As the 3 month anniversary of my life changes rolls around, I finally started to work on the camper. I painted some of the front and figured out some of the remodel I wanted to do. I packed up the dogs and some stuff from home, hooked up the trailer and for the first time in my life I towed something. I towed it 400 miles from NC to NJ. I was anxious almost the whole way.
I had a delayed start of 1 day because I didn't know how to hook the ball on the truck to the trailer. That set me back, going back and forth trying to find the right size, only to have the right size to start with. I had to get some help from my neighbor who was watching my cats for me while I was away. We did a lot of back and forth that day. I worked a lot the week before so I had to do all my anxiety housework the day I wanted to leave and pack as I went a long. It took us about 10 hours to make the trip. Traffic between VA and MD was just a mess on 95.
Traveling wasn't as bad as I thought it would be trailer wise. I filled up the tires with air and hoped for the best. (One was looking a little dry rotted) I headed up the highway to NJ and tried to get as much travel in as I could because some of the lights on the trailer were out. We made it though without to many problems. There was a scare when I stopped for something to eat and thought I'd locked the dogs in the truck with it running. Minor heart attack there.
We finally got the camper popped up. I was so excited, we were going to gut it and redo the inside. We couldn't even get the top up all the way though. The tent part was so dry rotted my finger went through it and every time we tried to finish the beds popping up, it tore around the frame. I was crushed. I thought it would be something I could do in a week and be on the road and camping at least a little before winter came on full blown. Now it just looked like I had bought junk and wasted my time and money. After talking to some people on a Facebook camping group I'm in, I felt better though. It was still something I could do.
I even went to look at another trailer that was being sold for $950, but the canvas was worse than the one I had. So I made the decision to keep going and just do a rebuild of the whole thing instead of a remodel.
I ordered new tires for the trailer as the wrong type, size and PSI tires were on it when I got it. We'll be putting them on, on Sunday.
We put on the air vent on that I brought with me. I was surprised it didn't come with the screws or the putty that I needed to install it. While installing the vent we found that there were 2 pieces of rotted wood under the original vent so we pulled those out and my dad put new ones in. We got the vent on and what a difference just that one thing makes!
I painted the new latches copper to match what I'm going to paint the trailer underneath the camper and we'll put those on tomorrow.
I bought some paint for the roof to water proof it. I saw it on a YouTube video that another pop-up camper owner did for resealing the roof.
I have some putty and new trim on order so that can all be replaced also. The current trim is all cracked due to age and needs to be replaced.
We're also going to be pulling the canvas out since it's already moldy and dry rotted. No sense keeping it in there and making things worse.
I'm thinking of going with an Apache type hard side pop-up and doing away with the canvas all together. I'll probably spend the rest of winter trying to figure out how to make that work.
I saw some flooring I want to get at Sam's Club and I'm going to pick that up on Monday so we have it when it's time to start working on the inside of the trailer.
I'm getting excited again at the idea of working on this and making it my own in more ways than I had originally planned. It's been a roller coaster of a week. Filled with excitement and the adventure of doing something that scared me for the first time. Disappointment at the trailer not working out the way I had originally planned. Happiness at talking to my son who now lives in Sweden on video and letting him get to talk to everyone in the family for Thanksgiving. Spending time with family and then finally the excitement of a new adventure while we go forward with the camper and all the changes we're hoping to get done with it.
How was your week? Have you ever had something set in your mind to turn out a certain way, only to have everything change and not go as planned? How did you react? What was your out come? Have you done something that scared you this week? If you have what was it and how did it turn out in the end?
Happy Travels!
