Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the tag “truck camper”

23 Aug 2016
14 Comments

State of the Intrepid – Floor Plan

Could'a used a wider lens on this - which I don''t have. Anyway, the Grandby front dinette model.

Could’a used a wider lens on this – which I don”t have. Anyway, the Grandby front dinette model.

[This post is a look at the Four Wheel Grandby’s basic features which inherently come along with the front dinette floor plan. Several more posts about other of the Grandby’s aspects will follow. Caution: neat/clean freaks may experience some degree of trauma due to the graphic nature of the photographs used throughout this series, which were taken after some 5 months on the road. The camper is in active camping condition, not display condition. You have been warned.]

In general, the Grandby itself has worked out very well, without regrets. The front dinette model can sleep four adults, the second pair sleeping on a platform created by stowing the dinette table between the two side benches. Of necessity, the seat foam is markedly stiffer, and coin-tossing for sleeping location may be advised. Obviously, I didn’t select my floor plan for that capability, and I wouldn’t expect the head count after a long 4-person weekend camp out to be the same returning as it was departing. Whoever sleeps on this lower platform is likely to be stepped on when Read more…

Posted in Camper Nirvana, The Intrepid and tagged , ,
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 , , ,
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 , ,
06 Oct 2013
22 Comments

Van or RV?

When this represents "very cloudy", you know you’re going to like it here. What will you reside in while you’re here?

When this represents “very cloudy”, you know you’re going to like it here. What will you reside in while you’re here?

When a few hardy souls, by circumstance or free choice, decide that a mobile lifestyle is the way to go for them, the choice of what type of contraption they will live in can seem like a difficult puzzle to put together. That’s only because it is. The options are wide, and small differences can make or break a choice.

What to choose, oh what to choose?

What to choose, oh what to choose?

I’ll claim right here that I’m not going to deliberately try to steer you toward the one solution that I prefer myself, though my feature preferences will leak into this post, of course. It helps that I’m not living in the type of rig I actually prefer, but what I do have does work quite well for me. I think you’ll know when to filter out what doesn’t apply to you, and so know whenever a particular type of rig may not be such great shakes for you, because you’re not me. Thank your lucky stars for that! Personally, I consider a converted van to be just another form of RV, but for the sake of this article, I’m pretending it’s not.

The major caveat is that I’m going to babble on here about full-timing only, and having no other housing available in the foreseeable future. Anyone can make do in anything when you have friends or relatives to stay at now and then, or some other form of Read more…

Posted in Camper Nirvana, Navel Gazing and tagged , , , , , , ,

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