Adventures with our camper

We bought a pickup and a camper. (Or perhaps I should say we bought a "pickup" and a "camper").

First, the pickup. It is a 1996 Ford F-250 3/4-ton, with 4 wheel drive. It was designed to be a work vehicle, with extra springs and a towing package. Not much in the way of creature comforts, except cloth seats. 190,000 miles on it. It needed some work, which we anticipated. But it seems fine......at least for now. It's a big rough vehicle that lets you know about every bump in the road.

The camper is a different story. It is a 1970 (not a typo) Chinook camper, complete with stove, oven, kitchen sink, heat, gas light, bathroom sink, shower, toilet, and refrigerator, and air conditioning. Currently, the stove, oven, heat, and gas light work. The air conditioning unit was removed years ago, and there is some type of humongous water leak somewhere so we can't use anything involving water. Oh well.

Oh, and the propane tanks weren't legal.

We got the whole rig for not very much money, which was our plan. We decided we'd see if we liked living in a camper before investing a lot in something nice. Perhaps you are are different, but I think it's difficult for me to learn what I want without trying out something close first. We figured we'd learn what was necessary and what wasn't. Even in the short period of time we've owned it, we've already done that.

Now that we have it, though, we're kind of attached to it, and so my guess is that we'll keep it even if we decide we like doing this kind of thing. Since our plan is to take a 6-8 week road trip this winter (leaving the PNW for the sunny south which, if you are unable to do so, all we can say to you is "ha ha, well WE can!"), we wanted something that wasn't totally tiny and cramped. After all, it will be home for a long time. It feels like the correct size, with enough room to move around in and cook in.

The first order of business was to get the pickup ship-shape. I thought we'd need a new compressor for the air conditioner, but it was just a small leak. I thought we'd get more miles out of the tires, but one had a hole in the sidewall. We also didn't anticipate that the gear shifting linkage was about to give out. Overall, we spent less than we thought we'd have to, so that went well.

First thing we did for the camper was check for water leaks in the interior. Vicky sprayed the entire thing, each window and corner, with a hose spray attachment, while I was inside looking for leaks. It appears we have none, with the exception of a small corner of one window. That seems satisfactory unless we have someone traveling along side of us on a road spraying us with a powerful garden hose. There did seem to be a bit of water damage in the past, but from what we can tell, this was from not closing the windows and vents completely. That was encouraging.

Next we hired a traveling-camper-business man to work with us on the camper. The first thing we did was update the propane system, so that now that works well and is legal again. I also bought a propane-CO detector for use in the camper--seems like something that should be standard equipment. No leaks.

We have a neat 70s Harvest Gold stove, oven, and range hood to use with our new and improved propane system. How retro. Complete with rusted chrome. Here it is. Cute, huh?




When we tried the water system with our camper consultant, however, our luck ran out--water poured out the back of the pickup bed. We intelligently reasoned that this might negatively impact our road trip if we used the toilet. At first we were a bit chagrined, because the shower/sink/toilet setup looked so cool, and was such a pretty 1960s powder blue. But then we realized that this was a "luxury" we could probably easily do without. We have a great rationalization for why this really isn't a problem. Want to hear it?

Here goes: If we were driving to Georgia (which is our eventual destination), we wouldn't think of going to the toilet in our car, would we? (would you? never mind). And if we were going to tent camp our way to Georgia, we wouldn't think of going to the toilet in our tent, would we?

Well, all our camper consists of is a vehicle and a nice warm metal, wood, and fiberglass tent on it. When you are driving someplace, you always can find bathrooms. And wherever you tent camp, there are always bathrooms (even if they are just behind a bush).

At campgrounds these days there are always showers, and with our stove we can always heat up water for cleaning up if a shower isn't readily available. With that, we've decided to remove the "bathroom" and I'll build storage in place of it for the equipment we'll need (hiking, cycling, etc.).

We took the repaired rig out for it's first test drive a bit over a week ago, taking Ian and Adam to South Whidbey State Park. Four of us (although two were little guys) in the camper. The table makes into a bed that was large enough for the two of them. There was plenty of room--it was tight but not too tight. Clearly it will be large enough for two of us for our trip. Everything worked, we had fun, and the boys had fun. Our second anticipated use for the camper, other than for road trips, is for grandkids, so this was nice.

