June 26, 2021 Oshkosh 2021 Or Bust The Blog The Rehearsal

Well it’s been a week since we brought the Camper home, and it has been just an interesting time of getting to know this beast and to turn it into our own.
So one of the first things we did on Father’s Day was to re-hook up the Camper to the truck and take it over to my wife’s work to store it temporarily. While re-hooking up the Camper to the truck I had to have my wife help me, and I needed to keep checking myself to ensure that everything was hooked up correctly. With finger’s crossed we pulled away from the house and headed over to her work in Camarillo.

Upon arrival there she showed me where we could park the Camper, and after about 3 or 4 trips around the building and me trying to back it in to a parking space (and my wife yelling at me) she told me to park it long ways (which honestly made sense) in a certain area. This was done very easily and I was able to get the Camper detached from my truck in a few minutes. Yeah, it’s a lot easier to un-hook than hooking up..
During one of my weekend trips to the CBC Port Hueneme to take our German Shepard (Sargent) to play, I stopped by the RV/ Camper storage to obtain the phone number that would hopefully allow us to store the Camper on Base. Uh-Huh

The rest of the week ensued with making sure that we put insurance on the Camper and then the process began of buying and finding things around the house that we would use on our trips/ adventures.

My wife bless her heart, went through the cabinets and proceeded to pull out items that we could use. She found plastic cups, cookware, first aid kits, bed sheets, lawn chairs the list is kinda endless. BUT, we both knew that we would have to go out and procure other items too, mainly items we would need to hook the Camper up to the various services at the camp grounds but that was done later in the week.

Monday proved to be an interesting day as we were both working and my wife’s Security Manager called complaining about where we had parked the Camper and that we had to move it ASAP. Of COURSE WE HAVE TO MOVE IT NOW. And of course I did happen to call out to the MWR (Moral, Welfare, Recreation) people that run the RV/ Camper Storage at Pt. Mugu and Port Hueneme to see if we could get a space to store the Camper. I was told that there was no space available, and that I would have to be put on a list, there is a catch (there’s always a catch with the Department of Defense, BTW). While I would be at the bottom of the list, the priority would be Active Duty, Retires and then DOD Civilans (Govrnment Works), Veterans. Now don’t get me wrong I get and totally understand the rational, but the lady I was dealing just came across to me like a total bitch.
Yeah well, as my wife is sending me messages about this, I went and talked to two of our best friends (Mel and Lou) and while talking to them, the offered to hook us up with a place to store the Camper, which of course I immediately jumped at and thanked them profusely. The reason I bring this up is that my wife was also doing research and calling around to find places to store the Camper and was getting quoted about $300 per month and that was supposed to be on the cheap side. YIKES!!!!

So a shout out to Mel and Lou for the hook-up!!! THANKS GUYS!!!

It was also during this time, that I decided to procure myself some new tires and rims for my truck too. I got a decent deal on them and just needed them to get shipped and eventually put them on to the truck. (See below about my day on Friday).

I left their home and took off to go move the Camper from one place to another.

I made it to my wife’s work about 20 minutes later, and proceeded to hook-up the trailer to move it. Well the kicker here is that someone else decided to tell my wife to not to worry about moving the Camper and that it was fine where it was at. Awesome right? And while this conversation was going on my wife’s boss and her co-worker came out back to check out the Camper.. Guess Who Didn’t Bring the key’s to get inside? Yeah This Guy! Yeah I got in trouble for that..

After talking with people for about 10 minutes, I decided it was time to head home and get ready for the evening events that I had going on. Well that didn’t last too long, after just getting back onto the Ventura Freeway to head home, the wife is calling me to let me know that I had to come back and move the Camper to a new location anyway. Apparently the Security Manager didn’t want it in this location anyway! ARGH, so back I went.

After about 20 minutes I was back and we re-located the Camper to a new location and all seemed right in the world. Or was it?

Later in the evening while I was attending a meeting at the VFW Post I belong too (yeah that’s another story BTW and a long one) I noticed that I hadn’t put the ball hitch lock back onto the Camper. PANIC, yeah just a little bit. So I knew that at some point that I was going to have to go back to Camarillo to put this device onto the Camper and do it that night! But first I had to get out of this damn VFW meeting. “HERE HOLD MY BEER”

Finally getting out of the VFW meeting, I hauled buggy down the Ventura Freeway and to my wife’s work to put the ball hitch lock on and to make sure that everything was secured. It was thankfully and proceeded home to tell the wife about the nights events and about my screw up.

Now keep in mind this all happened on MONDAY! I hate Monday’s (Boomtown Rat’s). LOL

The rest of the week proceeded like normal with work and life, my wife however was itching to try out our new toy and was looking for an excuses to try it out even if it was for one night.

While at work on Tuesday, my wife sends me a message about a RV Park in Santa Barbara that we could possibly use to try out the Camper. So I checked out the place on line and it though it would be perfect, and decided to try and book a night or two there so we can checkout the systems and stuff.

The name of the RV Park is Santa Barbara Sunrise RV Park, it is located right off of the Ventura Freeway (literally). From the description on the website and yelp reviews, the park is small, but the owners were very helpful and such. So I made the reservation for one night. My wife was extremely happy about this and the plans were not in place for us to head-up for a night together.

The remainder of the week seemed to fly by, and so did the discussion about what else we would need to procure for this weekend trip..

