What made you decide to do this?
We didn’t choose the Camper life… the Camper life chose us.
As many of you know, I have a full time career that’s in no way connected to the RV world, but does help fuel my passion for traveling and exploring. My other passion however takes up the majority of my off time, which acts as a rather lucrative hobby. Some refer to it nowadays as “flipping”, whereas I’ve always kept it simple and called it “buying and selling”. Which in the last few years has become less buying or more trading…thanks to the wonderful world of reality TV shows that make people think they are master negotiators and salesman…which they are not. So my time away from my full time job is spent focusing on acquiring vehicles in need of repair that I can see a profit in selling once done.
So to make a long story less boring, I had a truck for sale that someone offered me a trade deal for a less expensive truck and a camper to boot. Skeptical at first, as I assumed the camper would be moldy, dilapidated, and in need of major repairs, I ventured across town in hopes of finding a deal. After leaving the house with one truck and arriving home some odd hours later with another truck, a camper, a fifth wheel hitch assembly, a gooseneck adapter and $1200 to boot, I was sitting pretty.
After a few days of toying with the idea of taking the camper on a short weekend trip before cleaning it up and selling it, we’d decided to take a 3 day trip back to our previous (and well missed) stomping grounds of Charleston, SC, not to only to test out this outdated camper, but to visit close friends and allow our dog to rekindle with his favorite dog park (James Island Dog Park- check it out).
With a date set and reservations made at the James Island SC park, I was on a deadline to find a truck.
Click here for the full Truck Search Story.
Halfway through our first weekend in the camper in the wonderful James Island SC campground, I sat down in front of Alyssa at what was at the time a booth style seat in the camper and said “I could do this” which was followed with an inquisitive and worried response of “do what?”. I expressed that I could imagine us doing a cross country trip in a camper. With no intentions at the time of performing a full remodel and planning to live in the camper for months on end. And in that moment she agreed that it was a brilliant idea, and all that was needed was to plant the seed, and let the barrage of pintresting begin.
After a long weekend of learning the basic functions and features of the ole Dutchmen and we realized that other than this sweet thing just being outdated, it performed wonderfully. Every option on the camper worked with ease, proving that the previous owners took pride in their heaven on wheels in its past life by keeping its preventative maintenance up to date. According to the Stickered Map of the United States on the side of the camper, this ole girl has already seen some travels in her day.