Nerstrand Big Woods

In a nod to the cooling weather, we headed south.  OK, so 50 miles south doesn't make much of a climate change but it's the thought that counts.  We stayed at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park with friends from college.  It was a lovely weekend of reminiscing, catching up and meat.  We also met some fellow old camper enthusiasts.  One gentleman talked to me as I came out of the camper on Saturday morning, wondering who manufactured our Aristocrat.  He had a 1973 camper that was three sites down that shared some similar lines and he wondered if they were made in the same factory.  I didn't know enough about the company history, but it seemed likely.

We also met some folks who were camping together in a pair of fiberglass campers.  One was a 16' Scamp that was nearly identical to a Scamp we rented this spring to see what we thought of hard sided camping.  The owner had repainted the exterior so the Scamp logo was gone, and then added some dayglo vinyl flower stickers.  So we felt a kinship with our glittery "Peace" sign and butterfly decals.  The other camper was a Trillium.  Trillium is still manufacturing trailers, but this one was from 1973.  The owner had done a nice job of cleaning it up and redid most of the interior wood.  It was very nice.  Unfortunately, I failed to take photos of any of these 3 campers.  You'll have to be satisfied with the few that I did take.

Mega!

Sibley Cross Country

This weekend, our daughter's cross country team participated in the Milaca Mega Meet. We're new to the Cross Country thing this year, so we didn't know what to expect. When we got there we found they were not kidding, it was Mega! Rather than drive 100 miles north and then another 100 home in the same day, we hooked up The Aristocrat and made a camping weekend of it. This was our first true "out of town" test, since last weekend we traveled a total of 12 miles, round trip.

We made it to Milaca without incident. Or, as we found out the next day, with minimal incident. The only incident worthy of reporting turned out to be our gas mileage when pulling the trailer. But the wheels stayed round and kept turning, and all the bits that we left the house with were still attached when we got there. So we considered that a major success. Milaca, and our ultimate overnight destination of Ogilvie, MN, made this trip into a 200 mile weekend, round trip. A far enough distance that if something went wrong, we'd have to figure out a way to deal with it.

Morgan had a great race.

The meet really lived up to the "Mega" name.

There were school buses as far as the eye could see.

We left our dog, Bailey, in the camper during the meet. She didn't seem to mind.

After seeing the meet, we went to Woodsong Campground, just north of Ogilvie. The campground was more like a village, catering mostly to seasonal campsites. They had very few pull-ins like us, especially this late in the season. But it was a nice campground, and we would be tempted to go back if we were in the area again.

The Roadmaster and The Aristocrat at the site.

The lows got into the 40s, so we ran the heater this weekend unlike last weekend. The Aristocrat came to us with two heaters. We have the original propane heater that we haven't tried yet, and also a newer electric heater that the previous owners installed. Since we had electric hookups, we ran the electric heater on low and kept a few windows cracked open. It made a nice compromise of warmth and coolness. The kids wanted more warmth, and went to bed with hats and gloves.

Emma took no chances, hat and gloves.

Bailey took advantage of a warm kid and a warm sleeping bag in the morning.

The next morning, we had eggs and bacon (again). I might need to get my cholesterol checked after owning this thing for a while.

Bacon is best when cooked outdoors.

We drove out after a leisurely morning and gassed up before heading home. I plugged the data into my Gas Cubby app and was horrified to see 10.9 MPG. We had rented a Scamp this spring, and I was getting 14mpg while towing that, so I expected a little better. But we took 169 up and down, and I think the myriad of stoplights may have hurt our mileage. We'll have to see what we get on future trips. When we got home, I gassed up again and got 10.5 MPG, so the drive up wasn't a one time fluke.

All in all, a great actual field test of the trailer. As we discussed in the car on the way home, it takes time to build trust in things like this. A longer trip like this is just the ticket to boost the trust factor a bit more.

First

After looking at vintage campers for a couple of years, we finally pulled the trigger and purchased one.  We had been waiting for the right combination of cost, condition and timing.  With this one, we found the right cost and at first blush it seems to be in the right condition.  Timing was not ideal (we are in the midst of a home bathroom remodel), but as Meatloaf said, "Two out of three ain't bad."  Nancy saw the trailer on craigslist on Friday morning, the 16th of September.  She went to look at it at 1:00 in the afternoon.  By 6:30 that evening we were pulling it home.  And by 6:30 the next evening, we had it out in one of the local campgrounds for the maiden flight.  That timing seems pretty good, in retrospect.  Below are a few pictures from that trip.

We plan to fix the camper up slowly, as time and budgets allow.  But primarily, we plan to camp!