North Carolina........just say no

I want to first start by saying that I am sorry blogging community, I have failed you. I was enjoying my vacation too much and my selfishness got the best of me. I have not updated you on any campgrounds since we were in Arkansas. I know each and everyone of y’all waits anxiously to see my next post; some stay up all night staring at their computers without blinking, constantly refreshing the page. But, to no avail, because I’ve been holding out on you. I’m going to try and make it up to y’all. Please give me one more chance, I promise this post will not fail you. If anything, it will pass you, into a journey of unfathomable glory. Prepare yourself.

The next place we stayed after our Arkansas Experience was in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I am sure you already read everyone else’s post—the rest of the people on this blog are less selfish and more motivated in their posting—but nonetheless, I’ll elaborate. The campground was basically an RV resort in the Smokies. Every inch surrounding the campground was covered in green trees. There was an adorable little gift shop where we invested in some much-needed bug spray and I became known as the “girl who rang herself up.” I went to the store and they have an iPad hooked up to a Square reader in place of a cash register. It’s pretty self-explanatory and the lady working and I were talking about it. Later that day, Garrett wanted a soda and all the workers were busy setting up for a 4^th of July event so I checked the Coke Zero out on their machine and the lady saw me and thanked me… Later on, I was praised by other workers. Apparently I’m a go-getter in the Gatlinburg community. I’m expecting an award ceremony and building dedicated in my honor soon—I’ll keep y’all updated on my success.

The Gatlinburg campground was just perfect and I will give it 5 out of 5 RV’s.

Next came the campsite that will forever be held in our heart’s as the “crappy customer service campground.”  We pull up around dinner time and Cracky and David get out and start doing their normal set-up routine. It usually involves a lot of yelling and the imminent threat of death for David, but this usually only lasts several minutes and we’re all set up. An hour later, Garrett, Colin and I are all wondering if the rapture had taken place and we somehow got left because there was no sign of parental units and we were 45 minutes over normal time. Garrett and I decide we’ll go take a look around the campsite so we start walking. 10 minutes into our tour, Colin comes running saying, “run to the RV as fast as you can, we’re in a hurry and we’re leaving.” All I can think is that someone has killed someone and we have to burry a body and get the heck out of there. So Garrett and I start running like Usain Bolt, the Jamaican Olympian, towards Bertha. We get there to find out, something has gone down, everyone still has a pulse, but there are feelings of hostility and we’re relocating. I know my parents are nomadic in sense, but come on, we’ve only been here for an hour. At this point, I’m thinking David has lost his mind, and his nomadic instincts have taken over and we’re relocating to a different campground for new scenery. I, thankfully, was wrong. David is still semi-sane and there was a disagreement between them and the campground staff.

Basically, I want you to imagine an extremely fat person fitting into tight spandex pants. (If you sport that outfit, please stop.) Now with that image in your head, try to imagine Bertha as the fat person and this campground as the spandex—it just wasn’t working. They had placed us into a way-too-small campsite and Bertha just wasn’t having it. Mind you, before Bertha, we had the beloved Dolly, she was a smaller RV who would’ve fit in this campsite. When the original reservations were made, they were made with Dolly in mind but Cracky had gone and changed all the reservations but somehow, either by Cracky’s error or their’s, our reservation at this particular campground had not been changed. Well, normally that wouldn’t be a problem but these people were not the problem-solving type of people. They obviously received their education outside of Texas A&M and lacked common sense and courtesy. (Let’s be honest, they probably went to T.U.) These grown adults could not come up with any kind of solution for how to fit Bertha into a different campsite. This would explain the rapture scare earlier, Cracky and David had been in the office trying to reason with these common sense-challenged humans, which obviously took time. Finally, everyone came to the conclusion that they would give us a full refund and they referred us to a different campground in the area that did have a spot big enough for Bertha.

So, all would be fine and dandy if it hadn’t been for the following events. Cracky made a phone call to the campground to ensure that our refund would be processed, that night, and the lady once again reassured her we would get the full refund. But, the next morning the same lady called back and now said we were not getting our refund. Cracky was not a happy camper- literally. I thought that these people were about to be on the next CNN headline for an attack by the Mayer clan and their fighting poodles. I started suiting up in armor and I was ready to go, and I’m pretty sure Cracky would’ve let me but we got a call back. Now she was saying that we could get our money back for the 2^nd night but that we still had to pay for the first night. Cracky responded, “that’s fine, but please let your boss know that you’re the one who said we would receive a full refund—“ which then the lady responded, “FINE! I’M TIRED OF THIS, I’M GIVING YOU ALL THE MONEY BACK EXCEPT THE DEPOSIT. GOD!” Well then, I guess someone didn’t wake up on the right side of the camper van. Let it be known, however, that we have still not received that refund and I am in next in line on the who-gets-to-call-angry-pants—and I’m definitely more feisty than Cracky. So if you’re reading this, angry pants, beware. Obviously, this campsite got a 0 out of 5 RV’s.

The place where we ended up staying that fateful night was alright and did the trick but we decided we were not spending a second night in Asheville and that we were going to head towards Charlottesville a day early. Good riddance! (2 out of 5 RV’s.)

You will read more details about our adventures through the Blue Ridge Parkway from other’s posts so I’ll skip ahead to our glorious campsite we stayed in the next night.

The Mayer’s are what you might call classy people. We only expect the best and we refuse to settle for anything less than 5 stars. So, we stayed the night in a Cracker Barrel Parking lot. The next morning, like any good ags, we woke up at literally the crack of dawn to eat some country fixin’s at the Cracker Barrel. You will unfortunately not hear about this meal from Colin, because he was channeling his inner-sloth and slept through this event. All in all, I give this campsite a disqualification for the lack of campsite qualities.

So far, our camping experience had been a struggle since we had been in North Carolina, and therefore we marched onward to Virginia. Haha, who are we kidding, we didn’t march, we cruised. Virginia, like Tennessee, was beautiful. We obviously hold a lot clout in the camping community, because when we arrived, we were directed towards the “owner’s spot.” This campsite had a built-in deck with table and chairs and backed up to a small river. It was picturesque, however I don’t think of us actually took pictures, sorry, we’re failures. In Virginia, we saw Monticello, the thing on the back of the nickel, and that took a lot out of us. Garrett, Colin and I fell asleep at 7 pm and woke up at 9 am. I know, we’re inspirational. I give this campsite 4 out of 5 RV’s. (There were too many flies.)

Well, next time I update, I’ll hopefully be raving over the RV park in Maryland that we are staying at for D.C., but anything can happen when it comes to us. Alas, stay safe and use sunscreen, I ain’t got time for cancer.

Peace & Blessings, Caitlin.