A Little History of our Blog (and our Trailer Obsession)

Sam and I started camping right after we got married, but I had no idea that his determination to make us camp during thunderstorms would lead to us down the path to a fifth-wheel trailer. Here's the short version:

Our gateway drug 

In December 2010, we purchased a tiny Coachman Clipper that we named The Clippah. It was supposed to allow us to camp in Wisconsin and other places without getting attacked by falling branches, raging raccoons, or threatening thunderstorms. But mostly, it gave us the bug to go on a road trip. In September 2011, Sam, Nora, and I took our tiny trailer on a six-week trip to the Southwest, and that's when this blog was born...

The Clippah

We pulled out of Chicago with a Toyota Four-Runner and the eight foot popup, and returned in November 2011 with Larry, the Ford F-250, and Monty, our original fifth-wheel western-sized trailer.

Larry and Monty

There were a lot of reasons that we got a trailer that big, but most of all, Sam could stand up in it. And I could ignore him by sitting in a completely different section of the RV. It was perfect for the rest of our road trip. In fact, we loooooved that trailer, but when we returned to Chicago, we FREAKED out. Seriously. Like what the heck were we thinking? Monty looked a heck of a lot bigger in the Midwest than it had in Texas. Unfortunately, it's not like we were going to take it to Wisconsin for a weekend of camping in the state park. We had to face it--Monty was a bull in a china shop.

So in July 2013, we traded it in, and went back to a slightly bigger popup. It had a bathroom and a decent kitchen, and even a slideout.

The second popup...somewhere in Michigan

But let's be honest, it had some issues... like sometimes the mechanism to "pop-it-up" didn't work, and we'd find ourselves sleeping in a cabin.......

What happens when your popup won't open

That conveniently happened when we drove out to Montana for my brother's wedding. Although the cabin was lovely, we had driven twenty-two hours with a trailer behind us so we could sleep in it when we arrived. So even on a good day, "The Second Popup," took almost an hour to set up, and we found ourselves yearning for the fifth wheel again.

This brings us to the current-dead-honest-truth: We moved to Las Vegas so we could get another fifth wheel...Yeah, it's sort of true. Well, never mind the amazing national parks and the proximity to the ocean--it was all about getting our Monty back, and that we did. In July 2014, we purchased the hilarity that is Monty II.

The Montana in its birth environment.

So far, we love it, but you never know.... I still miss my rear kitchen original fifth wheel..........