Lady Hunter
12 pointer
- Jan 12, 2009
- 5,348
Let our camper (one of the ones that slides into the truck bed) go and get a short bed crew cab.
I love our camper & we had some wonderful trips with it back in the day but it hasn't been used in years and we're getting older so a) climbing in & out of the back of a 4x4 truck is getting tougher and b) so is climbing in & out of the over cab bunk in the camper.
Reasons to keep it would be primarily for short weekend trips nowadays. Places around the state to hike or fish. Load up, hook the boat on (and this is assuming we don't change up from a bass boat to a small pontoon), and go camp somewhere we can fish for the weekend. We're not serious fishermen though I'm not sure how often that would happen. Plus we can easily drive to & fish Taylorsville Lake, the KY River, Guist Creek, Willisburg Lake, or even Lake Herrington from our house.
Travelling with a camper has also gotten more complicated than it used to be. The last few times we travelled out West, finding a site was a nightmare unless you had reservations, the bath houses were trashed & a lot of the folks in the campgrounds were just flat out rude & noisy. (At one we had a flock of Mexican kids running rampant through out campsite & even under our camper until well after midnight.) Folks who've camped more recently report that it's gotten even worse.
On the other hand, I absolutely despise staying in hotels and love having the convenience of my own bed & my own kitchen tagging along behind us. So if we were to start travelling out West again (and there are areas we've yet to see that are on our bucket list), I'd really miss it. And with just the 2 of us now, we could be fully self-contained (as opposed to having to use campground bath houses, etc. when we had the kids travelling with us). Stopping off at a rest stop & hopping in the back to fix sandwiches for lunch is a lot quicker & saves a lot of money vs. eating at a restaurant. Ditto for crawling out of bed & frying up a few eggs & sausage before hitting the road in the morning.
We could always let the insert camper go & pick up either a small 5th wheel or tag-along but we travelled with those for years & compared to the insert, they were a real pain to park, drive, etc. (But they were necessary back when we were travelling with infants & young kids.) The insert is soooo much more convenient for just the 2 of us. We've even considered switching to a pop up camper but there's still no comparison.
UGH.
Oh and we're dead set on either a crew or extended cab (we have a 2000 Dodge extended cab 2500 but I think Ford may be the only manufacturer who still does extended cabs now) because we have a grandchild on the way AND we have a dog who flat out loves to go places with us. A backseat of some type is an absolute requirement. You wouldn't think there would be that much difference in size between an extended cab & a crew cab but there is....
I love our camper & we had some wonderful trips with it back in the day but it hasn't been used in years and we're getting older so a) climbing in & out of the back of a 4x4 truck is getting tougher and b) so is climbing in & out of the over cab bunk in the camper.
Reasons to keep it would be primarily for short weekend trips nowadays. Places around the state to hike or fish. Load up, hook the boat on (and this is assuming we don't change up from a bass boat to a small pontoon), and go camp somewhere we can fish for the weekend. We're not serious fishermen though I'm not sure how often that would happen. Plus we can easily drive to & fish Taylorsville Lake, the KY River, Guist Creek, Willisburg Lake, or even Lake Herrington from our house.
Travelling with a camper has also gotten more complicated than it used to be. The last few times we travelled out West, finding a site was a nightmare unless you had reservations, the bath houses were trashed & a lot of the folks in the campgrounds were just flat out rude & noisy. (At one we had a flock of Mexican kids running rampant through out campsite & even under our camper until well after midnight.) Folks who've camped more recently report that it's gotten even worse.
On the other hand, I absolutely despise staying in hotels and love having the convenience of my own bed & my own kitchen tagging along behind us. So if we were to start travelling out West again (and there are areas we've yet to see that are on our bucket list), I'd really miss it. And with just the 2 of us now, we could be fully self-contained (as opposed to having to use campground bath houses, etc. when we had the kids travelling with us). Stopping off at a rest stop & hopping in the back to fix sandwiches for lunch is a lot quicker & saves a lot of money vs. eating at a restaurant. Ditto for crawling out of bed & frying up a few eggs & sausage before hitting the road in the morning.
We could always let the insert camper go & pick up either a small 5th wheel or tag-along but we travelled with those for years & compared to the insert, they were a real pain to park, drive, etc. (But they were necessary back when we were travelling with infants & young kids.) The insert is soooo much more convenient for just the 2 of us. We've even considered switching to a pop up camper but there's still no comparison.
UGH.
Oh and we're dead set on either a crew or extended cab (we have a 2000 Dodge extended cab 2500 but I think Ford may be the only manufacturer who still does extended cabs now) because we have a grandchild on the way AND we have a dog who flat out loves to go places with us. A backseat of some type is an absolute requirement. You wouldn't think there would be that much difference in size between an extended cab & a crew cab but there is....
