The Bunch FINALLY Take the New Camper Out!

Lake Mineral Wells....what a great trip!

Well, we did it. We took the new travel trailer out on its first expedition. I must say I was super nervous about towing such a large trailer with such a relatively small tow vehicle. Theoretically, we are 25% below our towing max, but actually figuring what you can tow is more complicated than "my car says I can tow 9200lbs and my trailer weighs 6300 so we're good".  Once you add all of our weight inside the vehicle we are a little closer than I would like to be for our max, which traveling through flat areas is fine, but going into hilly/mountainous areas CAN cause the car to overheat.  There will be NO trips out west through the Rockies without getting a larger vehicle, or not having  the kids, but I really have no desire to head back that way anytime soon anyway. We struggled with towing the pop-up though some of those steep grades and I can't imagine how scary towing a trailer bigger and heavier than the tow car would be!  However, all my worrying was for naught. The car towed like a champ and we had zero towing issues. I do think we will invest in a transmission cooling fan just to make me feel a little better about towing in the hot weather, but so far I am very pleased with it.
          We are new to all this so I expected us to take awhile to figure out how to set everything up. D backed it into our campsite in about two minutes then we unhooked, plugged in, put the water hose on, and WE WERE DONE. No kidding, the entire process took about 30 minutes and that was just us mostly having to open the new packages and read how to hook up the water supply. Now we could enjoy our trip while we see what we would need to have the dealership fix. After setting up, we went on a hike. A 2.5 mile hike to be exact. We never feel like hiking or doing much of anything on an arrival day because we are usually so worn out from setting up that we just want to relax. It was so wonderful to have energy to want to go do something. We went on an even longer hike the next day. Back in April 2012 in one of my first blogs I wrote about our first camping trip at Mineral Wells State Park. Now, almost exactly seven years 2 tents and a pop up later, here we are camping in our new travel trailer and it was AWESOME. We had zero issues, which kind of scared me because everyone says "YOU WILL HAVE AN ISSUE WITH A NEW TRAILER". Nope, the only issue we had was the heat did not work the first night but that was our mistake since we didn't turn the gas on. After the heat issue was resolved, it was all smooth sailing. We could not have asked for better weather or a better trip. It was perfect. We can't wait for more fun trips.

We arrived.

We set up.

We are happy to be in our trailer.

Our View

Hike #1

I left the optional rock climbing for the boys to handle. If I had to climb it to keep going I did, but other than that I was not rock climbing.

We even had a camp fire (no smores much to the kids disappointment)

We reached the half way point of the first hike about 1.29 miles.

Hike #2 had a lot of stairs and rocks to climb, but it was beautiful.

My little mountain goat wanted to climb all the formations.

He also wanted to explore all the little caves, but without proper equipment we didn't let him do that. Caves are really dark.

So much fun exploring the park.

It was a lot higher than it looks.

We had such a wonderful time.

This nice flat well worn trail is NOT a representative example of most of the trails.

This entrance connects to a 20 mile trail that goes into Weatherford. We did NOT hike that far!

T had been complaining of an earache before we left, but I could not take him in to the doctor because it was spring break. The doctors follow the school schedule in the country. Unfortunately, it did rupture while we were camping, but it didn't hurt him. I thought that was weird since when my eardrums rupture it is excruciating. I took him to the doctor when we came home and it turns out that his eardrum did rupture, but he did NOT have an infection. I guess that's why it didn't hurt him when it tore. I didn't even know your eardrum could rupture without being infected. He is on steroids to help it dry up even though his "Boy's Body book says that steroids are bad for him".

I like our town doctor. The kids see one of them and D and I see the other. They are both fantastic.

L celebrated her long and much talked about 13th birthday. Her party is this weekend and she is super excited. She wanted to get donuts for breakfast (I never allow donuts except on special occasions), have Zoe's for lunch, and watch 13 Going on Thirty. We have big plans for the rest of today.

Happy 13th L!