When Kat was old enough to go with us, we took her on exactly one camp-out in the tent.
Then we promptly bought a pop-up camper and a porta-potty. Camping became a lot easier; it was a lot like tent camping, but up off the ground and without the hike to bathroom in the middle of the night. We could hitch it to either the van or the truck and away we'd go.
We camped in the pop-up for a few years until we stumbled on our hybrid trailer. It was set up on the side of the highway and we stopped to look at it on a whim. It was a decent step up from a pop-up, like a hard-side camper but light enough to pull with our truck. It was also just what we needed to catch the RV bug. We were still camping, but it sure was nice to have a shower on board and a real flush toilet.
Unfortunately our truck, a 6-cylinder, wasn't quite up to the task of pulling it. If we wanted to keep camping in the trailer, we needed to look for a bigger vehicle on our own terms before we blew the engine and were forced to get whatever we could find. Our search had hardly started when we found this.
Goodbye minivan. Hello truck! Can you believe it's a 1999 with only 37,000 miles on it?
And although we weren't planning to at all, we also bought this to go behind it. What?? They made us an offer we couldn't refuse. The truck and camper were a pair from Day One. Who were we to break them up?
BTW, this isn't camping anymore; it's RVing! It's not about roughing it anymore; it's about getting away, getting set up ASAP, and relaxing.
And trying not to make fun of the suckers in the tents.
