Rolling in the Pop Up

We journeyed south this past week…to a destination that is loved and praised by all Hillbillies…

Myrtle Beach, SC.

I think it is born into us to desire to journey to this crescent of sand and set up our own Redneck Riviera. It is ingrained in us, that this beach MUST be visited multiple times during our lifetime.

Don’t believe me…check out the license plates, shirts, hats, and stickers on vehicles next time you go. If it doesn’t have a WV license plate, the chances are, somewhere on the vehicle or the driver, or a passenger, is some sort of WV wear. It’s required. Its somewhere in the laws of West Virginia that you must wear some sort of WV wear while visiting other states…or Wal Mart. Either one.

And if you live out of state, you must put a sticker, a placard, something, identifying yourself as bleeding blue and gold.
Again, it’s required. Take a look around.

We loaded up our pop up and headed south on Friday. The seven hour drive was made much easier by the constant stopping to let the potty training toddler go potty. The checking of lug nuts on said camper EVERY TIME WE STOPPED…still not sure WHY that had to be done, but ok. The popping open of said camper nearly every time we stopped because The Husband packed everything I needed to get to (juice, wipes, snacks) IN the camper…I got good at crawling in.

We ate our required dinner at the Waffle House. Exit 195 in North Carolina. Not sure of the name of the town. But the employees were super friendly, the food was good, and business was so slow, that the cooks and waitresses hung out outside and smoked while we ate. Only our waitress stayed inside…I guess to make sure we didn’t take off with some breakfast goods. She was nice enough…and The Toddler ate like we hadn’t fed him animal crackers, goldfish and his fill of Ritz crackers on the way there.

The Toddler dozed off a few hours later, sometime during Barney on the DVD player, and we rode on in to Myrtle…arriving at our campground destination at midnight. (Ocean Lakes Campground if anyone wants to look them up. We did look around at others while we were there. Lakewood wouldn’t let us on to look, so mark them off. And Pirateland looked quite scary, run down, and backwoods. I’m from the backwoods, and I assessed this place as ‘um no’ and we left.)

Popped up the camper, got it sorta level…as level as you can after midnight, in the dark, in a dirt site. Plugged it in, fired up the A/C. Carried in and put The Toddler to bed, unpacked essentials, visited the bathhouse…crawled into bed…shut our eyes…

And…

Wait for it…

Wait for it….

The air conditioner died.

Yup…DIED.

Threw its legs straight up in the air…and died.

After midnight.

In a campground.

At the beach…

I could have cried.

The Husband sat up, I sat up…The Toddler, thankfully, snoozed on.

“This thing doesn’t have a thermostat does it?” I said…HOPEFULLY. Really HOPING that it did. That it was a fancy pop up camper.

The Husband stood up…took a step, and checked…Nope.

DEAD.

I just sat there…and then started unzipping canvas. And thought about crying. What else were we going to do?

The night breeze was ok…it was muggy, and the security golf cart driving around kept waking me up…but all in all … it wasn’t bad.

Dawn broke…early…too early. Especially when you have the windows down in the thing you are sleeping in, beside a road, outside, in a campground.

The Husband roused up, and went to the office to see if we could get service. While he was gone, The Toddler woke up…too early…and wanted Barney. Ok…I’ll plug in the DVD player and plop you in front of it while we try to figure out what to do. I had no idea how much a new A/C unit cost. I had no idea if they could repair ours. I just had no idea. I didn’t’ want to unpack and set up camp. I did look up the resort that we normally stay at and was prepared to call them right up.

DVD player won’t work. Huh?

So I plug it into another outlet and it fires up.

Hmmmmm…..

So I try it again….in the outlet that the A/C plugs into…NOPE.

Ah ha…I’m a dork.

The Husband pulls in as I am crawling around in the floor of the camper trying to find the fuse box. He asks what I am doing…really…what does it look like I am doing?

“Hand me a screwdriver” I say…pop open the fuse box, flip the breaker for the A/C. She fires up…we’re golden!

And that folks, is why you take your Hillbilly wife to Myrtle Beach in a pop up camper, in August. She’ll figure out a way to fix that A/C…or call the nearest fancy resort and move over there. I’m not picky…but I have to have my A/C.

More to come later….