OK, time for installment 2 of The Troll Trip Report.
My apologies to those hoping for quicker installments. Maybe "live fire" was a bit strong a term. I meant installments will be delivered incrementally as the trip progresses.
There's just so much to do!
Anyway, back to the events.
As I mentioned, we're staying seven nights at FW in the 1900 loop, my departed father Pop's favorite loop. We've been assigned site 1924:
We're staying in a rented popup camper.
It's an A-frame Aliner popup:
That's me setting up camp in the first picture.
Notice that the Aliner popup camper has no soft sides. All hard shell.
It's a piece of cake to set up. A single person can do it easily in less than five minutes.
Now let me get this out of the way: When it comes to backing campers and trailers, I suck. I mean I really, really suck. I just have had zero practice. I understand all the basics well enough -- use your mirrors, hold the bottom of the steering wheel, turn the wheel in the opposite direction than you want the trailer to go, go slow, etc. But that doesn't change the fact that I suck.
So to get the popup in the site, we positioned the backend right as best I could and then I put on the tongue jack wheel and we just pushed the camper by hand into the site!
I know, I know -- newbs.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the first installment, we rented the popup from a military base, since I work on base as a civil servant. The rental rates are great, but as we're about to soon find out, there's a reason why.
For now let's just say that the base's rental facility doesn't run its business the way Kenny from Kenny's Carts does.
Speaking of Kenny's Carts, we have one reserved. So we go pick it up. And here it is:
It's in top condition! Kenny's a real professional.
He told us that there's a tendency for people to swipe his carts from their true renters here in FW. Isn't that a shame. In fact, just the night before someone had swiped a cart that had been parked up by the marina. When the true renter arrived to drive away, he was dismayed to discover it had been stolen.
Kenny said this is a very common occurrence. So he told us that if it happens to us, not to panic. He says people steal the carts all the time for joy riding and because they're lazy and don't want to walk. So they ruin someone else's vacation by swiping a cart. He says when it happens, it becomes a game of hide-and-seek to find the lost cart, but he always finds it.
Let's hope that doesn't happen to us.
Anyway, with our Kenny Cart (or is it Kenny Kart?) obtained, we can go about setting up camp.
It's a good thing I brought this:
It's my handy-dandy Leatherman Leslie bought me as a Christmas present a few years back. And mine's a real McCoy, not a cheap Chinese knockoff. Every blue blooded camper needs a Leatherman. If you don't have one, I highly recommend them. It came in extra handy while setting up.
It's got a knife in it sharp enough to shave with.
Here I am using it to cut twine for our tarp shelter:
Here I am again:
Notice the stuff. Leslie always makes sure we have everything we need and want. That's a mini fridge in the picture. Newer models of the Aliner popup have a fridge built in.
Ours doesn't. It has an "ice box," which is a fancy word for "cooler."
No thanks.
We were also sure to bring along Zoe's bed and favorite blanket so she has a place to snooze during the day. We set it out for her while we set up so she could relax after that nerve rattling car ride:
She doesn't sleep in the bed at night. She sleeps with us, of course. She's queen of the domain. Her bed is just her daytime EZ Boy recliner.
As we continued to set up, something terrible happened. I suffer from migraines. And Leslie is a chronic migraine sufferer. She gets them much, much worse than I do. But wouldn't you know it? In the middle of setting up camp and with daylight running out, I get stricken with a migraine.
So I'm forced to go lie down in the camper for a half hour.
Fortunately if I take migraine medicine right at the outset of a migraine, it goes mostly away. And it did.
So I was back out and finishing the setup.
I hung a tarp from our camper for shade:
That's why I was cutting twine. It's a bit hillbilly, but it works!
Pop had a professional canvas shelter with rope and solid steel poles with his camping gear.
I have a Walmart tarp and twine.
If Pop's spirit is along for this ride, he's slumped his shoulders, shaking his head, and heaving a deep sigh of disapproval right now.
Anyway, once the camp is mostly set up, we go inside the camper to clean it out. It was absolutely nasty inside.
A rental. Unfortunately people don't take as good a care of things they rent as they do things they own.
So we busted out the Comet and the Lysol.
And scrubbed away.
As we did this, I suddenly noticed we had visitors...
Insects.
Big, prehistoric looking flying insects.
And a big brown spider on the wall.
Now call me Niles Crane if you want, but I don't like spiders. My aunt was bitten by a brown recluse once and she almost died.
Imagine my discomfort when I saw a brown spider on the wall.
How were the bugs getting in? Did I miss something when popping up the popup? I began to investigate. That's when I discovered this:
It might be hard to orient yourself in that picture, but it's a big chunk missing out of the weather stripping that is supposed to seal the popup's walls with its roof. Without it, you're completely open to the elements.
And the bugs.
And the spiders.
And there's whole sections of it missing.
Again, this is not a Kenny Cart operation.
Weather stripping? Who needs weather stripping?
So I'm forced to improvise in a pinch:
Yes, that's black trash bag plastic stuffed into the gap.
Anything to thwart the evil brown recluses.
So with that, I'm signing off now, as it's time to take Zoe to the dog park.
Next up:
- I explore my camp site and some of the neighboring sites and discover some odd things.
- I do some comparisons of original FW vs. new.
- Then we do a bit of looping, and I explore the Meadows recreation area.
.
