All though I
was born in raised in Oklahoma, camping with first my parents and then of
course my family, I have personally never stayed at Ft. Gibson Lake. My parents, and now us, owned property on
Grand Lake, so that was where we threw our blankets on the ground to
sleep. Later after Keystone Lake was
built we went there. So this campground
was a new experience for me.
Gary on the
other hand spent a lot of time camping on Ft. Gibson, Grand Lake and Tenkiller.
Mainly Ft. Gibson, so he was familiar with the area. Neither of us had been here in our 43 years
of marriage, so needless to say it had changed some since Gary was last there.
Despite rain
and a really rough section of highway 69 in Oklahoma we arrived well before
dark to set up camp, boy am I glad we did.
When Gary
had reserved this site, #75, he had looked at the photos of it and knew it was
slightly sloped. He also knew it was long enough to accommodate our set-up.
However, we had gotten so use to the big upgraded campsites in Arkansas and
Missouri he forgot to check the width.
Let’s just say I am very proud of how well he parked it.
Yep, that
clearance on the driver’s side slide is barely and inch, and that was with him
sitting so far back on the ancient asphalt pad putting the rear stablizers down
would be a tricky proposition.
Some of you
may ask why we didn’t pull further forward and park the truck at an angle, or
on the grass as many of our fellow campers did.
Two words “picnic table”.
The concrete
table and benches sit so close to the pad our kitchen slide would not have
cleared it.
Why not
further back then? Because then we
wouldn’t have been able to get out the camper door.
The final set-up had us stepping off the camper steps onto the table
pad, then down to the pad. Actually this
was pretty handy because otherwise that final step would have been a bit of a
stretch for my short legs.
Once we were
certain that we would clear on all slides, using the knotted rope system of
measurement we rolled the slides out.
For some of
you newer folks I guess I should explain the knotted rope system. When you get a camper with a slide(s)
clearance on obstacles around your trailer/motor home/pop-up can become a
concern anytime you set-up. That’s where
a piece of rope, or clothesline in our case, comes in. It’s a handy “yard stick” that is easy to
store and easy to use.
To make one
you set-up in an area that you are certain your slides will clear then tie a
knot in one end of the rope. This is
your start point. We leave a tail end on
each end of the rope to hold on to when measuring for a more accurate
measurement, because you never know…an example was this set-up where an inch
could have made a major difference.
Hold the
starting point knot touching the trailer/motor home/pop-up. Then stretch the rope out as level as
possible to just past the edge of the slide when it is fully extended. Knot that end, leave a piece to hold on to
and then cut it off.
This next
part is VERY important. LABEL it. All knotted ropes look the same. You are going to make one of these for each
slide on your unit and you don’t want to mix those ropes up. Ours has a tag on it made with white duct
tape (a very valuable asset when you have a white camper—don’t ask how I know)
and a permanent marker.
Store all
the ropes together in a place on the camper that has very easy access for all
future set-ups. This little measuring
tool can help you prevent some unhappy situations. Just be certain you look all the way up that
the tree doesn’t curve toward your camper especially if you are in a situation like we
were.
Then when
you go to set-up measure from the side of the camper to the obstacle with the
proper knotted rope for any slide you are concerned about. This saves both time and money (you don’t want
to have to repair a slide you know).
Back to our
set-up. Even though we had measured with
the rope we take precautions when it is as close as we knew it was going to be
that day. So Gary stood outside watching
the living room slide go out and signaling me through the window when I needed
to start or stop the extension.
That’s when
it happened there was a LOUD clattering and a SPROING! Startling both of us
tremendously. Our first thought was the
slide had hit the tree. Only Gary was
standing right there and could see we were still in the good clearance zone
when the noise happened. I stopped moving the slides immediately and rushed out
to see what had happened.
It took us a
little bit to figure out that one of the less than a year old slide toppers had
broken. The sproing sound was the
tension releasing as the awning came disconnected from the trailer, putting a
small hole in the awning. We both stood
and stared in disbelief. Now what?
After a bit,
when we had gotten over being startled, we tried running the slide back in,
thinking maybe Gary could re-attach it.
Nope, not with the tension being released and a couple of parts
missing.
This created
another problem. Sooner or later we
would need to break camp, and that topper was laying on the slide.
Insert
photo of topper on slide.
Luckily we
were less than two hours from our dealership and the topper was still under
warranty. The dealership was, of course,
closed for the day by that time. I
called them the first thing the next morning before leaving for the first of
the various appointments we had gone back to Oklahoma for. Because it was so
late in the week they couldn’t look at it until the following week. That’s good because we had already paid for nine
nights and didn’t really want to break camp to take the unit in after we had
worked so hard the night before setting up.
Instead,
Gary checked youtube and found out how to take the topper off, turned out it
was just two screws because it had already released on the outside edge. The tricky part was the very sloped uneven
ground and using a tall ladder on that ground.
Before
climbing up on the ladder Gary used our selfie stick duct taped (there is that
ever needed duct tape again) it to a broom handle then put our camera on the
selfie stick to look at the topper and roof to see what type of screw driver he
would need.
While he
held the camera high I used his phone as a remote to snap the photos.
Insert
another topper photo here
Normally we
would have used the quadcopter to do this job, but this particular park would
not give us permission to fly the quad and even if they had the tree branches
over the tree would have been a problem for the photos we needed.
Once the
topper was down we took it to Tulsa to the dealership on one of our appointment
days and dropped it off so they could get started on the repair while we
finished up our nine nights at the campground.
We spent the
majority of our time at the camper writing, listening to audiobooks and walking
around snapping photos with Gary’s new camera.
Wildlife,
especially
birds are abundant here.
Of course the camera has a video feature. Gary missed a great take off and flight of the geese, so we settled for a trial video of them swimming off when a fisherman disturbed them.
On one such
walk we walked down and around campsite #94.
It and several others in that area looked recently refurbished, longer
and wider concrete pads, table area further from the camper and the water up
near the electrical box instead of down the hill and 100 ft or so away as ours
was.
Between our
various appointments and visiting with our son we didn’t get to see any of the
local sites, but decided while we waited on our camper repairs to be done we
would try to visit some of them in the days that followed as we moved back into
the farm house.
Jan who is
back in OK for longer than she planned to stay.
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