Where do I begin? How about some back story.
As some of you may know, Dustin and I spend most of our vacations camping. Now, let's get the whole "that's not camping" debate out of the way. You have tent camping and you have RV camping, and this is my view on the two. Tent camping is for people who enjoy wilderness and want to experience just that. It's fun, it's challenging and it definitely gives you a break from today's society. RV camping is when you tow your hotel behind you. It's a completely different kind of camping. You visit the world and have a cheap home on wheels. We don't camp to visit the wilderness, make our own fires with sticks and bath in the nearby river. We camp to enjoy the peace and quiet, the camp fires, and the s'moes, but we also camp so that we can enjoy and visit the town we're in.
Now that's out of the way, let me familiarize you with different campers. Campers can be called trailers, coaches, RVs or campers. There are many different kinds, big and small. You have the kind that you drive and sometimes tow your car behind, and then you have the ones you tow with a truck and they come in all sizes. One of the biggest and best to tow behind are called fifth wheels. Dustin has been dreaming about owning a fifth wheel since he was a little boy. His mom tells me about how he used to draw them and talk about them all through his camping years as a little boy.
Dustin and I have an ongoing joke about using the word "eventually." I learned well before we were married that we define this word differently. I learned his definition of eventually when we got our first camper. We had been camping one weekend, using his parents' camper, and we had a talk about having our own one day. The conversation ended with "eventually." Lo and behold, we had a new camper about two weeks later. So, as a joke, I got this cake for Dustin at our rehearsal dinner. (That's a fifth wheel).
In 2009, we purchased our first camper, and have enjoyed it immensely. We've gone on so many unforgettable trips; one of my favorites was to White Mountains, NH. Despite the wonderful camper we had, Dustin always admired the fifth wheels we'd pass on the highway. I would always say "eventually" when we'd see them, and I truly believed it would be just that. Silly me!
A few weeks ago, Dustin found an ultra light weight fifth wheel at a very low cost. He researched the camper and our Tundra's towing capabilities which resulted in good news. Dustin continued his tedious research and also found that the dealership would take our camper as a trade, giving us more money than we'd ever expect. After he'd done all this research, he shared the information with me (he always waits until he has all his ducks in a row). When he presented the information to me, all I could do was laugh. Eventually?! It certainly was a deal we couldn't even pass up. So, I waved my checkered flag and Dustin sealed the deal over the phone. It would be ready for pick up on Friday, July 6th. Oh, by the way, Dustin omitted that the camper was in ERIE.
Obviously, learning that the camper was 7 hours away did not result in a very loving reaction. So, what would a good husband do? He'd make it all better by making it a vacation!
There's your back story. Long, I know, but you need it to fully appreciate why we went on this vacation.
The plans:
Of course, since we booked this last minute, we had no pet sitter.... and anyone who knows me, knows that I can't leave our fur kids with just anyone. Fortunately, we have some awesome friends and we were able to have our friend Becky stay at our house Wednesday through Saturday and two more friends stop in on Saturday and Sunday. Perfect, right?
We planned to drive to Ontario, Canada and check into a campground near Niagara Falls on Wednesday. On Friday, we planned to drive to Erie to pick up our new fifth wheel, then drive back to Canada to stay for the rest of our vacation.
What really happened:
Dustin and I were off to to Canada early Wednesday morning. We'd never been to the falls or to Canada, so we were both quite excited. As we neared the border of Canada, the first thing went "wrong". Did you know Canada was a different country?? We did, sure, but we didn't take this into consideration with our cell phone usage! How silly that we were a stone's throw away from the USA and could be charged an absurd amount of money to use our cell phones. Customs were in sight and we pulled over to call AT&T to add a text message plan to my phone. We needed some way for our house sitter to be in touch "just in case." (HA!).
We made it through customs, no problem - okay, so not EVERYTHING went wrong. Our campground was not far from the border. We pulled up and we were a little less than thrilled. The campground backed up to a highway and had no trees. We were there during a heat wave.... we wanted trees! The silver lining was two fold: a) we were in the back of the campground away from the highway near some trees and b) there was a brew pub right down the street!
We set up and headed to the brew pub for dinner. Hmm.... where's the brew pub? All we saw were vacant buildings on run down streets. Where were we?! This is Niagara Falls? We continued driving, hoping to find something and we ended up going to the falls. In the run down town, there's a small commercialized area for the falls. There's a casino, Margaritaville, among many other tourist attractions. We chose to go to Margaritaville. Despite 40% of the tables being available, there was a 35 minute wait, of course. We sat at the bar and chose to order Margaritas, why not? We paid with American cash and got Canadian change back. How annoying. The atmosphere was grumpy and loud, and to make matters worse, a character walked right up to me and sat next to me at the bar. I know it was this person's job to dress up as a big goofy character and interact with customers, but characters freak me out. We talked to the bartender and learned there was a brewery near by so, we sucked down the rest of our not so delicious, incredibly overpriced margaritas and headed down the street.
