Since this was the first camping trip Dana and I have taken in three years, we didn't want to get too far from home, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, if Klaw decided he wanted to get sick we needed to be close to a children's hospital. Second, if the camper poops out on us, we need to be able to get home in a reasonable amount of time. This led us to Fort Monroe, VA. The RV park there is only home to 13 sites, each named after one of the 13 colonies. However, this place is great. Much nicer (level & gravel pull-in sites, grassy areas, shade) than many places twice as much in price.
Anyways, we arrive to our site, North Carolina, and, to put it nicely, Klaw does not like sitting still. I mean he really DOES NOT LIKE SITTING STILL. We are used to having to entertain the short-attention-span-man-child so we move quick. Klaw goes to the carrier and we begin setup. This is ideal since we are moving around the entire time, but he lets you know when you are loitering for too long. Too long usually is about 15 seconds. As soon as the camper is outfitted enough to get him out of the carrier we do so. He is placed on one of the king-size beds, Dana lets down the plastic windows so that he can look out and we are in good shape. Or so we thought.
Not only does Klaw not like sitting still, he also does not like being where he can't walk so the bed only holds his attention for a little time. He wants to get down on the floor. You may be saying "what's so wrong with that?" but let me tell you as much as I love our camper, the 2000 Coleman Niagara Elite, what it doesn't have is a lot of floor space, especially when that floor space is covered with three dogs who prefer the floor over their king-size bed. Klaw doesn't care and eventually neither do we. We let him on the floor and he does his best to navigate around the labyrinth that is dog. Things are great for a while and certainly this is good for us since we are trying to get dinner ready.
However, later on that first night, the Klaw found out how unforgiving the floor could be. Much like someone who has had too much to drink, Klaw, when he is tired, is not the most graceful person on his feet. Well, he decided he wanted to get to the other side of the camper, where his mom was standing, but the dogs were doing their best to prevent him from getting there and finally, one of the dogs, and I honestly don't remember which one, accidentally body-checked Klaw and he went down. Now hopefully Klaw's motor skills improve but right now his hands are not fast enough to put them in front of his face when his face is accelerating towards a hard object. This time was not different. BAM!, silence, then
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Oh yeah, I'm sure if any neighbors were asleep before this, they weren't anymore. Klaw falls a lot and we know what it takes to console him when he does. This time was no different. I picked him up, checked him out, made some stupid face and a couple of goofy noises and he was laughing again. We were good. Until the next morning. Man when the light of day hit his face, you could really see where the floor had spoken to Klaw's face. Three red, horizontal lines were evidence that the ribbed step of the slide-out floor had won.
If you look at Klaw's face right now you would swear that we are the worst parents ever. Please don't close this post and go call DFACS because Klaw is just accident prone. We love him and if there was an invisible face shield that he could wear, I'd be all for it. Until that time, our little mobile maniac is going to fall and he is going to get bumped and bruised up. I will do my best to prevent it, but it's going to happen.
The rest of the camping trip went great. We walked the dogs on the beach, or they walked us on the beach. They got lots of burrs in their fur (easy to tell when they started walking with a limp), we pulled them out and got the prickers stuck in our fingers. We had wine out of plastic wine glasses with cheese and crackers watching the sun set. Klaw fell some more and was fine. We listened to the wind howl as we tried to sleep, thinking the camper was going to blow over. All in all, a great trip. Can't wait for the next one.
