Vacation of a Lifetime (Well mine anyway)

Just over a year ago Bill and I bought a C.O.W. which stands for a Condo on Wheels. To the rest of the world we bought a travel trailer. We'd always wanted one. Well, I'm going with an overstatment there. I always wanted one, Bill would have been happy with a pop-up. It is 33 feet long, we had to buy a bigger truck to pull it, and we imagined fun-filled family vacations and weekend getaways in it. My sister is the biggest cheerleader of these things. They've owned all shapes and sizes of them and have had nothing but fun, good times, and memories in their's.

Our's is made by a company called Rockwood, but I like to think of them as Rocksinthehead. Because my trailer was apparently built by a company that doesn't have any brains.

So, on to the dream vacation. We left last Saturday. It was just the two of us. You see, our family quickly learned to hate the trailer. They are weird anyway because they all hate the beach. They're bored there, it's hot, they hate sand, can't stand the ocean...well, you get the picture. So now that our older daughter is living with us, we left everyone behind and embarked on an 8 day beach vacation. We planned this like a couple of kids trying to pull one over on their parents. We bought $75.00 in steak and were eating them hot off the grill every night except when we went to our favorite restaurant. We took our favorite DVD's, lots of wine, our hammock and our pink flamingo lights. Paradise!

Our dream vacation ended on I95 when, while driving 50 miles an hour, a car pulls alongside us and yells "Your wheel is getting ready to fall off." You see, here is a culmination of all the horrors we've had in our brand new trailer made by the Rocksinthehead Company. This thing has had something go wrong everytime we've taken it out. Every trip we've had has ended with us in the service department. Airconditioner, brakes, leaks, bearings, you name it, it's been Bill's nightmare.

We were 120 miles from our destination, but after a long 16 hour day in the broiling sun, our trailer now sits in a warehouse parking lot in Wilson, N.C., waiting for the axle manufacturer to make us a new axle because they don't stock them, it's too new a trailer.

Dehydrated, stinky, and dejected, we made our way home. Bill had to cancel his vacation leave and go back to work. But at least no one was hurt, right? I hate that statement. I'm not one of those "Things could be worse, so appreciate the crap you're dealing with" people. On Tuesday my air conditioner at home broke on the hottest day this summer. My dryer died (not really, it was an electrical circuit, but I didn't have that answer till after I paid the service call fee). Plus a million other things I wouldn't have had to deal with if I'd been in Myrtle Beach like I was suppose to be.

Part of being a grown up is dealing with the things life throws at you. Roll with it, get up and try again, keep on keeping on, every dark cloud has a silver lining, sell your trailer and admit camping sucks, whoops! Didn't mean to put that one in. :)