Its the End of March...and hopefully Winter

Another winter is coming to an end and not soon enough for us. Next week are heading to Las Vegas for a few days and hope to return to sprouting grass...since I planted 20 lbs of it Friday.

If you are wondering about the sorry looking Pinon in front of the patio, I have been taking it down piece by piece so Marlys won't know when it is gone and the view is un-obstructed. That of course didn't happen as she noticed the first branch removed last summer.

The Molesworth replica sideboard has reached the point fo finishing. The sideboard will be stained Vermont Maple which is a golden color and the raised tepee on the doors and the animal footprints will be a black lacquer.

The top will be covered in a reddish leather, if we can find it, with a black leather edge held on with large hammered tacks.

The drawer pulls and door knobs will be made from antler. Hopefully another couple of weekends should do it.

Then on to the next item...the rear deck or if Winter is still hanging on a end table for the living room.

I also found a way to get rid of the old boards that have been laying around the barn and believe it or not these are pretty comfortable.

Marlys and I talked quite a bit about the truck camper this weekend and we may start to look at a 5th wheel trailer for the temporary requirements of living at an RV park while we are still working. Looks like we can get one for less money and of course it will have more room.

Once we aren't be "full timing" , we would downsize to the TC.

We have got the truck to handle it either way...the mountain queen.

A slight Hiccup in the Plans.

This was our weekend to stay in town (Marlys haircut), so we went out to look at RV parks for the Truck Camper.

The good news is that we found a couple of really nice one.

The bad news is that because of micro bursting in the area of the foothills truck campers need to remain attached to the truck so that they don't get blown over. Now understand that this TC weights in at close to 5K and a few of the trailers we saw at the parks may have been in the 4K range, there were no exceptions. They are probably right in that the windstorms on the Front Range can be incredible.

We will need to refine our RV park research to areas probably east of I-25.

On another subject, the Molesworth Sideboard is coming along.

The carcass is built and next weekend I will finish the doors and drawers.

We had a heck of time finding the right stain and lacquer dye this weekend, finally going to Rockler. Marlys even let me go in unescorted, but she came in after I didn't leave fast enough to make sure my list hadn't expanded.

I ended up ordering the "hammered upholstery nails from Van Dykes (should have started there) and the next item on the "pick-up list" is the maroon leather for the top.

The other half of the new truck purchase.

Last night Marlys and I spent close to three hours at the Denver RV show looking at the few truck campers that were on our short list.

Okanagan - 117
Bigfoot 3000 Slide
Host Everest
Eagle Cap 1180

Other then the Bigfoot, all of the target campers had at least two slides, one being a rear sofa slide. It was pretty clear that we have the right truck to carry the load of any of these homes away from homes. In all cases though the dealer said they would add air springs and frame mounted hold downs.

The Bigfoot still seems to be the fit, finish and purpose built camper winner, but and this is a big one the slide is only for the dinette and wardrobe. It is a big slide, but it still has the feel of a truck camper inside.

The Everest is by far the most spacious but seemed a little cheap (hard to say that about a $50K truck camper) on the inside.

The Eagle Cap dealer said he didn't have one and would never have one....da da da. So we left there area, but not quick enough because we had to hear why Snow Rivers were the best for Elk hunting. He must have mistaken us for someone else, because we never mentioned anything about hunting or going off road, etc.

We spent a great deal of time going over the Okanagan, with both the dealer Rep (Hallmark Campers) and the factory Rep. We looked, poked and questioned most everything. A couple of observations; this camper is made for all season use and there cold weather testing (Truckcampermagazine.com) was impressive. The interior fabrics are not as fashionable as some of the others, but they were OK (pun). The storage is probably the biggest issue, but there is only so much space that can be crammed onto a truck. It had everything we were looking for; full kitchen (stainless steel), genset, thermopane windows, heated basement and tanks, complete awning (slides and side), outside speakers, shower (clean the dog) and BBQ. Electric jacks, satillite dish/antenna, dry bath (bigger then the one in our Jayco Trailer) and a real sofa. this camper also had flat floor slides (no step up into the slide areas).

And the colors will go well with the truck.

So, where are we going to take this behemoth? here are some of the places on the list;

Alaskan via the Alcan
Goose Bay, LAB via the Trans-Labrador Highway
New England in the fall
Daytona for the 500
Indianapolis for F1 (if it comes back) and the Brickyard 400
Bristol, TN
Talledega, baby
Las Vegas (Winter)
Texas (visit Tom and Joy @ the camp ground)
Arizona (visit whoever is down there when we are)
Florida (Camper just seem to fit in, in trailer land)
Munich for Octoberfest (OK we won't take the camper)
Detroit Autoshow (This will need to be a January Trip)
Wherever the spirit moves us to trek.

I also looked into biodeisel cookers this week and it looks like I won't be brewing any of that up anytime soon as they run $3k to $8k. I would need to brew-up a lot of cooking oil to pay that off. Besides I would be spending too much time collecting used oil from resturants.

So we had a question we never asked and wished we had as we walked to the car (trying to see how many times I could use we in one sentence);

Why do truck campers cost so much, when compared to trailers (tow behinds, 5'rs, toyhaulers), class B & C motorhomes, that have more space, stuff (cabinets, counters beds, etc.) and chassis?

The price of the Okanagan would buy a really nice RV in any of these other types. Even a Hallmark popup truch camper is going to run $20k-$30k+.

Pat