what will this week look like?

It's been a long and winding road, full of pot holes... and we're still not at the end.

Let me explain.

Don and I decided at the end of last summer that we wanted to to buy a pop-up camper trailer. We have had them before and could kick ourselves for selling our last one. It was perfect but we had stopped using it (youth ministry took our weekends away from us), and felt the best thing was to sell it.

When Spring finally came around this year, we started looking for a camper - mostly on Craig's List. We had been saving and had the cash. All we needed was that one camper.


It's been an uphill battle. Most of our experiences were calling the seller within a few hours of when it was listed only to find out the trailer had already been sold.

But there was also the time when the seller crashed and damaged the camper an hour or so before we were to see it. Of course, he didn't bother to let us know before we drove the hour to get there and didn't expect it to make a difference in our decision to buy his trailer.

Then there was the Sunday afternoon we were supposed to go see what seemed like the perfect camper only to get a call that morning letting us know that the something on the trailer broke and couldn't be cranked up and opened up.

And this one was the most frustrating. We were the first to call and granted the first view and opportunity to buy what looked like a beautiful pop-up. It was the Saturday before Father's Day and the buyer didn't want to meet that day or the next due to the holiday. We had to wait until Monday. Don gets off work early, we bought sandwiches for the hour and a half ride north, and were ready to go when we got the call to tell us that the wife had sold the camper earlier that day.

She had received a call from someone who wanted to come and see the trailer. She told him he could see it second after us. He then offered to buy it sight unseen. How could she refuse?

But it was that trailer that broke and wasn't able to be shown that we couldn't let go of. The sellers lived near by and we kept in contact with them, letting them know that we were still interested. They had to order a part which took a couple of weeks, but when they finally did the repairs, they gave us a call.

That was yesterday morning, and this was us yesterday evening...


The other part to this story is that this week was supposed to be our family vacation. Don took the week off and the kids chose to go camping over almost anything else. When we made these plans, we figured we'd have a camper by this date. So purchasing the pop-up yesterday was cutting it pretty close... but, hey! we did it. We have a camper.

But here now is the problem; we didn't realize until we got home last night with the trailer that the outside driving lights were not working. Don took it in this morning to be fixed, but we don't know how long that's going to take. So here we sit, on the Monday night of our vacation, not knowing what the rest of this week looks like. This may end up being the worst vacation ever. But, hey! we have a camper, and we are happy about that.