Family Vacations
With my position at the college – July and August off – I am probably one of the few people who can make full use of a camping trailer, and ours does indeed get a lot of use. We camp both ‘for campings sake’ (meaning woodsy) as well as use our unit as an apartment on wheels when touring.
Seen here in 2001, our family was camping at Lakeside beach in NY with our old 21-foot Trail-Cruiser. The chipmunks here are the friendliest little critters and come right up to us to be hand-fed. We’ve been camping here since before the kids were born and still love the place.
Migrating from a tent to an “apartment on wheels” …
We’ve been camping for some time and have migrated from tent (it seemed to rain every time we went out), to hardtop trailer (it also seemed to rain every time, which was more survivable in a trailer than a tent, but now we loathed hot and humid weather), to travel trailer (with no need to pack-up in the rain, and an air conditioner on the roof… of course since we got it we now got better weather while camping). Our first big travel trailer was a 21-foot Trail-Cruiser: this was a great little unit which weighed only 3500lb when lightly loaded and so we could pull it with our minivan. While it _could_ be towed with our minivan it was certainly hard on the vehicle and big hills were particularly painful to climb. As well, we made the mistake of buying a Ford and so every time we tried to climb a hill the “check engine” light came on, rectified by a $75 visit to the garage (a buddy of mine who also owned a Ford suggested I put electrical tape over the light as it was a cheaper solution than multiple visits to the dealer). When the minivan died (my _last_ Ford, my VERY VERY _last_ Ford, which blew head-gaskets at 70000 km) we bought a pickup which we knew would tow a trailer properly. Our little Dodge Dakota pickup was built for towing with a 4.7l engine, 5 speed automatic, all-wheel drive, extra cooling package, and a 3.92 gear ratio. Towing a 3500lb trailer was very easy behind that truck and you almost forgot it was there (the truck is rated at about 6500lb towing capacity – twice what we were pulling).
Now, having a pickup (which can pull far more weight than we had), we bought a larger trailer (vicious circle, eh?). The reality is, when my mom tagged-along with us to Disneyworld in Florida in 2003 the 21-foot trailer was quite crowded and if we intended to take her along again, a larger unit would be nice. We migrated in 2004 to a very comfortable 30-foot Trail-Lite with a pop-out (this was a very luxurious unit featuring ducted air, stained-glass on the cabinet doors, and a completely enclosed underbelly with heated holding tanks). That unit weighed less than 5000lb (under 6000lb when fully loaded with all our camping ‘stuff’) and we towed it everywhere. In 2008, we had a lucky-to-be-alive accident on the I-4 in Florida on our way to Disney in which that 4 year old Trail-Lite rolled-over on a busy highway at rush-hour and was demolished. We were all badly shaken (ending-up backwards on a busy highway facing oncoming traffic at 65 MPH will do that) but everyone survived and miraculously no-one else was involved in the accident. Even the truck survived with minor bruises (that little Dakota is built like a tank) although the force of the accident twisted the frame to the point where it was required to replace it (yes, they physically transplanted the entire truck onto a new frame).
We certainly weren’t ready to give-up camping and so in 2008 bought a 29-foot Trail-Sport ultralight. Weighing 4118 pounds unloaded, it was quite similar to our 30-foot Trail-Lite with a similar pop-out but this unit features more bunks (four in the back) and a load of outside storage (The Floor Plan can be seen here). Like our previous unit, the unit is cavernous inside with the pop-out extended and has a full queen bed in front. While the new unit wasn’t quite as luxurious as the previous unit (lacking ducted air and a fully-enclosed underbelly) it had a lot going for it including being lighter, having a place for my mom to sleep instead of the sofa, and a huge amount of outdoor storage – something lacking on most trailers we’ve ever seen. The unit had a second door on the rear which opens into an area under the top bunk on the passenger side of the trailer: the original purpose was to allow one to carry stuff like bikes, tents, etc, to be unloaded first and allow the bunk to be used by unfolding it into the open space behind the door. Within an hour of owning the unit we had modified it by removing the fourth bunk (the original configuration was a ‘bunk house’ with four bunks in the rear) and walling-off that area so the trailer now has three bunks (for two kids and one for grandma) and a huge outside storage area we affectionately called the ‘shed’. This area, about 3 feet by 6 feet by 4 feet high, featured shelves on one side and solved a huge problem with almost every trailer we’ve owned or seen: lack of outdoor storage space usually requiring gear like lawn chairs, etc, to be stored inside while travelling. We no longer had to clean chairs and tables before packing them and propane stoves and appliances stay outdoors preventing the leaching of that wonderful mercaptan odour into the unit.
