Jim Continues…
Our first night out was an adventure in itself. Our first stop was at the Paul B. Johnson state Park, which is on Hwy 49 just forty miles north of gulfport and the Mississippi Coast. Since we had just acquired the trailer and were not experienced at camping, we elected to stop at a campground early so that we could figure out how to use our trailer and how we would sleep everyone comfortably. This proved to be a wise decision.
We were introduced to cooking in cramped quarters. The stove was barely large enough for one good pot. Cooking with natural gas, a tiny sink, and a small dining area were just a few of the new comical challenges. Anyone with a large family can understand. We felt like we were the ones being cooked! At bedtime we had to split up, some sleeping in the trailer and some in the van. We owned a conversion van which had its own stove, toilet, sink, refrigerator, and double bed. The one problem we knew we had was that we were grossly overweight from packing canned goods, schoolbooks, and all of the necessities. This later added to several dilemmas; not the least of them being poor mileage.
We were certainly happy that we had the van and trailer; however, our first night out was a disaster. We did not know the rules of camping and did not have an instruction manual for the trailer. When we first arrived, the kids needed to get out and play, and it gave Janie a chance to fix dinner. It wasn’t long before it started to rain, and we all know how children love mud and water, with a mixture of camping. They were having so much fun feeding and chasing the geese around the campground that we decided to overlook the mud and mess. Little did we know that we were being primed for a grand surprise. As Janie was trying to figure out how to cook for seven in her new miniaturized kitchen, I kept trying to figure out which valve to open to let the greywater flow out of the sink into the drainage tube and how to hook up the different tubes for waste-water and toilet disposal. My first blunder occurred when I failed to open the correct valve for the sink water to exit the trailer, and we later discovered that it emptied into the shower. That should not have been a problem since the shower had a drain also, but in our case it was a bad surprise. Do to a lack of space, Janie had stored many items in the shower while we traveled. Instead of a nice hot shower after playtime, we found that we had a shower filled with wet towels, paper products, shoes, and clothing. We laugh today, but that first evening as campers proved to be a test of our commitment. The angels looking over us must have had pity in their eyes as we made one mistake after another. After much ado, we were finally able to get settled in for the night.