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Disaster Struck!!

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Post  merrykalia Sun May 30, 2010 11:33 pm

We camped at Flag Rock Recreation Area for the Memorial Day weekend. Took our camper to Flag Rock on Wednesday evening, didn't stay, but there are only 5 sites that our 33' camper will fit in. We got our choice site and by Thursday evening there were only 3 open sites.

Anyway....on Friday afternoon, it came a "frog-strangler"!! The girls and I spent Thursday night at the camper and I took Elora to school and then afterwards, came home to get some stuff done. Jayda took a nap and Elora rode the school bus home and Butch came home. It started raining shortly after Elora got home. By 5 pm, we had hail, lightning, wind, buckets or rain, etc.

When we arrived back at Flag Rock, there were trees down on the road, leaves and limbs in the road, and looked like a war zone.

Our camper was fine, but the awning had about 80 gallons of water in it even though we had lowered one side quite a bit. Butch went to the low side and was lowering it a little more when **BANG**, the awning roller tube broke right in the middle (where I was standing), hit me in the head forcing me back into a table (with my head!) and onto the ground. Jayda (little one) was standing behind me and I shoved her UNDER the trailer!! I was not only hit in the head with the awning on the right side, but then the left side of my head hit the camper AND I got the entire 80 gallons of water (did I forget to mention that the temps had dropped to about 50 degrees by then?) dumped on top of me. I didn't think it would ever quit dumping and I sure couldn't get up!!

SOOOOOOOO, now I have a big knot on the right side of my head, a bigger knot on the left side of my head and a broken 22' awning which HAS to be removed before we can move the trailer from Flag Rock!!

Oh well, we still had a good time this weekend!! Can't wait to see how much a new roller tube is going to cost us, but at least the awning itself is still in good shape as well as both of the side supports.

How was your weekend?

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Post  Guest Mon May 31, 2010 12:45 am

Oh man, I am so sorry to read this! Really sorry to hear you got hurt!

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Post  coolbreeze1 Mon May 31, 2010 7:53 am

Sorry to hear about your awning. Glad that there wasn't any serious injuries, except for the bump no your head No

I guess now that people want make fun of me for not putting the awing out. Very Happy

I guess the one good thing is that you weren't far from home. Shocked
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Post  chuck Mon May 31, 2010 10:02 am

Nah cool.. people will still make fun of you! Disaster Struck!! Icon_biggrin

I am glad there were no serious injuries.. Makes me want to be more cautious about my awning.. I don't think I will ever leave it up if I am going to be away from the CG for very long at all. The awning on the TT is just too easy to pull out and/or roll back up.. to take any chances. I have heard too many horror stories about.. wind, rain,..etc. And now you have added another.

I guess my plan to leave the awning pulled out while on the way to the CG (to save set up time).. is probably not a good idea either.
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Post  Richard Mon May 31, 2010 2:17 pm

Knots on the head and a cold shower, burrr, and outhhhhh! I hope you recover from both quickly.
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Post  KralCamper Mon May 31, 2010 8:55 pm

Glad everyone escaped serious injury. Sorry to hear about your head. Crying or Very sad

Please let us know how the awning turns out.
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Post  merrykalia Mon May 31, 2010 9:52 pm

Well, here's an update. Butch went up after work today (yeah, Wise Co AND Norton had school today) to work on the awning. He said it was no problem at all, he just had to unscrew a few screws and then Todd (a friend) helped to remove the awning along with all the brackets, supports, etc. They then put the 22' awning inside our 33' TT by removing a screen in our bedroom window and sliding it through. We found that one of the brackets that holds the awning onto the side of the camper was also broken along with the roller tube and we haven't priced fixing it yet. We may just have to wait for a few months to save up the $ for the parts - I checked them out and they seem to be pretty expensive and it IS vacation season. The awning itself is in good shape.

Thanks for all the comments and the head is getting better - the knots (bumps) are not as noticeable as they were.

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Post  Guest Mon May 31, 2010 11:38 pm

it could have been alot worse. Glad your head is getting better. Hopefully it wont be too expensive to fix.

Our awning is electric. It is supposed to retract if it rains. However, we don't take any chances.

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Post  merrykalia Mon May 31, 2010 11:54 pm

Yeah, we are planning to look at the cost of a power awning, but not sure exactly how much it will cost to upgrade. We'll see.

BTW, Betty, we're really looking forward to Elkmont in 2 weeks!!! We hope to be pulling in about 4 pm on Friday. Elora will get out of school at 11:30 and then we will grab a bite to eat and head that way. (We never go anywhere quickly, so a 2 1/2 hr drive will be 4 hours). Hope it's warm enough to tube.

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Post  Guest Mon May 31, 2010 11:59 pm

I am looking forward to Elkmont as well! We will be there Wednesday.

As for the power awnings... I am not sure if I really like it or not to be honest. You
do not have the ability to lower one of the sides. Also, it seems smaller than a
typical awning. It does have a few advantages in that you don't have to take the
time to put it out and take it in. And, you dont have legs to walk around. However, I would be just as happy with a normal awning.

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Post  Richard Tue Jun 01, 2010 5:34 pm

merrykalia, if you guys get a new awning, instead of fixing the old one, don't throw the old one away, I may buy it from you and fix it for my camper. I sustained about a two foot rip at smokey bear and it's just held together with duck tape where it ripped.
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Post  merrykalia Tue Jun 01, 2010 5:41 pm

Richard, you know we would let you know if we had any camping items "going"!!!!

Now, I don't know about you using our awning - it's 22' long - just how long is your popup???? You could probably cut it in half and put an awning on BOTH sides of your pup!!

I'll let you know what we end up doing - I'm REALLY hoping we can just buy a new rail and put the awning material back on it. That would be the cheapest thing....let's hope it will work.

BTW - I am going to clean our TT out before we head south for vacation, so I'll let you know what's not going back in.

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Post  coolbreeze1 Wed Jun 02, 2010 8:16 am

Richard said
merrykalia, if you guys get a new awning, instead of fixing the old one, don't throw the old one away, I may buy it from you and fix it for my camper. I sustained about a two foot rip at smokey bear and it's just held together with duck tape where it ripped.


Richard always tries to take advantage of a situation, to get a good deal on something. No I think it has something to do with the newspaper business. Smile
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