Camping

Terri and I have been tent campers for a few years now. Our love for the outdoors, exploring new places, and the sitting by the campfire lifestyle have been a source of mental refreshment. The unpredictable weather has really dampened our enjoyment though. (Yes, that pun was intended.)

Last year Terri started just looking at used travel trailer campers online. It escalated and became her sport. Then she found THE ONE. It was loaded with features and one of the popular new “vintage” models. The eating area in this one looked like a 50’s diner. It was offered for sale by a private seller about 700 miles away from us. But first we had to get a vehicle that could tow it. We were moving ahead.

She was so excited and we started to look at tow vehicles. We found a used Jeep Grand Cherokee that we believed would work and asked the used car superstore to have it shipped to the location near us. A friend who has had a few trailers over the years told me I should be careful and look for soft spots from water damage around the slide out area. Hmmm. I joined a Facebook page for owners of this type of trailer and read several complaints from owners. Then I watched a couple maintenance and repair videos. This was starting to look VERY complicated. Then, when I asked the Facebook group about towing, it nearly started a war. Some people told me the Jeep would be fine but one guy strongly cautioned against trying to tow anything with that car. And then they started debating each other. It was all I needed to get scared because I had no idea what I was about to do.

Abort! I said to Terri. I have no idea how to tow. We don’t have a car to pull the trailer. And we don’t even know where we’re going to park it! So we called off the car transfer and shelved the idea of buying a camper for the time being.

For weeks Terri would keep going back to that ad for THE ONE and then show it to me. I liked it too and went to the site looking for the ad and stumbled upon a listing for a smaller trailer that had all we needed and no slide out. It was at a good price point and had a lot of nice touches added by the original owners. I showed her that ad and she fell in love with it. But we still needed that tow vehicle.

We contacted the travel trailer seller and agreed to buy it. We sent a deposit and made plans to drive the 500 miles to pick it up. We even made reservations to camp at a state park halfway between there and home. We made all the arrangements by texting with him while he was on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico! 

If there was one thing I learned about getting the tow vehicle it was to be sure to get the tow package, not just a towing hitch receiver. The package has increased transmission cooling and other features designed to keep towing from doing serious damage to the vehicle. I looked for used vehicles with the tow package and could not find any. Then I considered a truck. I’d never owned a truck, but thought this would give us the towing capacity for this trailer and the larger one that we will probably want in the future. (That is how this process goes, right?)

I spent about a week researching and doing my pre-shopping and found two vehicles that had the necessary towing capacity. Both dealerships were nearby. We spent a full day Saturday between those two and drove home that night with a 2018 Ford F-150 that would not fit in our garage. (The garage has some shelves that will have to be modified or removed and it will fit.)

This was getting very exciting. I was getting used to driving a full-size pick up truck and Terri was taking full advantage of her Amazon Prime membership getting the things we would “need” for the new experience. (You know, throw pillows and just the right comforter and pillow shams too because they come with the comforter.)

At last the big day arrived! We would pick it up on Saturday at 10 AM. We left after work on Friday to drive as far as we could and got within an hour of the destination. It had been a long day and sleep came easily enough.

We checked out of the hotel and picked up some groceries for our maiden voyage. The seller showed us the various features and he and his wife led us to a shopping center parking lot where he took the trailer off of his truck and I put it onto mine. He had included anti-sway bars and helped me install them. They took off, Terri and I had lunch, and then we hit the road. We were driving down the interstate pulling a trailer. We had entered a new world!