The annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Knight/etc campout was back on this year after the hiatus of last year! The camping crew is quite a bit reduced, though. I took Friday off work and was going to leave early Thursday so Beth and I could get to the campground (Michawana again!) at such a time that we wouldn't be setting up the camper in the dark, but it didn't quite work out that way. I was busy at work so it was around 4 o'clock before we finally headed out, then we had so many last minute things that we just couldn't seem to get moving. And once we did, the truck was having problems. It was the first time we've tried towing with the "new" truck, and all the way up north it was jerking and stuttering. I tried controlling it by taking it easy on the gas and using a manual shift, but it was just driving awful. Enough so that I stopped at Napa on the way out of town to ask if anyone there had any ideas as to what it was doing, and they suggested I stop at Montieth and ask there. At Montieth, they had a few suggestions as to what it could be, but it was late in the day and they didn't have anyone there to do anything with it. So when we left there, I sat in the drive for a bit going 'crap crap crap crap crap....' and wondering what we should do. Not really feeling great about driving (with a camper) all the way up north and not knowing what the truck was going to do halfway there....but in the end I decided to see if I could get it to drive ok shifting manually. It did all right, not great, but more or less under control all the way up there, although I was still despairing a little bit. We made it to the campground around 7:30 so it was getting dark, and we set up in the dark again anyway. But not a problem. We had us, Marve & Beth, Ric & Nickie & Lauren, John & Steph & Trevor, and some friends of the Pinksters, so small group this year. And nobody stayed up as late as we usually have on this campout, even though the weather was really nice for camping. Not too cold, not too wet. We did really just a lot of hanging out at the camp Friday, except a town run for coffee and a few groceries, and even had a surprise when Judy & Neill showed up with their camper, since they were supposed to have been departing for a European river cruise that day. Turns out they volunteered to get bumped from the cruise which got them their trip moved to next summer, a cabin upgrade, and it was totally comped. Completely free for them now. So they could camp with the family this weekend instead! In other news, Ric and Marve and I looked over the truck for what might be causing the jerking, and we found that the (brand new) trailer hitch assembly was a bit loose: the ball was not completely tightened down onto the receiver. There were a few wrenches in the camp so we improvised a rig to tighten things down, and hoped that the loose ball was the reason for the jerking. Saturday Ric and I went on a bike ride (a much hiller one than I am used to!) and we did a lot of hanging out at camp. On Sunday, we packed things up. Due to family drama there was not going to be a big group lunch at Walldorf's but Beth and I went to lunch with Ric & Nickie at a restaurant in Otsego on the way out, and also hit Plainwell ice cream. Rolling out, it seemed to be confirmed that the loose ball was the cause of the jerking and stuttering, because it didn't do it even a little bit all the way home. We got home around dinnertime.