When our children were small, we always had a pop up camper. Such wonderful times we had in the little camper. Now we have grandchildren. We decided we would buy a new pop up camper. We had it for just about one year, and decided we are too old for a pop up. So, we traded it for a 2005 Southwind motorhome.
We were very nervous about our move up in the camping world. We had lots of new things to learn about our RV. We decided our first trip in the RV would be to a park only about 30 miles from the house, and about 45 miles from our RV dealer- just incase we had questions or needed help. We took 2 of our grandsons. One of our grandsons is Eli who had just turned 3.
All went well, until it was time to come home. We could not get the key into the ignition. Now we had the jacks down and the slides out and we could not get the key into the ignitions. We were stuck! We tried all the keys, but none worked. We looked thru the owners manuals – no help. Other campers tried to help, but none had this problem before. We called our dealer. We talked to two technicians. One said, just take a hammer and hit the key. The ignition is broken anyway. (Sure glad we did not take that advice.) The other technician said, well maybe there is something in the ignition.
Rick, the grandfather, said our 3 year old grandson had been playing bus driver, but what could he had put in the ignition. Then there was this little sweet voice in a cute little whisper said “paper clip”. Sure enough Eli had put a paper clip in the ignition. We fished the paper clip out with another paper clip. We put the key in, the slides in and the jacks up, and were on our way. It only took us 3 hours to uncover the problem. Now the lesson we learned on our first RV camping trip is “No one plays bus driver in our RV!”
Submitted by Cindy Fields of Somerset, KY as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.
Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!