Eric’s Blog

Last weekend was an adventure.

We got tickets to go to the Penn State game and asked my friend, Roxanne, to join us. The goal was to tailgate at Beaver Stadium, but there was confusion on how to go about that. There was some information on the internet that seemed to indicate that only season ticket holders could do this. So we looked at taking the camper to a camp site near State College and just drive to the game and back.

We left home a bit later than we’d expected to, but still within a reasonable amount of time. The drive up wasn’t too bad. There was some wind going across the Bay bridge and there was some traffic that re-routed us through rural Pennsylvania, but nothing major until the sun went down.

After dark, driving on some back-country, Pennsylvania roads was sketchy. Unfortunately, there was a cat sitting on the road, looking the other way as we came over a small hill. I saw the cat and tried to swerve out of the way, but with a 10,000 pound camper being towed, swerving is tricky. I didn’t miss the cat. I’ve never hit anything living before and I only hope that the poor creature didn’t suffer. At one point, we made a sharp right turn and hit the street sign, hanging out over the road, but there was no damage to the camper.

We made it to the site after dark, where Roxanne and her friend Kari were waiting for us to arrive. We’d never had to set up in the dark before, but the staff was super friendly and helped us find our campsite. We got the camper set up and everyone situated inside safely.

The next day, we got up to the wonderful smells of breakfast cooking. We had omelettes, made and served by Kari, and got ready to leave for the game. Finding our parking area was a bit dodgy, but we found it (GPS took us on another wild ride through the Pennsylvania back-country roads). Finally, we were there, we got inside the stadium and Roxanne, who’d never been to a game before in her life, was super-excited to be there. She was almost giddy about being at the game and couldn’t stop saying how excited she was.

The game was great, and our seats were amazing! We were on the 50 yard line, behind the home sideline, about 3/4 of the way down from the suites behind us.

After the game, Roxanne and Kari left to head home. We stopped to get some food and popped by Patti and Jason’s campsite a few miles down the road from where we were camped. It was nice to visit with them, we don’t get to see them very often. We got back to our campsite around 8:00 PM and decided against a campfire since we were tired. One of these trips, we’re going to have to get some relaxation in and do our own campfire. It always seems like we cram so much into our weekend, we wind up being more tired than relaxed. lol

The trip home was a little wet and had one small snafu. The GPS took us down a road with a one-lane bridge at the end of it. We were able to fit, but we were just a little too far to the left and had to back up and pull forward enough to get through safely. We got home just in time for it to start raining and in my haste, I backed the camper up onto the pad without eyes behind me and took out the satellite dish at the house.

One thing I definitely learned is that one must have patience when towing. Take unapologetically wide turns, wave people through intersections even if I have the right of way if they’ll be in my way. When I get in a rush is when things go sideways. The last thing I want when towing the camper is for ANYTHING to go sideways.

We’re home safe and sound for three days before we head out to weekend in the Bahamas. I know I’ll have more updates for all of you when we get back.