Aside from creating the storage area we made a host of small changes to the unit including adding rail-and-stile doors for various spaces. With a thin LCD TV mounted on the wall, the old cabinet area originally designated for the TV was fitted with a door making a large cabinet for food (can’t have too much storage space in a trailer). Under the main bed two doors allowed that large area to house a drawer for pots and pans as well as a large slide-out bucket for laundry. A door was fitted allowing the area under a dinette seat to be used for shoes. Another shortcoming of this unit (and all of our previous travel trailers – this is a ‘feature’ of the RVision product line) was lack of drawers … I think these guys expect you to hang underwear in a wardrobe :). We added five slide-out plastic buckets for use as drawers, building these into the new area behind the retrofitted shed. Other little touches included addition of shelves and plastic and wood ‘lips’ on all shelves to keep items from sliding out (especially useful for eliminating the frustration upon opening a door for the first-time after parking it). A phase-controller was built allowing the blower on the air conditioner to be cycled to a much lower speed at night to keep air circulating without the noise of the original blower (the controller cycles the PSC blower motor to a low speed without stalling until the compressor kicks-in at which point the fan speed rises preventing the evaporator coil from freezing-up). Finally, I welded a tank carrier which attaches to the rear bumper to carry the “poop tank”, used to empty the holding tanks without moving the entire unit, on the outside of the unit. It’s little personalizations like this which made this unit very livable and truly ‘ours’.
Here’s our 29-foot Trail-Sport camping in 2008. Despite the fact the unit is listed as “29 feet” it is actually two feet longer than our old “30 foot” unit … the manufacturers changed the way in which they measure these units a few years ago.
I often got asked about towability. With the right hitch – a weight distributing hitch which includes twin spring bars and twin sway controls (I have one on either side of my hitch) we can tow just about anywhere. Ultralight 30-foot trailers weigh less than 6000lbs fully loaded, so the little Dakota truck tows easily. Sure, the mountains of Virginia cause a fuss (even without the trailer those hills are nasty – everyone with a gas engine seems to have problems with those hills and a diesel is likely the only achiever there) and on some long hills we’re crawling up at 50 km/h (30mph) along with the trucks in the far right lane, but normal highways with normal grades aren’t a problem at all. And if you’re wondering, yes, the gas mileage is pitiful at about 12mpg towing (but not much better at 14mpg without a trailer behind!). As my dad used to say ‘Passes everything but a gas station’ :).
In 2013, we upgraded the aging Dakota to a new Toyota Tundra. A 4-by-4 with a 5.7 litre engine and a six-speed automatic, the larger truck pulled the trailer effortlessly (it has a tow rating of about 10,000 pounds so the trailer posed no problem for it). It performed very nicely on the hills in Virginia and those nasty long hills could be managed at 70 km/h (45mph) easily (I could go up to 55mph but I’d rather not push it). No matter where I’ve towed with it, I’ve never seen the transmission temperature gauge budge! The gas mileage is no better than the Dakota when towing (although it is without a trailer behind) but the truck is more powerful and the tow is a lot easier.
And then in 2017 we upgraded the trailer to a Grand Design 2800BH. At ten years of age, we were getting concerned about what might fail on the old trailer. A heavier and larger unit, our new one is quite comfortable featuring a huge 3-foot deep slide-out, two recliners, ducted air … the works. It has two double bunks allowing us to still take the kids camping (we weren’t sure they’d still want to come – good thing we got the bunks). Our first trip with it was in May 2017 to DisneyWorld and the unit performed well. Towing was relatively easy (although gas mileage was a pitiful but expected 9.1 mpg towing this 7000 lb + unit) and the unit is well suited for camping in hot climates (it is very well insulated).
Our kind of camping …
We do two kinds of camping, “camping for camping’s sake” and “touring” in which the unit serves as a hotel room (but one in which we don’t have to unpack every time we move). If we’re camping for camping’s sake – just to enjoy the outdoors – we usually camp amidst trees in nice shaded sites foregoing full services for nature (you know, places with lots of trees, chipmunks, and campfires). ‘Roughing it’ usually means just hydro (and before you say anything about 30 Amp service being far from ‘roughing it’, remember that we started with a tent :).
Some of our favourite places include campgrounds around the finger lakes in New York state. There are nice parks in Ontario, too, but they seem to book-up months in advance with few vacancies available (the system seems ripe with abuse and I keep hoping the parks people will correct this), especially since we cannot take ‘any’ site with a 29-foot trailer. Some of our favourite camping spots offer a little piece of nature: Peace, quiet, and chipmunks … all you could want while camping! Often, the kids find little critters to feed like these friendly little chipmunks at Lakeside – they were so friendly on one trip they were climbing on us to eat peanuts from our hands! Of course camping is about a host of things including being in and around nature (I particularly like walking out to a well-treed area), sharing meals with the family (we set up a dining tent and all of us, including my in-laws, come over to enjoy meals together), and just living it slower (sometimes taking hours to make dinner and wondering where the day went). It’s hard at home to justify waking-up at 9 and finishing breakfast at 10:30 but this seems to be the norm for us when camping.
