In order to make our 9 a.m. appointment at Scamp Trailers, we got up extra early. We’ve gotten the campsite breakdown and pack-up down to 25 minutes, so on the road at 6:15. The excitement builds as we get closer – yes, we’re really doing this! Our eyes were peeled, and I think we both spotted the Scamp on the pole at the same time.
First order of pick-up is to get the walk-through of our camper. Dave showed us how everything works – inside and out. A lot to absorb, but we’ll figure it out. Time to hitch it onto the car and hand over the check to our sales person, Nick. A quick call to our insurance company and she’s ours!! Total time at the nest, 48 minutes – 36 for the camper and 12 minutes adding it to our insurance policy. We didn’t know what to expect when we arrived, but certainly not that fast!
The Scamp is easy to tow, and we headed south to our next stop. On the way, we had to stop and see the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. There are several that qualify for this distinction, and the one in Darwin, MN is the largest wound by a single person. Coming in at 12 feet in diameter and 17,400 pounds, it’s pretty darn big! It held the Guinness record from its completion in 1979 until 1994. The creator, Francis A. Johnson spent 29 years winding baling twine for 4 hours every day! The ball now stands on display in the town center with a small museum and gift shop.
Atlas Obscura stops so far –
- Mark Twain’s Study
- Roger Tory Peterson Institute
- Hillandale Bridge
- Food Gatherers Giant Carrots
- Giant Brown Trout Sculpture
- Spoonbridge and Cherry / Giant Blue Chicken
- Largest Ball of Twine
More to come…
Our third Hipcamp stay was at We Have Goats – and yes, they have very cute goats! Hipcamp is a great find. We have had very different experiences during our 3 stays, but all positive. Our hosts at We Have Goats had so much more to offer than we had expected. Aside from the friendly dogs and cute goats, we had a power hookup, fresh filtered water to fill our tanks – and that hot shower felt so good!
Getting the car unloaded and setting up the camper was fun. There is a surprising amount of space and storage in the camper, but we don’t want to fill it all up right away. It will take some time to figure out what we really need for our travels. We did have a problem getting our refrigerator to start. It is set up to run on 3 power sources – 120V electric, battery power and propane. Since we had the electrical hookup, we wanted to use that. Unfortunately, the insufficient power alarm went off when we switched it to the 120V power. A call to Scamp didn’t get us an answer, and we didn’t want to turn around and drive back up. We switched it to propane and said we’d make some calls in the morning. We got someone from Scamp to walk us through some troubleshooting, and found out that they hadn’t plugged the fridge into the power outlet. We fished out the cord and plugged it in – problem solved!
