we were bitten by the travel bug and we continued to push onward. Stay tuned to find out how our adventure to the Mississippi wedding went!