Finishing breakfast at 10:30 … indeed! While “real camping”, elaborate breakfasts seem to be the norm: French toast, pancakes, and, pictured here, omelettes. Making meals seems to be a bit more “entertainment” than you’d usually associate with food.
The omelette here was a bit of an experiment – an attempt to make one as good as the best I’d ever had, which was at the Crystal Palace in Disney.
We rarely watch TV or turn on a radio while camping preferring quiet recreation like playing cards – which reminds me of a funny thing where, while playing cards, a chipmunk climbed on my father-in-law and appeared to be helping him with his game. I could make a smart-a#%ed comment about needing a chipmunk to help him with his cards since the ‘little guy’ appears to be whispering something to him in this photo like “don’t play the ten !”.
And if one thing really defines ‘camping’ for me, it’s a campfire when it gets dark. It’s a lot of fun, whether catching-up with a large group of people or just kicking-back quietly with a few of us. It’s the kind of thing you just can’t do most places … and when camping, you’re free of computers, and phones, and radios! That’s important, too: if you want to ruin a camping trip just bring the cellphone, blare the radio, and surf the web. Really, “they” can wait for you to get back!
Aside from camping for camping’s sake, we also use the trailer as a vehicle to tour the countryside. In this case, the camper acts as a hotel room on wheels and we usually try to camp in fully-serviced campgrounds. Hotelling-it is OK for a vacation where you’ll be staying for a week in one place, but when you’re moving every three or four days to a new location the packing/unpacking thing gets tiring … with a trailer all “our stuff” is already there and ready when we park. Our trailer has taken us to a bunch of places as a ‘vehicle’ for touring including:
Our Trips
Watkin's Glen
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This is a typical camping trip for us: some trips are purely for the purpose of rest and relaxation (i.e. in the “middle of nowhere”) while others, like this one, allow us to both do some camping as well as tour some very interesting sights. |
Peterborough and Kingston
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Rochester, NY
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If you are in the Rochester area, another neat place is Sonnenberg Gardens, a huge mansion built in 1885 with accompanying beautiful, manicured gardens and a conservatory. And if you have small kids, and are near Rochester, check out the Strong Museum of Playwhich my kids loved when they were small. |
Dover and Dayton, OH
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Scranton, PA
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Kingston and Ottawa, ON
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Dearborn, MI
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For more information go to the Henry Ford Museum / Greenfield Village web site. |
Williamsburg, VA
On the way back from South Carolina in 2006 we stopped at Williamsburg, Virginia, for a few days. Even if you’re not into American colonial history, Colonial Williamsburg was an awesome place to visit with knowledgeable interpreters at every building. It really gave you a feeling for life in the last part of the 18th century’ (which seems a lot harsher than one might want to have thought). The time-frame of the colony is 1776, just before the American revolution when the US was still a British colony. We had a three-day ticket, of which it takes at least two days to cover the place. Be sure to see the movie at the guest center which gives a good introduction to the colony and, for those of us not versed well in US history, a summary on the events leading to the revolution. I especially enjoyed touring the Governor’s residence, a house where we were shown what ‘typical’ life was really like for an upper-middle class family (including how meals were cooked in a kitchen with no screens on the windows), and the apothecary.
Eastern Canada (NB, NS, PEI)
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Morrisburg and Ottawa, ON
On one of our trips to Ottawa in 2004 to visit relatives (we’ve taken a few trips to that area) we took a side-trip to Morrisburg, the home of Upper Canada Village (we often do this on trips, visiting interesting places on the way). The village shows life in Upper Canada in 1860 and features three mills (one steam powered, another water-powered woolen mill), a blacksmith shop, a general store (pictured to the left, with costumed interpreters), and a host of buildings giving visitors an excellent idea of what life was like long ago. We even took a ride in a horse-drawn scow (which the kids loved). We stayed at a nearby park so that after a long day of touring we could relax. Of course Ottawa itself, our final destination, has a host of attractions as well and we were given an absolutely amazing private tour of the mint by a relative of my mother-in-law’s where we were allowed right inside the mint and the vaults holding the raw precious metals (we were allowed to handle a good bit of gold – of course we had to pass through a very sensitive metal detector on the way out so taking home a sample was forbidden :). That tour was a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience and one I shall never forget.
Columbia SC, Orlando FL
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And then there’s just the point of getting there – along the way to our destinations we’ve stopped at many neat places in Quebec, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and out east. Even when we went ‘real’ camping in woodsy areas we’d often do side-trips to see places in the area. When the kids were small, and while camping at Lakeside, for example, we had taken a few trips to Rochester to the Strong Museum there – a great place to bring small children which features a Sesame-street themed play area.