Payday Friday’s are usually my day off from work ( however I do work on these days, it’s just the way I am). It was also the day that I decided to go and pick-up the Camper from the wife’s work and bring it home so we could load up for our one day get away/ “Rehearsal”. After dealing with a few work related issues and paying some bills and my wife nagging me via messages about when I was going to be at her work. I took off to get the Camper and bring it home. This was pretty uneventful and the mission was accomplished with in a matter of about 45 minutes total time. The traffic god’s were working with me!!

Once home, I was able to park the Camper in front of the house pretty easily (with assistance from our cousin) and get everything un-hooked and then proceeded to get my act together to get out and get some stuff done.

Prior to my heading out I called the PepBoys Tire place in Ventura to confirm that they had my stuff and to see about the cost to get my new truck tires and rims put together (Mounted and Balanced) and when I could pick them up. The kid on the other end of the phone told me, they’d be ready at 12pm. I said “Wonderful” and then proceeded to head out to do the rest of my errands.

First stop was back at Barber RV, where I picked up the “Starter Kit” for the Camper, an Extra hose, 2 ply toilet paper (yeah I know) and some more staging blocks for the levelers on the Camper. This was a pretty quick stop as it only took me a few minutes to get the stuff and I was out of there.

Off to Ventura, I stopped for a few minutes to see a friend at a local shop and shoot the breeze and then realizing the time, headed to PepBoys to get my rims and tires..

I arrived at PepBoys Ventura at around 1230pm and went inside the store, the kid behind the counter apologized and said he wanted to confirm that the tires and rims were mine and that they would proceed with putting them together and it should only take them about 20 to 25 minutes to complete.

I said “OK” and proceeded over to Big Lots to pick-up some stuff for the Camper that I thought my wife would like and of course we needed anyway. So in my quick little stop, I procured plates, bowls, cups, silverware and a really nice out door rug, and the best part of it all, was that I got it all on sale and extra discounts. WIN WIN WIN.

Then it was back to PepBoys! Oh dear lord.

Once back at PepBoys, these guys still weren’t done with getting the tires onto the rims and I had to wait another hour and a-half for this to be done!!!! Yeah not happy as the plans I had made for the remainder of the day just went out the window. So finally at about 230pm they were done with everything and I paid the bill and put the new wheels in the bed of my truck and headed home.

During the drive home, my wife ends up calling me to tell me that our cousin had stapled her hand and was on the way to the ER (yeah I’m still not sure how she did that BTW). ARGH will this day just end! After arriving at home, I proceeded to pull the tires out and change everything over. It didn’t take too long to do, but then too the wife calls me and says she left her purse at home and was almost out of power on her phone. Wonderful, so now what. It took me about an hour to get the new tires onto the truck and after doing this grabbed my wife’s purse and charging cord and battery packs, then proceeded to the hospital to drop them off. I wanted to be a hero for her.

Almost forgot, while all of this drama was going on, the RV Park called and said that the spot that we had reserved wasn’t available, due to someone having mechanical issues… However they had a couple of open spots for us and that they were going to let us pick the one that we wanted. Hell I’m fine with that and it was really nice of the people at Santa Barbara Sunrise RV Park to call and at least explain the situation.

That mission done, it was time to see about dinner for me and my mom, so stopping at the store to pick-up a few things, headed home to take care of business there and feed our little zoo of dogs and birds.

Saturday morning hit and we were off and running, took the big boy (Sargent) out to play and picked up Starbucks for the wife and cousin. Came home and started to load up the Camper for our day away from home.

The wife took the to pre-cook a really nice dinner of tri-tip, corn on the cob and home made cole slaw and we also brough a few left over’s and of course drinks and stuff.

While this preparation was happening the RV Park called and asked when we would be up, and I indicated around 1pm since that was check-in time, the young lady indicated that if we could come up sooner that would be great as there was a another couple that wanted one of the two spots that were reserved for us. I said we could be up at 11am. She said perfect!.

Told the wife we had to leave in about 30 minutes, and she says “Hold My WINE!!!” and gets her act together and we were packed up and gone with in 20. “Don’t Forget Scarlet!” our basset hound.

The trip from Oxnard to Santa Barbara is about 45 minutes (depending on the traffic) and we made it up to the Sunrise RV Park at just after 11am. The young lady in the office introduced herself to us, and showed us the two spots that they held for us. I picked Spot 11 and pulled the Camper over to it and carefully proceeded to back the Camper in with a little help from my wife.

It took us about an hour to get everything situated and hooked up, then we just took a break.. I decided that I needed another part for the RV and proceeded to try and find a local RV place here in Santa Barbara. Yeah that was not successful.

We headed towards downtown Santa Barbara and didn’t find what I thought was an RV place. So we decided to say screw it and just go hand out and walk around Downtown Santa Barbara (State Street) and check things out. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been up to Satna Barbara and things have changed a little. The cool part was that State Street was closed off and we could walk around. So with Scarlett in tow, we walked around and got lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then came back to the Camper to chill out.

Well that’s it for today, now for my next trick… The days are ticking down and getting closer to the next road trip.. That’s right VEGAS!!!! And you thought I was going to say Wisconsin…

Time to get ready for shooting pictures at Nellis, Red Rock Canyon and maybe the strip!!!!
Until next time.

Semper Fi
1/9 Everywhere
Frank