Here are few things that can take a camping trip from...
Great to Good
1. Seeing your team lose, live!!! While Oklahoma is my team, I still follow and support Georgia Tech (I actually spent more time at GT than OU). When a college friend was selling tickets to the GT-UVA game, Dana and I decided to purchase two and take the opportunity to go camping. I figured this would be a perfect game to go to. GT was highly ranked, undefeated, and playing a Virginia team that hasn't had a good football team since 1990. Surely, this would be in the bag. Yeah, not so much. While our seats were great, everything about Georgia Tech's play was terrible. They came out flat and made UVA look like they were the ranked ones. Can I get my money back, Ashley?
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| Dana being smug because GT is losing. |
2. Lack of cell phone coverage. So camping in the foothills of the Appalachians, while beautiful, isn't cell phone friendly. I'm not normally one for needing cell phone coverage while camping, but we left the dogs at home for this trip and I was a bit curious on how they were doing. If there had been a problem there would have been no way to contact us. Fortunately for the free wi-fi at the campground, we were able to communicate via messaging on Facebook.
3. One lane gravel roads. Due the lack of cell phone coverage, we were unable to find out if one winery, Sugarleaf Vineyards, was accessible for a truck towing a camper. We decided to risk it and let me tell you, it was stressful. This one lane gravel road was the worst road I have been on in a long time. Plenty of potholes and plenty of blind bends. Fortunately for the trip to the winery we encountered no other traffic. We were not so lucky leaving the winery. Backing up with a camper is not easy and I'll leave it at that. We came out unscathed but I don't need any more gray hair.
4. Crowded campgrounds. When we go camping, we don't come to socialize with the other campers and, frankly, would rather be the only people out there. When we made reservations, there were only three spots left so I knew this was going to be a crowded campground and boy was it. It was kid hell, as I had to dodge little Hell's Angels as I walked to the restroom. For further reading on why this sucks, see number 5 below.
5. Loud, Drunken Rednecks. As if crowded campgrounds aren't bad enough, throw in Billy Ray, his first cousin/wife Bobbie Sue, their 12 chil'ren, and plenty of Busch Light and Boone's Farm and you've got a recipe for disaster. Oh yeah, did I mention they were our neighbors? Quiet hours evidently didn't apply to these asshats as they sang Skynyrd and loudly laughed into the wee hours.
All in all, it was a good trip. Honestly, take away the rednecks and the Georgia Tech loss and it would've have been a great trip.
If you camp, what are your camping pet peeves? Do you have any funny or harrowing stories to share?
