Camping

Growing up my dad was always a tent guy, and what little kid doesn't like tents? But as I got older I thought campers, a cabin, or hotel was the way to go. Dad didn't agree. And mom was cool with ruffing it too. So we never had a camper growing up. I camped with grandparents in theirs. But still always thought it'd be fun to have a camper.

When I was 16 Duke and Grandma gave me a pick-up camper that I used to sleep in when we rodeoed. I took allot of naps in it between events and spent a couple of nights in it at Hyannis up in the sandhills. I gave it back to him when I got rid of the pick-up I used it on. The dinette turned into a bed. There was an ice box, a heater, and a wardrobe as well as quite a bit of storage in the drawers and cabinets. There was a countertop and a dry sink. No range. No bathroom. It had 12 volt power.

Then early in 2005 we saw an hour long show on the Travel Channel about people that restore old campers and even a club called the Tin Can Club. It looked like a ton of fun. We were living in a big old home built in 1899 and the wife had it filled with antiques and decorated in a Victorian theme. It was really fancy, but we thought it'd be fun to do something wacky. This begins the year of the Vintage Road Trip Camper.

We spent quite a bit of time looking for an old camper. Of course the old Airstreams are about the best, but even the old one's cost a fortune. Well, long story short we drove a few hours north to a huge camper dealer in Mitchell Sd. called Jack's Campers. We found a 14 foot 1970 Teton travel trailer (bumper hitch) it was structurally sound, roof didn't leak and was only $800! We took it home and then to a local body shop. At that time, I had a silver pick-up and asked them to paint the camper (it was a faded white with a wide green stripe) silver so it'd match the pick-up and look sort of 'airstreamish'. I said I've only got $500, it doesn't have to be "car show" perfect, but when we pull into a campground we don't want to embarrass ourselves. They did a great job and it looked allot better on the outside. Then on to the upholstery, it was a pattern of squares and rectangles in browns, harvest gold, etc. (Very 1970's!) I took the cushions into Grand Island to an upholstery guy that did work out of his garage and had them covered in a gray industrial upholstery fabric. It was a real durable and stain resistant fabric. And it looked great. Don't even ask what that cost! Then for the fun part, the wife made curtains out of fabric that looked like old license plates. And we added allot of reproduction road trip decorations as well as some authentic old stuff like license plates and some chrome off old cars. We hung it all on the walls (think Applebee's restaurant) and also hung up a ton of old camping / vacation pictures from our families in frames on the walls. It was really fun decorating that camper.

The Vintage Road Trip camper had a propane range and cold water sink. A propane heater, big wardrobe and a lot of storage for it being such a small rig. There was a full sized fold down bunk over the sofa. The sofa turned into a full size bed and so did the dinette. The kids were real small then, so one would sleep on the floor or if they had a friend with them they’d stay in a tent.

At the time we were really into riding ATVs and took the Vintage Road Trip camper on its maiden voyage to Halsey Forrest. Big problem…It doesn’t work well to pull two bumper hitches in a row. I had the four-wheeler trailer hooked on the back of the camper, and they would sway going down the road after about 45 or 50 mph. Other than that we really loved it. We took it to my dad’s river ground a few of times too. Then early in 2006 we sold it on Ebay for $3200 and came out pretty good on it financially.

We knew that if we wanted to pull the 4-wheeler trailer we would need either a 5th-wheel camper or a motor home. I didn’t want a motor home so we began our search for a 5th-wheel. We had become more refined and knew that we wanted separate beds for all the kids and a bathroom and air. Locally they were all around $15,000 for the used one’s we liked. We also needed something pretty small and light since I just had a ½ ton.

Back to the confuser I went and found our next camper on ebay. It was a 1999 27 foot Mallard 5th-wheel with a gooseneck hitch. It had the bathroom, nice big kitchen area, air, single bunk beds, the dinette became a full sized bed, the sofa folded out in a full and there was a full sized bed in the ‘bed room’ up stairs. It could sleep 8 on 5 different beds. It was in Nacogdoches Texas. I think the south is overwhelmed with RVs, maybe a lot of snowbirds go down there with their campers and then buy a new one while there down there? Anyway, it was just what we wanted. We drove down and got it for $7500.

It was a great camper! It pulled the 4-wheeler trailer great. We spent a night in it on the way back from Texas and we took it to my dad’s river ground countless times, to Mahoney, Windmill, and spent our anniversary with Dustin & Carrie at the Double Nickel at Waco. We spent 30 nights in it during 2006. Then we were low on money and put an ad in the paper and sold it for $10,000.

We miss the fun we had in the campers and we lucked out on the two we had financially. But most of the time they depreciate real badly if their pretty new. You can rent a lot of hotel rooms for what it costs to own a nice camper. Since selling the 5th-wheel, we’ve maybe stayed in tents twice. Honestly, the kids don’t care much either way, they loved the campers, but like tenting it too. I’m no authority on camping, but wanted to share what we had done.