It’s always interesting when you travel across the country.  I always say that there is at least one good story we take home on each trip.  Sometimes its a story about a quaint out of the place diner where you can get the best meatloaf; and sometimes it’s a story about finding the best kept secret in the area we are camping.  We have also seen some pretty bizarre things over the last 25 years of pulling our camper.  We thought it might be fun to recount some of them.  So lets get started on the list of the strangest things we’ve seen while trailering.

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  1.  We knew we were in a strange campground when the folks that checked us in spent more time pushing their pizza then getting us to our site.  Then when we left the registration office we noticed some long-term campers had clothes lines running between broken down campers, full of wet clothes.  Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a problem with clotheslines to dry clothes,  this set up though was really over the top.  Then we pulled into our site.  Directly across from us was a guy living in his tent but with a broken down lazy boy recliner next to his fire.  He spent most of the night in his recliner on a beer bender.  He also had a dog that barked all night long; unforgettable!  Fortunately this was just a one night stop for us.
  2. A major campground chain decided to do Halloween every Saturday in October.  We didn’t so much have a problem with the Halloween concept as we did with the incredible chaos that ensued.  Dogs were everywhere and not controlled.  Parents were screaming at the top of their lungs.  Finally,  the roads in the campground were so packed with people there was no safe way to navigate out of the campground.  We love kids and dogs, but this was like a dysfunctional Disney on steroids.
  3. A young family with a brand new fifth wheel camped across from us in Kentucky.  The next morning they beat us out of the campground by about ten minutes.  Later we passed them on the highway.  His fifth wheel became disconnected and had buried its nose into the asphalt.  The good news was that the family was fine, just some damaged pride.
  4. At least twice we’ve found a great campground and we do a return trip within a year, only to find the campground has become a complete disaster.  We are always stunned wondering how something so nice could turn so bad so fast.  This has made me think twice about recommending specific campgrounds since things change so fast.
  5. While camping in Indiana we had a retired couple with a brand new travel trailer pull in next to us, on their maiden camping trip.  The husband and wife had no idea how to disconnect the weight distributing hitch (I blame the dealer for this), so the wife began pounding on the hitch with a hammer.  I ran over and taught them how to remove the arms and disconnect their truck.  I then explained that nothing on their hitch should ever need to be forced with a hammer.  As I walked away I heard the wife say to her husband “I told you”!
  6. This one borders on creepy more than anything else.  At a campground in Florida we had a guy who looked like Charlie Manson approach our trailer with his girlfriend and ask if they could walk our dog.  Shana who never disliked anyone began to growl.  We would have never let anyone walk Shana let alone these two.  Obviously the answer was no.
  7. A double-decker tour bus owned by a campground we were staying at, took us on an excursion.  This bus was probably the largest piece of junk in 500 miles.  Everyone on the bus was thrilled when we arrived back in the campground in one piece.  Our kids on the other hand thought it was fantastic

These are just a few of the strange things we have seen pulling our travel trailer across the country.  What about you?