So in the interest of honesty, I’ll tell you that two of these pictures are not like the others…they are not, strictly speaking, from the shakedown cruise. The shakedown cruise happened in early May at Assateague State Park. My wife says early May is too early to camp at Assateague. I disagreed. She was right. But more on that in a minute. The first two pictures in the gallery are actually from the pre-shakedown cruise that took place a few weekends earlier. We had finished all the major work on Carrie Ann, she was usable, so we decided to test her out. I happened to be leading a seminar on mentoring at a men’s retreat in Rehoboth, so naturally I snuck my wife along with me. And speaking of being sneaky, Carrie Ann’s first night on the road was a stealth-camping night. We just parked on one of the side streets and hoped nobody bothered us. I had a hard time sleeping – sneaking about in a camper van is new to me. I’m not new to sneaking about, I’ve done plenty of deceptive stuff in my life, I’ve just never included ‘trying to sleep in a camper van’ in my subterfuge before. The first two pictures tell the story: The first is a double rainbow we saw on the drive down – a reminder to God that he said he wouldn’t flood us out again…but also maybe a reminder that he made no promise to prevent police from moving us on. The second is Carrie Ann’s nose where we parked her. You can almost see the ocean past the pine tree in the background to her right. Thankfully we survived the night.

Only two things fell off the van that first night. Both of them stayed inside the van. Neither of them hit us when they fell.

The real shakedown cruise came a couple of weeks later. We arrived on Assateague Island to rain showers, 50 degree temps and 20mph winds. My wife just shook her head. She brought knitting and a Kindle. I brought my surf boards and fishing rods. Guess which one of us was more comfortable with their activities? Hint (not that you need it): I was so cold after fishing I thought about putting on my wetsuit just to warm up in the van. Surfing was out of the question, the waves were too big and choppy – definitely not worth it.

Met some fascinating people while fishing: The young couple with one baby girl and another on the way – they were so excited to learn that we also had two daughters less than 18 months apart. The two old police officers just killing time, not actually catching anything, not really trying either. The couple from Potsville, PA, home of Yuengling brewery, who hung out with Mr. Yuengling (probably not the original Mr. Y…I’m assuming). Carrie Ann had her first successful fishing expedition – I caught a keeper-sized Tautog (which I gave to one of the other guys because I didn’t actually have the right equipment to gut and filet a fish in Carrie Ann – a lesson for the shakedown cruise).

Saturday morning was sunny, but still very cold and windy. Our campsite neighbor came to say hello and ask us where we had gone the previous night. We were just glad to see that he was alive – he was camping in a tent and we were worried he’d blow away with the wind or freeze in the cold. He, on the other hand, was worried for us. He had noticed that we arrived and only stayed for about an hour before leaving again the previous night. He was worried we were put off by the weather and decided not to stay. We had, in fact, gone to a bar to watch the O’s game, before coming back for the night. So, lessons from the shakedown:

1. Sometimes stuff needs to be shaken loose before you realize you did a poor job of mounting it; so watch your head.
2. Get a cutting board and knife for gutting fish (or make friends with people who look hungry and want fish)
3. We are not hardcore campers, and we’re ok with that. That’s why we have Carrie Ann.