So, it is time for another trip report from me. I donโt think Iโve done one since Norway last year, so I am overdue. This one however will be a bit different. It will involve Sally and I travelling internationally as usual, and will also involve a truck camper as usual, just not the usual combination.
Background
To understand this trip, letโs wind back a few years. Iโve known many of you on RV.net for a number of years and weโve met up in various places. Amongst my Truck Camper friends I am happy to count Sleepy โ otherwise known as Chet. As you undoubtedly know, Chet has spent more than a thousand nights in his current camper (he built his own before that). Chet and I have communicated for several years independently from RV.net too.
Camper failures
Many of us have suffered from that feeling of disappointment and dread when we suddenly find horrendous rot, delamination or structural failure in our campers. Chet, whose 13-year old Lance 1161 has been used very extensively, unfortunately joined this club.
So what do you do? It is obvious when a camper is nearly new and worth a lot of money โ you repair it. It is obvious when the camper is a worthless pile of junk with no historic value, abandoned in someoneโs front yard โ you send it to the junk yard. But many of us fall into that intermediate grey area where there are arguments in favour of both sides and we have to weigh it all up and make that difficult decision.
This was Chetโs dilemma and he had to weigh up all the variables to work out the optimum answer. No-one can do that for you, we can all provide our advice and opinions, but in the end it was down to Chet and his wife Janet. Their preferred choice was to have the camper they knew, in a layout they liked (which is no longer available) with all their years of customisations for their travel preferences, rebuilt.
In Chetโs case the culprit was structural damage โ the structure around the slide was cracking and collapsing, and the floor of the bed area was cracking away from the cabover side, pus a number of other problems. The interior was still like new though.
A plan forms
After some dead ends, and thanks to Captain PJ locating a shop in Tacoma that were able to rebuild his 1161 (the same model as Chetโs), with excellent results, Chet has a potential solution.
But Tacoma is a long way from Oak Ridge and Chet doesnโt feel like making the journey both ways.
So in our email conversations, Chet starts dropping hints. Would we like to ferry his camper across country in the spring / summer of 2016? We would love to. A favour to a friend of course, but also a great opportunity for us. But we are already committed, having purchased ferry tickets for Norway and I donโt get enough time out from my job to do two major trips in a year. The only real solution is to leave it a year and have the camper rebuilt in 2017.
How would this work?
Chet generously says we can take as long as we liked to get the camper across country, but in reality, I can take at most 3 weeks off work (and Iโve never done that before, so this is testing the limits).
I book the flights โ American Airlines outbound (flying to Knoxville via Chicago) and British Airways return from SeaTac direct to London.
There is a 5-hour timezone difference between London and Oak Ridge. However, business requires that I be in Bangalore, India for 2 weeks leading up to the cross-country trip, so I have an extra 4.5 hours of timezone change to get used to as well.
The opportunity to take this trip also coincided with the need to replace the soft top on my Jeep. They are expensive in Britain, but I can save a lot of money by bringing one back home with me. The soft-top is ordered and quickly delivered to Captain PJโs house in Tacoma for safe keeping until we arrive. I get a good deal on one of those big bright yellow rubberised hold-alls you see circling the baggage carousel at airports โ the type that implies the owners are heading for a mountain, yacht or white water raft. Getting the size right is critical โ it has to be large enough to take the Jeep soft-top, but still comply with the size limitations of two different airlines, including a regional jet. When we planned the flight I had gold status with British Airways โ this afforded me a ridiculous amount of hold baggage. By the time we come to fly though, a year of doing local projects had eroded that status and we are now restricted to one 23kg bag each. Given one of those bags will need to be full of Jeep soft top on the return journey, that meant almost all our gear for the trip needs to fit into one bag! We will be travelling light, despite being in a huge camper. Chet makes our lives easier though by arranging to loan us various things we will need, such as a tripod, trekking poles, etc.
