The Great Weeble Experiment: Can We Actually Leave Organized?

The plan for this week was a trip to Little Beaver State Park in Beaver, West Virginia.

When Mrs. Weeble and I started planning this adventure, we still had vivid memories of our last trip. You know… the one where we forgot the dog bowls and Pennie’s medication. That little incident may have shaved a few years off our lives.

This time, we vowed things were going to be different.

Of course, every one of our trips is different, but I digress.

Our mission was simple: have a camping trip with as few hiccups as possible. To accomplish this seemingly impossible task, I broke out checklists for just about everything. Things to pack. Things to do. Things to double-check. Things to check after we’d already checked them.

This time we were going to be organized!

Tuesday, I headed to the grocery store to gather supplies for the trip. Before leaving, I asked Mrs. Weeble what she wanted for meals.

“I don’t know.”

That has become her standard answer over the years.

So I asked again.

“I don’t know… surprise me.”

Now, there must have been a mischievous grin spreading across my face because she quickly added, “But none of that weird stuff you like.”

Drats. Foiled again.

I settled on traditional camping fare. Hamburgers, hot dogs, Italian sausage, boneless chicken thighs, bacon, breakfast sausage, eggs, and pancake mix to go with our maple syrup.

Then I wandered past the refrigerated dough.

That’s when I spotted the cinnamon biscuits.

Wait a minute… this campground has electric hookups.

Electricity means the convection oven works.

Into the cart they went.

The grocery store, however, had apparently decided to rearrange itself overnight. Entire aisles were empty, products were scattered everywhere, and finding anything had become less of a shopping trip and more of a scavenger hunt. I’m convinced they move things around just to make sure retired people get their daily exercise.

Eventually, I escaped with everything on my list and immediately loaded it into the Weeblemobile.

I wasn’t taking any chances that something important would get left behind.

Wednesday became “Checklist Day.”

Everything that went into the Weeblemobile received a satisfying checkmark on the list.

So far…

So good.

Our plan was to leave Thursday morning at 10:00.

Thursday arrived.

I packed both CPAP machines, our pillows, medications, power cords, and enough charging cables to power a small city.

Then I asked Mrs. Weeble for about the tenth time, “Do we have Pennie’s pills?”

“Yes.”

Five minutes later…

“Are you sure we have Pennie’s pills?”

“Yes.”

A few minutes after that…

“Pennie’s pills?”

By this point, I think she was considering hiding me instead of the medication.

Just to be safe, I grabbed another dog bowl, even though there were already three of them in the Weeblemobile. Apparently, after last trip’s embarrassment, I had developed Dog Bowl Anxiety.

Finally, everything was packed.

Mrs. Weeble looked at me.

I looked at Mrs. Weeble.

“You think we have everything?”

“I think so.”

I wasn’t trusting either of us.

Out came the checklists one more time.

Satisfied that we hadn’t forgotten anything, we climbed aboard, fired up the Weeblemobile, backed down the driveway, and headed for the street.

As I shifted into Drive, I glanced at my watch.

9:45 a.m.

We were fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

I nearly drove back into the driveway just so life would make sense again.

Somebody mark the calendar.

That may never happen again.

Looking back now, I probably should have realized that being fifteen minutes early was simply the universe lulling us into a false sense of security. It was giving us just enough confidence before reminding us that this was, after all, another Captain Weeble adventure.

We headed across the Baltimore Beltway toward I-70 before cutting across to I-81 near Frederick on one of those four-lane highways that’s mostly 60 mph… except for the occasional traffic light that seems determined to ruin everyone’s day.

Sure enough, we came over a hill toward one.

It turned yellow.

I hit the brakes.

And kept braking.

Then braked some more.

At that moment every driver knows exactly what’s happening. You’re caught between stopping… and admitting defeat and flooring it.

Had I been alone, I probably would have gone through.

But Mrs. Weeble was riding shotgun.

Experience has taught me that surviving the yellow light is much easier than surviving the discussion afterward.

So I stayed on the brakes.

That’s when you begin hearing sounds inside the motor home that no RV owner ever wants to hear.

Bang!

Something hit the floor.

Something else slid.

Something landed beside Pennie.

Pennie never even opened an eye.

Neither did Sophie.

Buster looked over his shoulder as if to say, “Well… this trip just got interesting.”

Mrs. Weeble immediately wanted to know what had fallen.

I politely explained that I was a little busy keeping 12,000 pounds of motor home under control and couldn’t exactly get up to investigate.

Later we discovered the culprit.

The folding table stored at the end of the bed had decided it wanted to see the front of the coach.

Thankfully, that was the only casualty.

Not long after reaching I-81 southbound, I spotted a familiar sign with a beaver on it.

For a split second, I thought maybe we were already seeing signs for Little Beaver State Park.

Nope.

It was Buc-ee’s.

Well… if we’re headed to Little Beaver…

…it only seemed right to visit the other famous beaver first.

Priorities.

We pulled in, parked, and immediately took the pups for a walk.

The dogs wasted no time taking care of business.

Mrs. Weeble then announced that she also needed to visit the restroom.

Being the helpful husband that I am, I pointed toward the perfectly functional bathroom inside the Weeblemobile.

She gave me that look.

“If you think I’m using the RV bathroom when Buc-ee’s has one of the cleanest bathrooms on Earth… I can wait.”

Fair enough.

A few bags of Buc-ee’s Nuggets later, all was once again right with the world. It’s amazing what a bag of Beaver Nuggets can do for a person’s outlook on life.

Mrs. Weeble then took over driving duties and enjoyed about an hour and a half behind the wheel while I relaxed in the passenger seat.

Eventually, we rolled into Little Beaver State Park.

I parked behind a trailer from Ohio while checking in at the ranger station.

The ranger explained where our campsite was located.

“It might be a little confusing.”

Whenever someone says that, what they really mean is…

“Good luck.”

I was shown the route on a map.

Was I given the map?

Of course not.

We eventually found our campsite… only to discover I was approaching it from the wrong direction for backing in.

No problem.

I simply drove around the loop to line everything up.

When I came back, that same Ohio trailer was sitting in front of my campsite.

I told Mrs. Weeble, “He’s probably just turning around.”

He wasn’t.

He had pulled straight into my back-in campsite from the front and had nowhere to go.

I sat there wondering what the plan was. Unless he intended to invent reverse-forward, there wasn’t an easy way out.

Now, I’m not one of those people who can whip out their phone and instantly start recording. By the time I find the camera, unlock the phone, and figure out which button I’m supposed to push, the exciting part is usually over. If I had been one of those people, though, this might have made for some pretty entertaining video.

He tried pulling forward a little…

Then backing up a little…

Then pulling forward again.

The gentleman camping across the road finally walked over to help

Why didn’t I?

Mostly because I was standing there about fifty feet away with my mouth hanging open, trying to figure out what exactly

I was watching.

After a lot of pointing…

A little more pointing…

And what looked suspiciously like an interpretive dance…

The driver finally backed out into the road and drove around the loop…

You know…

…the same thing I had done five minutes earlier.

With the site finally clear, I backed the Weeblemobile neatly into place, put it in park, and shut off the engine.

As I started setting up camp, the fellow in the neighboring campsite smiled and said, “You backed that in pretty well. I was hoping for some more entertainment.”

I laughed.

“Don’t blink,” I told him. “You just might get it.”

He didn’t know it yet, but he’d just checked into Camp Weeble… where the campground entertainment is absolutely free, and half the time we’re the main attraction.