The new camper

We bought our rig, fixed it up, and used it for our three month, 6000-mile journey. It served us extremely well.

Our plan was to purchase something inexpensive and use it for awhile to learn about what we needed to fit our lifestyle.

We now know exactly what would fit us.

After much reflection, research, talking with other camper owners, and discussion, we decided that we have only a few years to be able to do what it is that we enjoy the most, and that given this fact we needed a camper that had updated features. We want to see all of the National Parks in the country, and all of the parks in Canada. We want to hike to see glorious places like we did the past three months.

Within a month of moving to Whidbey Island, not knowing anybody here, I had found out about the Mountaineers and had been on my first hike, after purchasing all of my equipment in one visit to REI. Since that time I have taken many hikes in the Cascades, although only a fraction of the number I would have taken without three foot surgeries.

Now my foot is healed, but for how long I don't know. I want to use the time I have left.

Vicky, too, has always loved hiking. It is remarkable that although we found each other on a dance floor we both also enjoy the outdoors so much. Part of that is probably due to our childhoods, where both of us lived near the country and spent most of our days in open fields--Vicky riding her horses and me "hunting" with my bow and arrow (although I never actually shot anything, except once, and then felt so guilty I never did it again and am still haunted by the image).

Hiking and dancing give us both the same feeling of magic, of being transported to another world. It is such a wonderful feeling to work hard to get to a high mountain lake, or to a high vista, and then to sit and enjoy nature unspoiled by our industrial society. Both dance and hiking involve moving at a steady and leisurely pace, one that feels natural and is not imposed on us. Such a feeling of peace.

So we need a camper that is fully winterized, and one where we can easily and quickly remove it from the pickup so we can drive the pickup to hiking trail heads. Many trail heads are at the end of rocky roads, and those roads are exceedingly hard on a camper. We had to pass up several opportunities on our trip for this reason. We don't want to have to make those choices, though. With the new types of jacks one can remove a camper from a pickup in 10 minutes AND just leave it set up at the campsite.

In other words, the new campers are designed so you can use them and sleep in them while they are off of the pickup. So we could find a campground, in essence "park" the camper, stay there for 4-5 days, and have the pickup free the entire time to drive to trail heads for hikes.

New campers also have roof storage, and ladders to reach the roof. These ladders are set up to carry bikes, so we no longer would have to remove our bikes from inside the camper when we are done driving to a campsite. A real time-saver and headache-saver.

We'd like a working refrigerator instead of an icebox. Things like that.

New or used? A new camper, properly maintained, should give 20 years of good service. That's the outside limit of the hiking years we could hope to have.

What brand? We decided on Lance, mainly because they appeared to us to be the largest truck camper manufacturer. About half of the campers we saw at campgrounds were Lances. I subsequently found the official figures: 40% of pickup campers are manufactured by Lance. That's really an incredible domination of a market. I wanted a camper from a manufacturer that is still making a lot of money. I figure they have a long-term investment in keeping customers happy.

Lance now makes a camper with an aluminum frame and a fiberglass body. The aluminum frame makes it light, and less susceptible to rot. The fiberglass body is less susceptible to denting.

We also wanted the smallest camper we could get that had the features we wanted. We found we had plenty of room in our Chinook, being very comfortable living virtually all of the time within 6 feet of each other. One really couldn't do that if the other person got on their nerves for any reason.

One reason for a small camper is the issue of weight. Our pickup is designed to carry a specific number of pounds, and we wanted the camper to be light enough that we could safely transport grandsons in it to camping trips.

So last week we emptied out our Chinook and I took the rig to have it weighed. Then we removed the camper and we took the pickup to be weighed. This told us how much we could carry in terms of a new camper, people, and supplies. With the new Lance we will easily be under the weight limit with our grandsons.

We also found that some campgrounds would not allow rigs that were over a certain length, usually 24-25 feet. Those were some of the best campgrounds, so we wanted to be small for this reason. Some roads were also limited to rigs less than 25 feet in length.

Here we are at the dealership with our new camper. Isn't it snazzy?









Our plan is to be "on the road" 7+ months of the year. Maybe more.

Last night I put the Chinook on Craigslist. We are asking a reasonable price for it. It is a very serviceable camper for someone who has occasional uses for a camper. It has a lot of years left in it, and with the improvements we made could be a very good deal for someone. We both felt a pang of regret, and almost betrayal.

