Our Most Humorous Camping Trip

The first night we camped at J. W. Wells State Park on Lake Michigan shore. When we asked for a camp site at first we were told there were none open; then we were told there was one so we took it. As we were sitting by the picnic table we soon found out why there was one site left. We were sharing our lot with a mama skunk and her family.

The next day, we headed to Wisconsin Door Peninsula. As we were driving along in our old 1972 fixer-upper motor home, it began to back-fire, really bad. Mother had been lying up on the top bunk. After a few good loud bangs, mother descended down to a lower level. I asked why she had come down and the answer was, “I am getting closer to the door in case we have to bail out of the motor home.” We now proceeded to go into a continuous mode of very loud back-firing. As we were passing cows pasturing in the fields, it frightened the cattle so much they began running across the fields with their tails up in the air going full speed ahead in every direction just as fast as their legs would carry them. When we arrived in the Door Peninsula, we looked up a junk yard to try to get a part for the motor home. However the junk yard had had a fire and we were told it would be a few hours before they could find parts. My father got the duck tape out and duck taped up one of our problems. We kept on going and continued to backfire all the way, terrorizing all the cattle in sight.

We then visited the rock formations and watched people diving off the high cliffs into the water below. Next we walked out on a vey smelly pier with dead fish lying all over and decided we did not want fish for supper. We visited a nice museum, and then went back to the junk yard to get the part we wanted but it was going so good with the duck tape that we never did put that part on. We just went banging on our merry way down the road. As we were driving along meeting another vehicle, we had to slow down to a snail’s pace because there was a boy on a bicycle directly in front of us. Whe! n the other vehicle passed, we then accelerated causing a very loud backfire and scaring the boy on his bicycle out of his wits. He jumped off of the bicycle and fairly flew through the air, took a tumble in the ditch, jumped up faster than he fell down and proceeded to fairly fly through the air. We said, well we didn’t get where we were going today but we had our entertainment regardless.

 We had to pull off the road to do a little more fixing. People were very good about stopping to offer help. I think some of the people who stopped to help got quite a kick out of our adventures. After replacing points and condenser and some spark plugs the truck was still running and continued to backfire very loud. We kept on going and visited the Pot Holes in Minnesota. We then went on to visit the Mayo Clinic Museum which we found quite interesting. While walking down the street mom was star gazing looking at the tall buildings. Dad looked behind and said where is mom? We discovered she had stubbed her toe on the side walk. Dad said, “oh dear did you get hurt?” Her leg was a little skinned up but nothing bad.

After that we went to the Omni Theater where after you are seated you are not supposed to get up it. Dad got a low sugar attack so we had to get him something to eat before we could walk back to the motor home. The next point of interest was the Mall of America. We had planned to visit the Laura Ingles Museum; however dad had had enough by then. He announced we are heading home. So we then proceeded on our way to our home in northern Michigan with our burnt out valves banging all the way. Somehow we arrived home without a total break-down; the DECKER FAMILY ADVENTURES

Submitted by Elaine Decker of Grand Rapids, MI as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.

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