Lessons Learned

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

allisonandrews

Senior Cook
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
191
Location
North Central Texas
We had a very educational camping/boating trip this weekend, and I though I could be kind and share some of our lessons learned.

1. When the wind picks up and the sky begins to grey, put up your awning. Luckily, we did this and got to witness the aftereffects of the "lesson learned". The guy ended up on top of his camper with a sledge hammer trying to get the poles to fold up so he could leave. (The only thing new on our camper is our awning, so we take it up often and don't take chances of the wind getting it.)

2. Sometimes, when you are out in the boat and there is another boat headed straight towards you, there might be a reason. Hence, try to see who is in the boat before you begin cussing them out for coming too close. Yes, our friends we bought the boat from bought a brand new boat and found us on the lake. They were trying to catch up to us as we were trying to allude them. Finally recognized them and everthing made sense. We just muttered a few choice words about their driving skills before the recognition.

3. Secure your lifejackets. We bought two new additional life jackets for this weekend. Hubby crammed them under a back seat. Our good life jackets made the ride safely, but the two new ones blew out on the way - never even got used.

4. Alcohol plus pants plus a boat with a really deep hull plus night time equals a less than graceful dismount. Our boat is fairly easy to get out of. We can beach it pretty far up and the water is normally around shin to calf deep. Well, one night we went for a ride in a friends boat pretty late at night. We had been drinking, so our coordination was not the best (the three riders in the group - not the friend that was driving the boat). Well, about 11:15pm or so, we decide to go back, so they pull the boat up into our cove. Well, I have forgotten that we are farther out so that the water is now deeper and it is a much further drop down. Also, I am wearing pants that were wet earlier and now are just sticky. As I tried to slide off the front of the boat, my pants caught and I slid sideways and basically just fell on my back in the water. So, I was soaked head to toe. Our friend with us laughed at me, so I grabbed him around the neck and threw him in the water. Then my husband laughed at him, so he went after my husband and tackled him. We were all soaking wet and had sand all over us.

5. When someone tells you that you can touch somewhere, don't always believe them. My husband hopped off in what he though was waist deep water and went under a foot or two. He popped right back up holding his hat. He took two steps and was in waist deep water. Apparently there are some holes/dropoffs in that lake.

6. Take the key out of the boat or at least remember to tun it off. We went to pick up the boat on Monday and David had left the key turned on and the battery was dead.

7. Make sure your toe rope does not get hooked around your swim ladder. Ours did and ripped off the last two boards. Hubby spent all day yesterday fixing that one.

There were lots of other adventures and we had a blast, but there were lots of silly mistakes. We even had a brisket that wasn't half bad. It was wrapped in foil and cooked over a campfire for a few hours.
 
Sounds like you learned a lot this weekend. Here's something new I learned while camping................

Amish go camping, too! Yep, that's right, while my family was roughing it in tents, the Amish were living it up in a camper with running water, electricity, golf cart, and tons of games to play. It was something else to see all 7 kids and the parents load up on the golf cart to go down to the lake. They were back and forth on that golf cart every 10-15 minutes it seemed. Guess they were enjoying not taking the time to hitch the horse to the buggy.
 
It was a fun weekend. I only wish home base could have been at our campsite instead of at the other campsite. (We have a bathroom in our camper, they do not and the ones waaayy far up the road from them were nasty. Everyone else was just peeing in the lake, but since I don't like to be in the lake, I was the lone one that had to drive to the potty every few hours. Much easier just to go inside the camper.)

As I said, our swim platform has been repaired. Luckily it broke off in a big chunk. It was sort of spectacular to see the deck rip off and watch the tiny little girl we were pulling on the kneeboard take a dive.

There were a lot of making fun of hubby moments. We actually could have done major damage getting the boat out, but luckily I was driving the truck and hubby was outside on the boat ramp. He pulled the boat up onto the trailer, but did not raise the motor all the way. Luckily, he heard it begin to scrape and I stopped the truck quick enough that it just barely scuffed the bottom. However, if he had been the one driving, he would have never heard it scraping until the damage would have already been done.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom