Rig

If you scroll way back to the first entries on this blog, you can read about the road trip we took in 2006. We traveled in a Saturn sedan with a borrowed tent, a basic coleman stove and an ice chest. We saved up for that trip, quit our jobs and expenses were pretty low. Circumstances are a bit different now. We have 3 kids, and M is working remotely. There are smart phones now which is a real game changer for maps and weather. I can remember back in 2006 watching an extremely scary black cloud emerging over the horizon and then frantically flipping through pages of a Rand McNally road atlas to see what county we were in while listening to some random AM radio station describing where the tornado was hitting. PS, it was close. PPS, most midwestern rest areas have a severe weather bunker you can go in.

We are now traveling with a 2016 GMC Yukon towing an RPOD 176. It's a tiny, lightweight trailer. Narrower than most trailers because the wheel bases are on the outside, it's easy to tow. You can see around it without special mirrors and it usually fits in a regular parking spot. It's less than 10 ft tall, so clearance is rarely an issue and we can fit in the smallest sites at campgrounds. The kitchen is nested in a half slide. Things we especially liked about it were the double bed bunks, and the u-shaped dinette we can all eat or play games at, the propane furnace, hot water heater that runs on propane or electric, 3 way refrigerator, fairly large black and gray tanks, a convection microwave (yes I have baked cakes and cornbread in it!) and even television and an air conditioner. All spring and summer I loved going on trips where we just had to pack our clothes and some food. All the cookware and sleeping stuff was already stowed and ready to go. In the most inclement weather, the kids can lounge on the top bunk and watch tv (if we have a 30 amp hook up). If we have no hook ups, it's easy enough to keep a few gallons of water in the fresh tank for the toilet and we can keep the fridge cool on propane.  The convection/microwave is tiny, but it definitely works well for toasting bread, baking corn bread or cakes, and heating up leftovers. I also bought a small Instant Pot, which is useful for cooking rice, soup, chili, hardboiled eggs and oatmeal.

Downsides of this are mainly that's it's just a very small amount of space for 5 people. M and I are pretty short and I  would not recommend these beds to anyone who is on the taller side. When we are getting up in the morning, it's just silly how much bumping and cursing we do while trying to make coffee, fold the dinette bed back into a table and get all the little kids to go to the bathroom before they pee their pants. It has a fair amount of storage, but it's hard to keep the clothing in places where the kids can actually reach it on their own. Ditto with dishes. I feel like all the kids had a regression with their independence on this trip. They needed a lot of help reaching everything.

They say you are ready to camp when you pull out of the RV lot, but we have bought a lot of things to improve our trailer. We installed sway bars on the hitch, which keeps the trailer from blowing around in the wind or on rough roads. We also upgraded our sewage hose from the one that came with the trailer. No way did I want to risk a spill with that stuff! We had regular hoses at first for drinking water, but swapped those out for the collapsible kind. We also have a five gallon jerry can for water in case there's no hose at our site. We bought a small box fan and a small electric heater to augment the furnace and ac/fan. We have a pressure regulator for the hose and a surge protector for our 30amp cord. We've been carrying around two cast iron pans which we used all the time in Pennsylvania because we cook on fires there. But out west, there's way fewer options for safely lighting a campfire, and we haven't done it at all.

Our biggest regret is not installing solar before we left. M's computer is the main thing we need to power, and there are lots of times when we could have opted for a nicer campsite or park if we didn't need the 30amp hookup. But then, we couldn't really do this trip if he didn't have an awesome job that let him work remotely.

I keep meaning to take pictures of the inside, but it's a tough angle. I want to show you how it looks like when our stuff sort of explodes all over the place, but then I end up tidying everything up too quickly, and it really does all go back together in about 30 minutes. The kids love doing chores when "sweeping up" or "clean the bathroom" is a 5 minute thing. I love how the bunks are tucked into the front and behind the pantry. It's very cozy. I think it will be hard to go to sleep at home when I can't hear my whole family breathing.