Returning

The drive home was different from anything we had previously done. We did 670 miles the first day, and 340 the second. The most we had previously driven in a single day was 350 miles, so we almost doubled that our first day. We left in the dark, and just drove, making only necessary stops along I5.

It was a rainy day, with brief interludes of sunshine. One was when we turned the corner to see Mt. Shasta looming up ahead of us. My goodness.



There are several passes in northern California and southern Oregon. Once again I was glad to have a solid vehicle.





One decision we made when purchasing the pickup was to not get a diesel engine. It would have cost about $9000 more. A diesel has more power, and apparently gets somewhat better gas mileage. However, fuel is more expensive.

But our gasoline powered truck has a 6.2 liter, a large engine, and it pulled our heavy camper up those passes with ease. And we got 13.8 miles per gallon on our 1000 mile trip, driving between 60 and 65 mph, which seems to me to be awesome given we were hauling 4000 pounds on a 6000 pound vehicle.

We arrived at an RV park where we were going to spend the night, and I set up while Vicky went inside to pay. She hurriedly returned to tell me "wait!" "They don't have bathrooms."

What? This was the last thing we needed to hear after a day of driving 13 hours, mostly in the rain, over several mountain passes, in the dark, and cold, and rain.

We had never heard of such a thing.

So we packed back up, and tried to find another place. We found a couple of RV parks, but they were basically either dangerous looking or strange, so decided to drive to Eugene and find a Motel 6, which we did, and which had a room, and which was cheap and clean and actually one of the nicest motel rooms I have booked in several years. But boy were we tired.



Vicky brought in our food, and our hotplate, and my coffee machine (as an indulgence we had purchased a one-cup K-cup coffee machine for me to use when we were in RV parks). So it was sort of like being in our camper, except we didn't have to find trees in the middle of the night.



Since we had driven farther than we had anticipated that day, I realized we had some extra time, and so we decided the next morning to drive into Portland and see if we could find the places where I did my internship and lived in 1976-1977. I had not been back to either place since I left for my job at ISU in 1977.

After much searching, we first found the site of my internship. I had not remembered the address, only the vague location, and while the agency is still flourishing, it moved from the building on Powell Boulevard some (unknown) years ago.



It was an odd feeling, a bittersweet one. This agency, the Carl Morrison Center for Youth and Family Services, was the final piece to my training as a psychologist. At that agency I grew so much as a clinician and made the decision that I wanted to return to academia for my career instead of having a purely clinical one.

In the time since I lived in the home on 29th Avenue in Portland, I have been retired for 5 years from my 30-year career. When I moved from there I was a young man, with all of that ahead of me. And now I am much older, and all of that is behind me.



Once again, as with my father's death, I am reminded of how quickly life passes, and the importance of using each day carefully and mindfully. It was good being there with Vicky, as she understood all I was feeling, and really wanted me to revisit this part of my past.

We arrived home, happy to be in our wonderful bit of heaven on Whidbey Island.





For the next two nights we both had the same strange sensation at times, when we would wake in the night. We'd be disoriented--where are we? It took us both a few seconds to remember that we were at home.

Our journey started last June, with the decision to purchase a camper and pickup, and it ended two days ago, or this installment ended two days ago. We traveled 6000 miles. Saw and did things we never dreamed about. Got to be with my father the final two weeks of his life. Got to be there to help my mother with the first stages of adjustment to life with him being just a memory. Hiked, biked, and danced. Learned so much.

We will be home for a month, and then we are heading off in the camper to Utah and Colorado for a month.

We've got the bug.

We spent almost 12 weeks living in the bed of a pickup.

Riding on the Monterey Bay Trail: The Last Hurrah

We returned to Carmel, had a great visit with Vicky's parents. For two days we drove to Asimilar Beach, and then rode our bikes along the trail to Marina. It is a wonderful bike ride, along the ocean, through Monterey and Cannery Row, and along the trail through Fort Ord State Park.





The flowers and plants were stunning.







It was a good way to end the biking and hiking part of our road trip. We didn't set goals, per se, but before we left I wondered if we would be able to get in 100 miles of hiking and 500 miles of bike riding.







Our final tally was 132 hiking miles and 481 biking miles. It is a very healthy lifestyle, because we never went out to eat so didn't eat junk either.