Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the tag “Four Wheel”

11 Nov 2015
14 Comments

The Three-Pound Bag

The wide lens shot tends to exaggerate space. Stand in the back doorway and keel forward, and you'll solidly kiss that tabletop!

The wide lens shot tends to exaggerate space. Stand in the back doorway and keel forward, and you’ll solidly kiss that tabletop!

Truck campers may be among the most space-efficient forms of RV, but once you get into the rough-terrain, compact pop-ups, even amazing efficiency doesn’t make up for not having much space to work with. I mean, the Four Wheel Grandby’s floor from front to back is a half-foot shorter than the Defiant’s width!

As I’ve mentioned earlier, since this pop-up folds down to just 56-1/2 inches to the roof, you can forget about stowing stuff in nonexistent overhead cabinets, or throwing things on top of the bed – the roof folds down to rest right on top of it. What you do with that firm pillow is your business. You can also forget about under-bed storage, where you lever up the mattress edge to reveal a flat but expansive storage tray suitable for clothing and fairly flat items. In the hard-tack world of no-compromises overlanding, where the priority challenges are from the terrain and not from within, creating such an under-bed space would compromise the Four Wheel’s extraordinarily low stowed roof height. Remember that earlier photo of a downtown overpass in Billings, Montana? It works the same for trees and overhanging rock and sometimes, inches make the difference. They especially make a difference when you’ve decided to jack up your truck’s suspension to improve its ground clearance and/or improve its muy macho aura.

Help one thing, hurt another.

Help one thing, hurt another. Two Happy Campers is a blog I recommend that you read.

In many ways, Four Wheel’s no-nonsense approach to be able to get a durable camping shelter from one obscure point on the terrain map to another is overkill for me. I mean, this is serious hardware, as such campers go. I’m not leading an expedition, goring the doors of the Super Duty on jagged rocks along the edge of a 500-foot drop, or fording rivers, or winching out of foot-deep goo, or filming a mini-documentary of a perilous journey. These campers are not built Read more…

Posted in Mod Squad, The Intrepid and tagged , , , , , ,
18 Sep 2015
33 Comments

Setting a New Course, Mateys!

Camped near the Bonneville Salt Flats to watch some land speed record attempts. They were there for a week, I stayed for about 2 and a half months, to see other events too.

Camped near the Bonneville Salt Flats to watch some land speed record attempts. They were there for a week, I stayed for about two and a half months, to see other events too. This was last year, and this is what the Defiant does best.

When it comes to RVs, or living mobile, I think one of the reasons that I harp so insistently on figuring out what you want to be doing in what kinds of places ahead of time is because that level of self-awareness is not all that easy when the span of those activities or kinds of places begin to go Jekyll/Hyde on you. RV rigs each come with inherent things that they do well, and things that they don’t. Thanks to the Internet, such limitations can be perceived ahead of time – mostly, anyway. My time to mull things over and reflect was very limited, as was my camping experience. But, I knew I’d rather be living out there than renting a room someplace. It’s kinda like life, I suppose. You do the best you can with what you’ve got, and start doing course corrections when you find that it’s necessary. Having gotten some full-timing experience under my belt since 2012, it appears to be that time now.

As a vehicle to actually live in, with no home or secret rented storage space(s) somewhere to keep overflow in, the travel trailer USS Defiant did and still does work very well. At 26 feet, it just plain works wherever it is, in any weather short of temperature extremes or very high winds. It is a home which can be moved from place to place, which is what I had envisioned. I enjoy getting out to quiet, solitary areas, but have no particular interest in having to battle flies and bees while I’m attempting to cook every meal, having my meal choices depend on what the weather is like, huddling bored inside a cold, dark box or tarp to escape bad weather, moving because of biting gnats, or cleansing my digestive system behind a bush, day or night. “Camping” or “outdoor living” is refreshing for me – for a day or two.

As a permanent lifestyle, that’s not for me. I’m just not an outdoorsy person. I like going outside when it’s nice, just to be outside for awhile. Go see things, feel the sun’s warmth on a cool day, bike around, walk around. I like staying inside when it’s not nice, or when I’ve had enough of the sun, wind, cold or heat, or when I have something to get done. When push comes to shove, Read more…

Posted in Navel Gazing, The Defiant and tagged , ,

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