We found a brewery! Yes! We sat inside and quickly realized that the AC wasn't up to par as our legs began sticking to the seat; fortunately we had delicious vanilla wheat beers to cool us down. Finally, a yummy beer, dinner and sitting still! Once we were a tad relaxed, I looked at my phone. Becky texted me. Our septic alarm was going off. Great. Not only was it going off, Riley was "flipping out" because of the alarm. When Riley flips out from a noise (typically from fireworks... oh and did I mention that it was the 4th of July; fireworks and continued dog anxiety continue later in the night) it's incredibly stressful for not only him, but the person with him. What now? We're in Canada, and our septic alarm was going off!
To sum it up, Dustin's dad (our rescue hero all the time) was able to come to the house to help out. Long and short of it, they silenced the alarm and we decided the best thing was to limit water use. Poor Becky. She had to go to her parents to shower and had to buy water bottles to give the animals water. To top the night off, fireworks were set off all around and she had to try and calm Riley down... again. It was a chaotic day both for us and at home!
Day two, we decided to see the falls. We went back to the over commercialized Niagara Falls area that was surrounded by run down streets, homes and businesses to see the hyped up falls. You spend your whole life hearing about these falls and how magnificent they are. When you Google image the falls, they live up to that idea in your head. Let me paint the real picture for you. It's 100+ degrees and there are a ton of tourists. We walked to the bottom of the hill to the fall area and there they were. Don't get me wrong, they're gorgeous waterfalls, but I couldn't help but think, "this is it?" Here's how I can explain it. Ever hear of a book or a movie that gets a lot of hype? So much hype that when you finally read the book or see the movie you think "It's not that good." In reality, it probably is that good, but the hype ruined it. I think that's what happened with the falls. They sure were pretty though; and the mist felt SO good on such a hot day.
So, there they were! The falls. I loved seeing them and I'm so grateful that we had the opportunity and resources to travel to Canada to see the falls. However, I still couldn't get over how commercialized the area was and how run down the rest of the town was as a result. It was sad. (Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the run down town.)
Dustin and I chose not to do any of the attraction activities. Aside from it being way too hot to be that close to strangers, it was way too expensive. We hopped into the car and drove around to visit the rest of the area.
First, we found a wine trail. We were excited about the wine trail, but not so excited when we were charged $10 for a tasting at the Ice House.... TEN DOLLARS!
We got a map at this winery to see the rest of the wine trail. We saw a brewery on the trail so headed straight for that. When we arrived, the windows were boarded up and it was no longer in business. Figures. We hit one more winery, purchased a bottle of wine for dinner then went back to the camper.
On the way back, we found a generating station and decided to stop; after all, most electricians/lineman would be excited to see this!
We enjoyed a nice meal with paper plates and the new bottle of wine in our plastic cups in our air conditioned camper.
The next day, we were heading across the border to Erie to get our new fifth wheel! We woke up at about 5am to get to the RV dealership when they opened. The plan was for the dealer to install the new fifth wheel hitch in Dustin's truck, we'd make the swap, then be on our way back to Canada.
We parked our camper in the dealership lot and they immediately began work on the hitch and also started getting our fifth wheel ready. We were hanging out in our camper, yes, in the parking lot and began talking. What were we going to do for the rest of our vacation? We already saw the falls, we saw some of the wineries which charged way too much for tastings, there weren't any decent places to eat that didn't rip us off, and the campground was not exactly the most exciting, entertaining campground we'd ever been to. Right then, we decided to not go back to Canada and find a campground in Erie. After several phone calls, we found another campground. Yes!
We learned, as we were waiting for our new fifth wheel, that some unexpected things came up and they were short a few hands. Doesn't that always happen? So, we were given a rental and headed to The Brewerie for lunch. It was an awesome brewery in an old train station. We highly recommend it!
After a FULL DAY of waiting, our fifth wheel was finally ready. After a very extensive walk through, we hitched up and headed the the campground. Of course, our site was in a wide open field, but boy were we excited to be towing a fifth wheel!
We set up and just sat down to relax when the power went out!!! Let me remind you that it was still 100+ degrees and these campers become heat boxes. As the sun went down, it cooled off enough that we could open the windows to get a luke warm breeze and pass time playing Catch Phrase (boy did we laugh hard). The power came on just in time for bed and for the hottest day of the heatwave expected for the next day. We woke up and discussed our plans over breakfast, just as the AC blew a circuit. Are you kidding me?! We learned that the campground didn't have enough power to support all the campers and air conditioners running. Great. It was quickly becoming way too hot to sit around, so we got ourselves together and hit the Lake Erie wine trail. This, for me, was the funnest part of the vacation. Lake Erie and all the wineries were just beautiful.
Okay, okay, so maybe not everything went wrong. The vacation had a lot of unexpected twists and turns, many of which I didn't even mention, but it was still a great vacation. We spent great quality time together, saw a lot of great sites, made the best of every situation, and had a lot of laughs. We can't wait to book the next vacation!
A big thanks to our friends and family for keeping our home and animals in tact! We're so lucky to have such great people in our lives.
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