After much looking and praying, we bought a travel trailer for camping in March of 2006. It is a 31' Dutchmen Sport with a Super Slide, and has a queen bed and a bunk house with four bunks. There's a ton of storage, great kitchen, and everything is in perfect condition. We are VERY thankful! It's even more than we wanted.

We picked it up on a Wednesday, and then took off on Friday to go camping. Can you tell we were excited? :) We went closeby, to Raccoon Mountain, and stayed Friday and Saturday night, then Sunday morning went straight to church. We only had to make three trips to Walmart (whew...), and had one little problem, but all-in-all everything went smoothly.

Below is an entry Rachael wrote in our camping journal...

Entry #1 of the Welch Wagon
April 2006

We just purchased our very first camper on Wednesday, 2 days ago, and we are SUPER excited! It is just perfect! Exactly what we were looking for and more! God was definitely in it because the whole thing of finding it and getting it went so smoothly. We bought it from this great family out in Palmer - the Anderson's - and it is three years old, and had only been used about three times.

For the first trip we are staying the weekend closeby at Raccoon Mtn. Things have gone smoothly thus far - this is only day one - but we did have a few issues with the oven's pilot light, sewer hose (yuck), and the hot water heater. Nothing wrong with them, but it's more of a learning thing. I am confident that we'll have it all figured out before trip #2 though. We love it! This is HOME! :)

Day #2
Eli, being the social bug that he is, has already made friends. He's played with brothers Sam and Stone, and met little Brianna as well. We've been all over the swingset, playground, played with bubbles, flown a Batman kite, and played football. Unfortunately, it's been a little cold and windy to stay outside constantly, but it's still been fun.

Chris got the hot water heater all hooked up today, and he broke in the shower. We've used about everything including the oven, stovetop, bathroom, and microwave. Everything works great. And after three trips to Walmart, I think we finally have all the stuff that we need.

We had our first visitor, Chris' Dad, and that was nice too. He brought us a little TV for Eli to watch movies on, and then took us to Cracker Barrel to eat dinner (yum!). It's really fun to play host out of the camper, and I'm looking forward to more of it.

We had a bit of an issue with our heater earlier, but all is good now. The heater stopped working (it wasn't lighting or something), and was off for about an hour around midnight. We exhausted everything we knew to do, so we both just sat down and prayed. We tried it one more time, and wouldn't you know it, it came on!!! Thank you God!!! He just has to remind us every once in a while that we still need him, and that is fine with me.

Entry #2
July 2006

We've now been on four trips in the camper. First was Raccoon Mountain, second was to Crossville for a long weekend, then to Cookeville for our good friends' Set Apart's Homecoming Singing, then to our favorite spot - Hominy Valley. Hominy Valley is the singing grounds of the Primitive Quartet, and each year they have a week long singing surrounding July 4th. We stayed at the Pisgah View Campground again, and had a nice time. We met lots of wonderful people, and the only bad thing about the whole trip was the fact that the swimming pool wasn't open. Well, that and the fact that our battery for the camper went kaput the first day. Thankfully we got a new one, and everything went wonderfully afterwards.

We had so much fun during Hominy, and we drove into Ashville, NC nearly daily for food and shopping at our favorite store - Super Target. We got to mingle with the local patchouli wearing, dreadlock sporting, expensive hemp wearing hippies. Yeah, we didn't fit in too well with that crowd, but that's ok. On the singing grounds everyone is family, and we met some wonderful people. We became really close with some friends as well, and it was just a wonderful time had by all. About halfway back to Chattanooga reality began to sit hit, and we were ready to turn around. We are already looking forward to our next trip, which will more than likely be in Montgomery, AL at the state horseshow where Sarah, Dale, Tim, and Eli will all compete in their respective events. Don't worry...New camera happy Daddy will take lots of shots!

October 2007

We haven't been on any camping trips during 2007 because we just weren't ready after having Zeke and Emmie. We did go to Hominy Valley this summer, but decided it was in their best interest for us to stay in a hotel instead. We are very excited about getting back out in the camper though, and hope to go sometime in November. With Dad and Angie out on their RV Adventure, it's putting us in the mindset of camping!!!