Imagine if you will, spending a sultry summer night at the beach in a huge tin can. Without AC. We couldn’t picture it either, so after only a few hours in a primo site at Hunting Island State Park we pulled in the awning on our new RV, stowed our stuff, and headed home at 8:30 in the evening.
Now, before you start hating on us for being camping wimps, let me give you some backstory. Over the past thirty-some years, my family has tent-camped all over the United States. We have driven out west twice, camping for as much as three weeks at a time. For ten days in 2017, my husband and I tent-camped through Maine, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. And who can forget my tent-camping experience on the Palmetto Trail when I forgot the tent fly and my friend and I shivered through the night with only a poncho liner and an old mattress cover between us and the frigid February air! I’ve earned some camping cred.
But as we got a few more gray hairs, I came to realize that if I wanted my husband Brian to continue to camp with me, I’d have to keep him happy. Several years ago, we bought a used pop-up camper. We thought we were in heaven with heating and air conditioning and a refrigerator and a microwave. And comfy beds!
However, the gray hairs kept coming and it soon became evident that our cozy camper was lacking in one essential key to our camping contentment: a bathroom. We began our search for the perfect camper. We scoured the Internet, looking at all options: used and new, pull-behinds and drive-ables, fifth-wheels, fiberglass, and teardrops. We made our way through the RV alphabet of Class As, Bs, and Cs. We visited dealers all over the state in search of a camper we would be comfortable in for the next twenty years.
After our heads stopped spinning, we decided to take Nike’s advice and just do it. We bought a brand new 24 foot Thor Chateau motor coach. And it only cost a little over twice what I paid for my first house. As Brian said many years ago (sarcastically), and I keep reminding him, “It’s only money.”
Hunting Island was not even our first trip. We had done an over-nighter to a campground on Lake Wylie near Charlotte. Everything was great, except the weather. Regardless of its size, wet dogs can stink up a camper real quick.
Campsites at Hunting Island are notoriously hard to obtain. I have a friend who books SC State Park sites more than a year in advance and even has an app that helps get her first dibs on cancelled reservations. So I was lucky that the week before we wanted to camp, I was able to book a two-night stay for just after Labor Day. That was where my luck ended.
After doing some Goose Chasing at a couple state parks on the way, we got to our campsite by mid-afternoon and set up. Camper leveled: check. Electricity hooked up: check. Water hooked up: check. Refrigerator and AC were humming along. We were good to go in record time.
We decided to take the dogs for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful day: clear blue sky and warm but with a breeze. We had hardly got to the beach before my husband had found his first shark’s tooth. And for once, there were more sand dollars than people. We walked all the way to the lighthouse, dipping our feet into the water and finding treasures along the way.
The SC State Shell: the lettered olive 
This one didn’t make it. 
Sand dollars dotted the beach
I stopped at the lighthouse to relay a message to the lighthouse volunteers. Some friends of mine had spent the summer volunteering there and had just returned home. “Tell ‘em Sandy and Scott say hello”: check. We gave the dogs some water and headed back.
Sticky and hot, we approached our new camper to hear a disconcerting sound: an alarm was beep-beeping inside. The power was off. Inexplicably off. No AC. No fridge. No way.
At first, we weren’t too concerned. After all, Brian is an engineer and can do practically anything (except sleeping without air conditioning on a sultry summer night at the beach). He went inside and checked the switches. He went outside and checked the electrical connections. He went back inside. He went back outside. He unplugged, then plugged again. He checked fuses. He even read the Owner’s Manual. Nothing.
Temperatures were rising. It was time for drastic measures. I suggested that Brian phone His Friend the Electrical Engineer. This time he went inside and outside while on the phone, checking switches and plugs and fuses. Nothing.
He called the RV Help Line and was put on hold. Half an hour later they called back. Again, inside and outside, switches, plugs, and fuses. Still nada.
We were getting desperate. I had one more card to pull: the Newbie Helpless Old Campers routine. I went to the motor coach next door and asked the Even Older Campers if they knew anything about RV electricity. Jerry and Linda from Florence were eager to help. Jerry went inside and outside with Brian, checking switches, plugs, and fuses, and Linda stayed outside and commiserated with me on the complexities of campers while swatting swarms of mosquitoes. All for naught.
The folks across the street pulled in. I went over and explained the predicament . Mr. from Monetta came over. This time Brian, Jerry, and Mr. from Monetta went in and out, checking switches, plugs, and fuses. Diddly squat yet again.
Then, a miracle. Or so we thought. The park ranger drove up. Surely he would be able to help! Indeed he tried. Words above my pay grade were being tossed around like ships in a storm. Mr. Park Ranger brought over a multi-meter to check the voltage on the site shore power source. No problem there. The ranger gave us the number of an RV dealer in Beaufort that might be able to help. No dice. They were closed.
By this time it was getting late. I was hot and sticky and mosquito bit. Brian was beyond frustrated. Neither of us had eaten dinner; the thought of cooking dinner in the hot motor coach was enough to make me lose my appetite. Neither one of us relished the idea of a night without air conditioning. We contemplated using the generator, but Rules is Rules and one doesn’t use a generator in a SC State Park.
In record time we packed up, pulled out, and headed home. We slept in air conditioned comfort that night. Call us wimps if you will, but there are things more important that a couple of nights at the beach. Like staying married.
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