So We Bought A New Camper

The year was 2020. You probably remember how that went.

For us, our jobs were relegated to remote work mid-March. In a normal year, we would try to go camping anywhere from four times or more. After months of lockdown we furtively booked two short trips in our a-frame camper, one in June to Pine Valley, Utah and one in August to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

Both were beautiful trips that helped us rejuvenate and heal from the ongoing stress of months of staring at the same four walls and wondering if the next trip to the grocery store could kill us (such fun times.)

We didn’t know it at the time, but our last night at the Grand Canyon would be our last time camping in our a-frame camper.

While we loved our a-frame camper, a cat had been let out of the bag: our jobs had been discussing remote work as a permanent option. We saw coworkers move out of state and across the country and thought “why couldn’t we work remotely from our trailer?”

As we took nightly walks with our shiba, we talked more and more about the idea.

And just for fun, we started looking online at trailer floor plans.

January came around, and vaccinations began happening. We wouldn’t get ours until March, but the “end of the beginning” had started. For a little entertainment, we strolled through a few campers. You can see where this is going.

If we were going to upgrade, we wanted to make it worth it. We had a wish list:

• A “north to south” bed we could walk around – no more crawling over one another to pee in the middle of the night.
• A large enough seating area that converted into a bed so a guest or two could stay if necessary.

And, well, that was it. We’re easy to please.

But despite a short wish list, we still wanted to make sure we were making the right decision. Floorplans are hard. Some had dinettes that would give us the bed space we want, but the showers were woefully cramped. Some had great showers and dinettes, but were too heavy for the trailer can pull. We debated whether we wanted a bunkhouse area to turn into an office area, whether we wanted slideouts or no slide outs, murphy beds or jackknife sofas – there are no shortages of options.

One Friday night near the end of January, Russ happened to check the stock of one dealership, and a new model with a floor plan we hadn’t yet seen came online. The Starcraft Super Lite 212FB featured a queen size bed, an L-shaped sofa with a pull out sofa bed, and s spacious bathroom and shower.

We went in on a Saturday to view the model. It was big enough without being too big to size us out of smaller parks. Compared to another model across the parking lot, it didn’t have nearly as much storage, but coming from our a-frame camper, I knew I could stretch the storage options pretty far.

We decided to let it sit a week. If it was meant to be, it would still be there.

A week later,  it was.

The dealership experience felt honest, we felt the price we were paying was fair. We put in for financing, were approved, and we signed an agreement. They said they would finish the inspection and get it ready for us. With a touch of sadness, we listed our a-frame camper for sale on a Facebook group.

A week later, we spent the morning selling our a-frame to a enigmatic couple of school teachers from California, followed by an afternoon picking up the camper.

We arrived and were given a tour of the camper and shown a general how-to for everything. Then we buckled down to sign the final paperwork and listen to the final sales pitches for clear coating and GPS units and all sorts of things. As the sun dipped low into the late winter sky, we installed our weight distribution hitch, hooked up the new travel trailer, and came home with our cabin on wheels.

We’ll miss our a-frame camper. They’re so convenient to store, tow, and setup. If we could have kept it and brought home the new travel trailer, we would have. But life is full of difficult decisions.

We’re excited to begin our next era: sometimes taking weekend trips to get outside of the city, sometimes working from the road as we take long trips across the country, exploring the great outdoors in between our obligations closing help tickets and meeting deadlines.