I should add that when we ate dinner, I tried sitting at the back of table, where Adam is. We discovered that there is about 6 inches between the table and the back of the seat, which even for someone as svelte as I am is a tight fit. ("Tight fit" defined as "Vicky laughing hysterically at me.")

Playing GO with the boys:


So everything is bopping along just fine with the camper. The rig and repairs to date on it were quite inexpensive, far less than buying something nicer and newer.

So, the next thing we needed to try was removing the camper and re-installing it. The idea is that when we are on our road trip we might want to be able to remove the camper to take day trips. In fact, the initial plan is to drive 300 miles or so, stay for the entire next day, drive another 300 miles, stay for a day or two, etc. We're interested in seeing places and doing things, so having the truck without the camper might be helpful.

I'd never done this, and neither had Vicky. But we figured lots of people who vote Republican have done it successfully, so certainly we could too.

There are four jacks at the corners of the camper. These jacks are hydraulic. We didn't know if they would work, but since only about half the stuff in the camper did work, we were concerned. It's not like we could make do if only half of the jacks worked--unless they all do then our camper would be on the ground, at an odd angle probably.

Through some trial and error, we got the camper lifted off of the truck bed, and drove the pickup out. The next worry was whether the jacks would hold. If they slipped then the camper would come crashing down, and we'd lose our entire $18 investment in our 1970 camper.

So, I built some stilts to hold the camper up. Looked kind of funny.


Then we used the pickup for trash, recycling, and moving. Calculated gas mileage--I think it gets 12 mpg. I'm afraid to test it with the camper on.

Anyway, back to the camper-off-of-the-truck-saga, we learned a lot about the camper from doing this. First, the right side of the back end sags--probably from the weight of the propane tanks over the past 40 years. This is a problem that I can solve with some shoring up of that end.

The second thing we discovered is that it appears the major-league water leak that I mentioned earlier is not from the "holding" tank (this is the nice term that basically means the traveling septic tank). Instead, the leak is somewhere in the area between the "kitchen" sink and the shower/bathroom/hot water heater--i.e., in a pipe going to some units we don't plan on using anyway. This is potentially good news because since we are not planning on carrying around our septic tank in the same room we are living in, and also since we also won't be using the hot water heater (because we won't be using the shower), perhaps we can still use the storage tank for sink water. That would be handy. Then we could use the water tank to hold water for the sink, and then empty the sink into the tank, and then empty the tank at our campgrounds "dumping station" or at night somewhere when nobody is watching. That's if we can find a way to bypass the leak, which maybe we can since it is not in the holding tank itself. Got that?

Lots of ifs.

Well, the next thing was to reinstall the camper onto the pickup. Before we did this, though, we decided that I needed to look the part. So Vicky suggested a baseball cap, and I got a PBR. Do I look ready?



Vicky directed, and I drove, and it went on slicker than a whistle. Took about 10 minutes. Easy peasy, even for a couple of liberals:





So, then all we had to do was retract the hydraulic stilts and we're all done!

But of course we weren't just "all done." What on earth were we thinking. Nothing else has gone as planned, so why should this? The jacks wouldn't raise, or rather they all required much TLC to raise, none of them the same TLC. One of them could not be raised at all. I couldn't figure out why until we used another jack to free that one and discovered that it was significantly bent inside. Who knows when that happened? But actually only one of them worked in a way that gave me confidence that we could remove and reinstall the camper while we were on our road trip.

It took us an hour to get the final one retracted--the TLC for this one consisted of an hour of me using a sledge hammer to pound it into its holder. I earned that PBR. It seemed that this would be a mite inconvenient when we were on the road.

Actually, only one of them seemed to work well and easily. We noticed that this one was newer than the others--no rust anywhere on it. It was probably replaced recently. To us, this meant the others were not reliable or useful, so we needed replacements of some type.

So, last night, bought four new jacks. A different type--ones that don't put load on the camper where they are attached, but instead raise it from the bottom. Cost some money, but if we decide later to sell this camper (which I doubt we will--see earlier section on our attachment problem), we could resell them for most of what we paid.

So, another learning experience. And more confidence in our new little home. And lots of fun.

We have lots of work to do on the camper, but it all seems doable. And it will be nice when it's done. We're excited