A Trip Down Memory Lane

In preparation for the arrival of our new fifth wheel (scheduled for 10/26) I thought I would go back and show our camping life progression since Fran and I were married in 1979.  Our first purchase was a tent with assorted camping gear.  It is amazing but I can remember so much of this over 30 years later.  The purchase was made from my first bonus I ever received working for the government, a whopping $250!  Here is a picture of the tent.

We used this tent for almost ten years to do all our camping.  This included camping with two of the girls when they were babies. 















In 1990 we decided to get a pop-up tent trailer to handle the larger family and give us more comfort.  At that time pop-ups did not come with all the amenities you can get now.  It had a sink and stove along with two large beds on either side with a dinette table.  No refrigerator, no microwave, no heater.  It served us well and we really enjoyed using it.  We took it on many weekend trips along with a long trip from California to Kansas City and then we used it when we moved from California to Naperville. 

In California we were able to store the trailer on the side of our house.  We were not so lucky when we moved to Naperville and ended up storing it at a storage lot where field mice decided to use it when we did not.  It was an interesting sight to bring the trailer home to prepare for a weekend trip only to open it up and see the curtains and tent fabric with holes in them along with the wiring being eaten and to find baby mice inside.



We decided to trade the trailer in and move up to a full size trailer with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.  All the comforts of home.  We ended up buying a slightly used Jayco trailer. This trailer served us well but became a little impractical as the girls got older.  

We decided on another Jayco trailer, this time a new one and it had bunk beds along with a sofa.  This gave us better sleeping arrangements and additional comfort inside. 

This ended up being our last trailer for a few years.  As the girls got older and had many outside activities we found less and less time to be able to go out with the trailer.  We decided to sell the trailer and not do the RV thing for a few years.  So for around 6 or 7 years we were without a trailer.   As I was getting ready to retire we decided to go ahead and get another trailer so just the two of us could go out for long weekends.  At the time I had a Ford Ranger pick-up and did not want to buy a larger vehicle to tow a trailer so I started looking for trailers that were light enough to be pulled by the truck.  I found a hybrid trailer at a local dealer.  This is a trailer where the beds pop out of the trailer and are enclosed by canvas like a tent trailer, but the rest of the trailer is hard sided.  It has a bathroom and full kitchen.  We bought this trailer in December of 2006.

This trailer was functional but was a little cramped.  The problem we quickly found out was that the Ford Ranger could not adequately pull this trailer, so a larger pickup needed to be bought.  Once that decision was made then the point of buying this hybrid came into question as it was not very comfortable.  Sooooo, next trailer..............................................

Now we are talking comfort.  This trailer has a slideout, swivel rockers, queen size bed, surround sound, sofa, full kitchen and bath.  We really enjoyed this trailer but when we decided to go full timing it was obvious this trailer would not be sufficient.  It does not have the storage nor the insulation and interior room to be really comfortable on a full time basis.  So we come somewhat full circle by trading this trailer in to our local Jayco dealer, the one where we bought our first full size trailer 16 years ago, and bought our new fifth wheel (picture to follow).

In the 20 years that we have had trailers we have traveled completely across country twice, driven around 4 of the great lakes, been to Canada twice and been in over 30 states.