Background
To understand this trip, letโs wind back a few years. Iโve known many of you on RV.net for a number of years and weโve met up in various places. Amongst my Truck Camper friends I am happy to count Sleepy โ otherwise known as Chet. As you undoubtedly know, Chet has spent more than a thousand nights in his current camper (he built his own before that). Chet and I have communicated for several years independently from RV.net too.
Camper failures
Many of us have suffered from that feeling of disappointment and dread when we suddenly find horrendous rot, delamination or structural failure in our campers. Chet, whose 13-year old Lance 1161 has been used very extensively, unfortunately joined this club.
So what do you do? It is obvious when a camper is nearly new and worth a lot of money โ you repair it. It is obvious when the camper is a worthless pile of junk with no historic value, abandoned in someoneโs front yard โ you send it to the junk yard. But many of us fall into that intermediate grey area where there are arguments in favour of both sides and we have to weigh it all up and make that difficult decision.
This was Chetโs dilemma and he had to weigh up all the variables to work out the optimum answer. No-one can do that for you, we can all provide our advice and opinions, but in the end it was down to Chet and his wife Janet. Their preferred choice was to have the camper they knew, in a layout they liked (which is no longer available) with all their years of customisations for their travel preferences, rebuilt.
In Chetโs case the culprit was structural damage โ the structure around the slide was cracking and collapsing, and the floor of the bed area was cracking away from the cabover side, pus a number of other problems. The interior was still like new though.
A plan forms
After some dead ends, and thanks to Captain PJ locating a shop in Tacoma that were able to rebuild his 1161 (the same model as Chetโs), with excellent results, Chet has a potential solution.
But Tacoma is a long way from Oak Ridge and Chet doesnโt feel like making the journey both ways.
So in our email conversations, Chet starts dropping hints. Would we like to ferry his camper across country in the spring / summer of 2016? We would love to. A favour to a friend of course, but also a great opportunity for us. But we are already committed, having purchased ferry tickets for Norway and I donโt get enough time out from my job to do two major trips in a year. The only real solution is to leave it a year and have the camper rebuilt in 2017.
How would this work?
Chet generously says we can take as long as we liked to get the camper across country, but in reality, I can take at most 3 weeks off work (and Iโve never done that before, so this is testing the limits).
I book the flights โ American Airlines outbound (flying to Knoxville via Chicago) and British Airways return from SeaTac direct to London.
There is a 5-hour timezone difference between London and Oak Ridge. However, business requires that I be in Bangalore, India for 2 weeks leading up to the cross-country trip, so I have an extra 4.5 hours of timezone change to get used to as well.
The opportunity to take this trip also coincided with the need to replace the soft top on my Jeep. They are expensive in Britain, but I can save a lot of money by bringing one back home with me. The soft-top is ordered and quickly delivered to Captain PJโs house in Tacoma for safe keeping until we arrive. I get a good deal on one of those big bright yellow rubberised hold-alls you see circling the baggage carousel at airports โ the type that implies the owners are heading for a mountain, yacht or white water raft. Getting the size right is critical โ it has to be large enough to take the Jeep soft-top, but still comply with the size limitations of two different airlines, including a regional jet. When we planned the flight I had gold status with British Airways โ this afforded me a ridiculous amount of hold baggage. By the time we come to fly though, a year of doing local projects had eroded that status and we are now restricted to one 23kg bag each. Given one of those bags will need to be full of Jeep soft top on the return journey, that meant almost all our gear for the trip needs to fit into one bag! We will be travelling light, despite being in a huge camper. Chet makes our lives easier though by arranging to loan us various things we will need, such as a tripod, trekking poles, etc.
Awesome trip report. I heard I had to come take a look.....I need to read via my PC instead of this silly phone.
But it appears there has been some sort of international incident, that could precipitate another revolutionary war or something, so evidence is being gathered. If you have any information about this person, please notify the proper red-coated authorities
But it appears there has been some sort of international incident, that could precipitate another revolutionary war or something, so evidence is being gathered. If you have any information about this person, please notify the proper red-coated authorities
