Day Two -- to Vermilion Dam Lodge

Day 2 – Shoreview, MN, to Vermilion Dam Lodge -- 220 miles
Well, it was only a matter of time before we put a ding in the Teardrop. And by “we” I mean “me.” And by “a matter of time,” I mean “36 hours into our trip.”
Last weekend, when Keith brought the Teardrop home from storage, he immediately confessed to slightly denting the bumper of the van as he hitched up the trailer. Of course, I was overjoyed – if only because I wasn’t to blame for the first Teardrop “incident.” But leave it to me to orchestrate a second, much more spectacular mishap only days later.
It was the last leg of our Shoreview-to-Lake-Vermilion trek-- on the final stretch of the 20-mile dirt road leading to Vermilion Dam Lodge. I was driving, Mom was shotgun, and Clare and Charlie were fighting over their Leapster games in the back seat. Keith, Dad and Natalie were well ahead of us in my parents’ vehicle. We passed a deer, and the kids were quite impressed. So when we passed a turtle – a turtle! -- on the road shortly later, I was excited to share that sight with the kids, too. I stopped the car and threw it into reverse to get back to that turtle – a turtle! – a hundred feet back, obviously momentarily forgetting that I had a 1,000-pound trailer hitched to the back of the van. Only when Mom said, in her sweet, not-wanting-to-interfere way, “Um, backing up with a trailer is usually really difficult,” did I notice that the Teardrop had jackknifed and was sliding sideways into the back of the van.
I stopped immediately, put the van in drive and straightened out. A quick check of the Teardrop revealed no damage, but I was too flustered to check very closely. When I started up again, I was relieved to see the trailer fall in line behind be as if nothing had happened. No problem! And no reason to worry Keith with any details about the incident, right?
So we arrived at the resort a few minutes later and unloaded our gear into the cabin. But when Keith tried to park the van and unhitch the trailer, he discovered that he could not lower the front support, which holds the trailer up when it is unhitched and rotates up and out-of-the-way when we’re ready to go. Somehow, the pin that holds it up had been jammed and badly bent out of shape. As Keith stood puzzling over this, I had to come clean; I tearfully told him what had happened, and then spent the rest of the evening sobbing and berating myself, convinced that our trip has been ruined.
Dad and Peter, my brother-in-law, each inspected the damage, and they seem to think that it’s an easy fix. So, there’s hope for our trip, but that still does not assuage the incredible guilt that I feel for dinging our beautiful Teardrop. We’ll keep you posted on the prognosis.
All that for a glimpse of a turtle. If I could only have that moment back.
On a lighter note – or darker, depending on how you look at it – the resort had been completely without power since the early afternoon. We had cold beer and a charcoal grill, so our immediate needs were met. But as the sky darkened, we realized how much we rely on electric lights. Keith and I pulled a couple of lanterns out of the Teardrop – lucky for us, we’re packed for a long camping trip – but that wasn’t quite enough light for eleven people sharing two cabins, and we spent the evening trading lanterns back and forth as we used the bathroom or trekked between the cabins, while Keith fretted about Armageddon or somesuch problem: “What if all the power in the world runs out? This is really freaking me out.” Even the water was off – electric pump – so we had to brush our teeth with sparkling water and (try to) refrain from using the toilet.
The power came back at 12:05 a.m., and I know this because I woke up to a blazing-bright cabin; all the light-switches were in the “on” position. I switched them off, and went right back to sleep. The kids slept right through it.