We got up that morning and packed up the RV to continue on our way. We had been staying the night at Martin Lake RV Park. As we started to leave, we ended up having an anomaly during our exit.
The exit is lined with wooden poles sticking about 3 feet up from the ground. They are very decorative, but don’t leave much room for error when trying to negotiate a turn in a 37 foot RV with a tow dolly.
I needed to make a 90 degree right turn to exit the park and was trying to work my way between the wooden posts lined on each side of the road. I was watching the posts on my left side as I started to swing wide to make the turn when I heard a sickening crunch. I looked out my side mirror and it appeared the tow dolly had struck a pole on my right side. I started to back up to free the dolly when I heard another crunch. Gypsy looked out the side door and exclaimed it was the RV not the tow dolly. I got a very sick feeling in my stomach.
I placed the RV into park and got out to inspect the damage. I was right up against one of the damn poles and had no way of moving without damaging RV-103 more. I went to the camp office to find someone to dig out the pole.
One of the owners came out and inspected the situation. He stated that most folks usually hit the poles on the left side while exiting instead of the right. At least he confirmed to me that this was not the first time someone had done this. He said he had talked with the other owners in the past about taking out the wooden poles to prevent such accidents, but they refused. I took some pictures, and I then allowed him to dig out the offending pole and free my RV.
The damage was severe to one door, the right rear wheel well, and slight damage to two other doors. Obviously, it would take some body work to make her look new again. The owner dug out the pole, and I finally got her free.
Not a good way to neither start my day nor finish up our Mission #2. To add insult to injury, Martin Lake charged me about $5 more than what was listed in the Passport America book. That is the first time I’ve had a campsite charge me more than what was listed in the book. I am not happy with them nor will I bring my RV back there.
We proceeded on and ended up staying the night at the KOA just east of Tallahassee FL.
