Barely home, we’re not even unpacked, but already we are off on another adventure. We’re fortunate for the opportunity to join friends at their parents Wisconsin farm. They like the RV life as well and pull a heavy duty Fifth Wheel. We planned, packed and pushed off about dinner time on Friday, convoying down the highway, with me bringing up the rear. It was a slow go through rush hour. Getting to the Wisconsin border took forever.   When we stopped for gas, they announced we have to make a pit-stop to pick up the grandkids. It will take an hour out of our way and another hour to get back on track.

“Maybe us girls should go straight there and get set up?” June suggests.   What a grand idea. I never have a human in the passenger seat with me when I’m pulling the Toy Hauler. What a glorious treat that would be!

“And Randy can go get the kids.”

“Great idea, June, I’m game!” I reply.

Randy agrees. She jumps out of their truck and into mine. Off we go, parting ways at the next cloverleaf.

How do I describe having company on the road? Grateful, excited, comfortable, happy, entertaining, and so much more! As the sun set behind us, we talked and talked and laughed into the night.   Two hours flew by like ten minutes.  By 10:00 we arrived to the family farm exit.

June began articulating instructions about half a mile from our exit.

“Make sure you go slow. It’s the first driveway on the left. It’s really dark, and it’s tricky. There’s no light. You can look for the big sign, but it’s pretty dark. There’s the exit.”

I merged off the highway onto the simple county road and began to slow down.

“Well not that slow….” She laughed.

Within minutes I could see a large sign on the left side of the road. That must be it.

“It should be coming up….oh, there it is! Turn here!”

I slowly turned into the narrow, pitch dark, dirt driveway and inched along, noticing an open field to the left, an RV to the right, a building to the left, and one straight ahead. It was so dark!

“When you get around this building, just pull up along the garage and we’ll plug you in right there for tonight. Randy can move everything in the morning.” June had it all under control.

“Okay.” I swung wide right to avoid the building on the left. There was a huge open area between the house, and a cow barn.   It appeared to be gravel and mud. As I tried to straighten out into that open space, it became more difficult to move forward. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the dirt ground, or if I hit grass, mud, or what, but I just wasn’t going any farther forward.

“How does right here look? I asked with a weary smile.

“Perfect.” She chuckled. I shut off the engine. Dogs were anxious to get out and pee. June was anxious to get into the farm house. I was anxious to find what was keeping me from moving forward. We all bailed out of the truck.

When I reach a destination, the first thing I do is walk around the trailer and make sure everything looks good, and examine my surroundings. I did a quick check in the dark, found nothing. There was no indication of anything wrong, anything missing or concerning—as far as I could tell. I proceeded to hook up to the outlet June showed me, and took the dogs on short, adventurous, dark walks.

It was time for cocktails with June. We sat in the farm kitchen, talking, laughing and drinking wine, waiting for Randy to arrive with the grandkids. I stepped out to check on the dogs, and took another walk around the farm yard with them. Jack and I ventured up the driveway toward the road. On our way back, I noticed something strange about the Toy Hauler–something not quite right.

Oh my goodness, what the hell is that?

“June!   June!” I call out as Jack and I run up to the farm house. “June, I think we have a problem!”

She comes out and we walk to the back of my toy hauler. We stand side by side and stare blankly at the back of the trailer.

“Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you about that. We’ll have Randy help you in the morning.” She calmly says, holding back a laugh. I am speechless. It’s almost midnight. I’m feeling the effects of that glass of wine. There’s nothing I can do about anything right now. I can’t even cry. All I can think is…

Whoops.

I broke out the Wild Turkey Honey and poured myself a sipping glass, just as Randy arrived with sleepy kids. When June came back from tucking in the kids, I poured him a glass and debated if I should brake the news to him. We were all tired and tipsy. It was pointless to attempt anything in the dark, so we talked a few more minutes, then all turned in for the night.

 

It’s the dawn of a new day, and a new challenge–namely my Toy Hauler. With coffee in hand, I walked Randy around to the back of my Toy Hauler and we stood side by side, staring blankly at it.

“Oh. Yeah. That doesn’t look good. Yeah, that’s wedged pretty tight. Didn’t June warn you about that thing?”

“Nope.”

A big round boulder was wedged under the back left corner of the Toy Hauler. I heaved a heavy sigh and looked at Randy. We both shook our heads.

I know.

Whoops.

Hard as he tried, he could not push the giant boulder out. Thank the gods Randy is a creative problem solver.

 

Within minutes he had the back end jacked up to free the boulder. Still, rolling that massive rock out from under my trailer was no small job. He managed to maneuver it back to its original resting spot.

 

“What? That’s where it goes? Why in the world would someone put a giant boulder THERE?” I cried out in shock.

“Well the idea was so that no one would accidentally clip the garage coming around the corner.”

“So, they clip the boulder instead?”

“Apparently so.”

He carefully examined the undercarriage of my trailer and inspected all wiring and hoses, to find no serious damage had been done, just a couple scratches on the paint underneath. It could have been so much worse!   Randy wasted no time using the situation as an opportunity to razz me about my driving. I maintained that it was dark, I had no idea there was a boulder there, couldn’t see it, and I did swing as wide as I could to come around the building, barely clipping that darn boulder. That’s no place to put that boulder!

Later that morning, Randy tried to mow the giant farm lawn, but his dad had accidently poured the wrong thing down the wrong place on the mower and it wouldn’t start.

Whoops.

So he had to push mow almost an acre of land.

With farms come farm equipment, and with that usually comes issues. Nothing ever seems to simply work right without some sort of tinkering and intervention. I watched Randy wrestle this phenomena several times over the weekend with various pieces of farm equipment. It was ‘whoops’ after ‘whoops’, and usually the result of some cocka-mamie brainstorm his dad had tried to implement. I gained a whole new appreciation for farmers. It still didn’t stop Randy from bringing up my giant boulder blunder, though.

Then came my break. Their future son in law had the perfect mud truck on site, and wasted no time getting out into the back 40 with it in the rain. He disappeared for hours, playing in the mud. Suddenly we spotted him walking up the back trail, dirty and disgusted.

The truck was stuck.

Whoops.

Randy, in all his infinite problem solving wisdom, had the solution.   He fired up the tractor, and the two men road off somewhere behind the barn to go pull the truck out of the mud hole. It was a long time—perhaps an hour–before one of the kids cried out “Grandpa is walking back up!” So we jumped up to see what was going on.

 

Well now I may have caught a boulder under my trailer, but…….

At least……………

I didn’t do something like…….

This…………..

Whoops!

Yes, friends, that would be the tractor, upside down in the middle of the field.  Oh, to have been a mouse in the field, watching the entire situation unfold…..these two guys bring “Whoops“ to a whole new level!

 

So Eli stuck his truck.

Randy flipped the tractor that tried to pull the truck.

Eli drove the dozer that pulled out the truck and un-flipped the tractor.

And eventually, we all sat down for dinner.

Ahhhh, the farm life!

 

 

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