Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the tag “Pop-up Truck Camper”

26 Jul 2016
8 Comments

State of the Intrepid – Introduction

Once you start hanging extras onto your rig, it can get sizable indeed! Note that the e-bike just clears the path for mail delivery, and the rear cargo box can't be swung out without opening the garage door.

Once you start hanging extras onto your rig, it can get sizable indeed! Note that the e-bike just clears the path for mail delivery, and the rear cargo box can’t be swung out without opening the garage door.

I thought that it might be high time to say what it’s really like to live inside my FWC Grandby, with as little cognitive bias (the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has already selected) or buyer’s remorse (no definition needed) as I can muster. After all, such sources as The Sales Blog notes, “Buyers don’t make logical, rational buying decisions. They make emotional decisions and then justify those decisions by rationalizing them after the fact. This is true even if they use a spreadsheet to evaluate suppliers and solutions.” Sadly, I’ve found this to be true. Much like scientists, we vote with our hearts or when hemmed in by circumstance, and then rationalize like crazy to convince ourselves that our decision was sound.

But I don’t think you want to simply hear how great or awful this Four Wheel product is, as in evangelizing for the brand. I can wax ecstatic and propagandize as well as the next guy, but I think you want to get an idea of what about it works well, what’s okay, what’s a nuisance, and what’s a flaw – at least in one person’s opinion. Perhaps of good value is to find out how the Read more…

Posted in The Intrepid and tagged , , ,
10 Dec 2015
24 Comments

Installation Day

A forklift brings the Grandby up toward the truck. While I took this shot, I pretended that I wasn't concerned about the changes in tilt that the driveway presented.

A forklift brings the Grandby up toward the truck. While I took this shot, I pretended that I wasn’t concerned about the changes in tilt that the driveway presented.

Installation day for the Grandby turned out to a unique experience. I got up at 5 AM in order to leave at 6:30 and hopefully arrive at Adventure Trailers by 11 AM. I just assumed that installation would take a couple of hours to drill the truck’s bed for hold-down hardware, and to run wires from the battery back to the camper’s power cord. I actually left at 6:45 and booked it to try to compensate for the time lost on the 4-1/2 hour drive. It’s a technical 4 hours of driving, but between stoplight delays on-route, and fuel and potty stops, it adds up. Thanks largely to my Bank of America credit card throwing a hissy fit due to “unusual activity” caused by my traveling stops here and there, I didn’t arrive at the Prescott dealership until 11:25. When I hadn’t shown up by 11:15, they called just to make sure I wasn’t still asleep in Yuma, but they were not booked such that my delay would cause any issues for them.

For the amount of business they do, their facility is a bit tight, but gets the job done. One look at the lot shows that they also use what they sell.

For the amount of business they do, their facility is a bit tight, but gets the job done. One look at the lot shows that they also use what they sell.

Overland Journal has an office opposite Adventure Trailers’ office. That’s a glossy, high-end photographic rag that covers vehicle travel all over the globe, and the effort that takes limits them to five issues per year. It’s an interesting magazine.

At this point I found that the typical installation takes about 3 hours, which would wound my hopes of visiting a camper in Quartzsite on the way back, but it still appeared somewhat do-able. The Mighty Furd was parked and the hood Read more…

Posted in Mod Squad, The Intrepid and tagged
06 Oct 2015
40 Comments

The Other End of the Spectrum

Stock shot liberated from The Four Wheel camper website. I doubt that they will mind. They'd probably prefer me to use a half-dozen more.

Stock shot liberated from The Four Wheel camper website. I doubt that they will mind. They’d probably prefer me to use a half-dozen more.

In the first part of this series, I pulled out a partial laundry list of traveling issues presented by the travel trailer Defiant, a tired 1994 Gulf Stream Innsbruck 26-footer. While evaluating what to do to make my travels less of of a physical ordeal, less stressful, and better able to place a living space in the most desirable (to me) locations, I had to mull over more questions about myself than about technical RV rig choices. After all, any given rig can be vouched for as being “better”, but better for whom? RV Spartans follow one rigid ideology, while “he who dies with the most toys wins” RVers follow another. Regardless of the pressures either way, it’s your life, your wallet, and your rig, and you’re the one who’s going to have to live with it. No one will be apologizing for steering you the wrong way for you.

So, the questions returned to the basic starting point. What did I want to be able to do that I’m not doing now? Since I am already on the road, what did I want to be able to stop doing?

The stopping part was easy. Hauling around the uber-comfortable Defiant dictates a certain mode of living. I wanted to stop Read more…

Posted in Navel Gazing, The Intrepid and tagged , , , ,

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