We love going on adventures as a family. We DO NOT love making hotel arrangements, eating powdered eggs at the free “continental” breakfast, leaving our dogs at the kennel, the non-homey feel, the fear of taking a few new friends home in the form of bedbugs, or the 1 ply scratchy toilet paper.  We wanted to take our home on the road when it was adventure time.  We also wanted to incorporate more weekend adventures into our busy lives.

So, the mission to find a pull behind camper began.  It was a short mission, mostly because Joe was the Operations Commander.  While I was at work, he was rapid fire messaging me with camper after camper.  I provided what limited input I could.  By the time I had arrived home from work, he had all of the pictures of our potential adventure mobile up on the 55 inch television.  A measly iPhone wasn’t going to cut it to show the grandeur that these campers embodied.  By this point, Joe was giddy as a school boy in a candy shop.  I could see the gears turning as our future camper life played out in his mind.  His excitement was contagious.  We looked through all of the pictures and narrowed it down to 2 campers.  One was brand spanking new that we could drive off (I suppose ‘pull’ is a better word) of the lot that same day.  The other one was a couple of years old and being sold by a retiring Marine who wanted to upgrade to a fifth wheel.  Of course the Marine brotherhood is strong and Joe instantly gravitated towards the second choice.  In less than 12 hours of finding the camper, he had already arranged for us to see it over the weekend.  In another 36 hours (before even seeing  this 32 feet of pure awesomeness on wheels) he had arranged payment.  You know, “just in case.”  I should have known better than to expect anything less from this “always prepared” former Marine.

As we would quickly learn, the camper community is amazing.  The family was so gracious and just as excited for us becoming first-time camper owners.  As Joe got the tour, the specifics, the whats and hows from the seller, I was an eager student as his wife was sharing the ‘must haves’ when traveling.  Two hours later we were on the road taking our adventure home to our brick home.  Of course on the way, we stopped to pick up a Christmas tree.  It was a festive day for The Buck Family.

When we arrived, we quickly ascertained the challenge of backing up a camper down a narrow driveway from a narrow road.  Our new way to experience fun was one slight turn into the ditch on either side of our driveway from disaster and A LOT of cursing. Oh, and did I mention, this was all taking place after sunset.  We do love a good challenge.  I am ill suited to be the one who is providing direction via flashlight to “help” back this beast up.  I’m sure my facial expressions were pretty amusing or concerning depending on how you look at this.  And the camper made the WORST screeching noise when the Dodge and the camper looked like an L.  I was sure we were going to break our camper just by parking it and we hadn’t even gone anywhere yet.  Alas, after a lot of reverse, forward, reverse, etc., the entire camper was safely in our driveway.  As I’m getting our littlest Buckaroo out of the truck, out of the corner of my eye I see Joe with a machete going towards some tree branches.  It definitely seemed like a great idea to be swinging a very sharp object around in the dark….said no wife ever.  Apparently, some limbs needed to come down so the camper could fit into it’s new parking space.  Okay fine, swing the machete all you want.

Once the camper was parked, unhitched, and the stabilizers put down (camper set up and breakdown coming in a future post) the kids couldn’t wait to get in it.  So, we spent the next hour playing in the camper and getting excited about all of the adventures we hadn’t even planned yet. Later after getting the kiddos to bed, we BOTH were like little kids in a candy store deciding where our very first adventure would take us.

Some people have a getaway home (sort of like a getaway car, except legal). We have a camper. So this is where it all begins. We will never be anchored to just one destination when adventure calls our name. The experiences and memories are limitless.