40 Years of RVing

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We made a comittment to travel when the kids were very small. Even though, we didn't have much money, we tried to take a trip every year. We ate a lot of Dinty Moore beef stew.

Our first RV was borrowed from Jan's parents. it was a small tent trailer, with a tent that folded onto the ground. The trailer was the bed. We took two trips with this trailer from Mass. to Montreal for the Worlds Fair in 1967 and to Florida in 1969.

In 1974, we bought an Apache tent trailer and took a trip from Colorado Springs to Disneyland and San Diego. This trailer was OK but too small so we sold it and bought a much bigger, Wheel Tent Trailer.

In 1978, we sold the Wheel camper and bought a 20 foot travel trailor. This unit slept 6, but it had a terrible couch bed. When the couch bed was opened, you could not open the bathroom door. So we had to leave the bathroom door open and use a curtain. The bed was also very uncomfortable, so we sold this unit a few months after we bought it and bought a Class C motorhome. This was a good rig, but it had gas vapor lock problems. We named it "The Night Rider". When the sun was out, it would buck and loose power. When the sun went into the clouds or it was night, it ran fine.

In 1978, we had the opportunity to move to Germany. I had already gone to Germany to start working, so Jan had to sell the motorhome. We had to sell it quickly, and the buyer knew it. He got Jan to lower the price. We did sell it to him, but becasue he was a hard barginer, we did not tell him that the refridgerator had stopped working.

In 1979 we rented a 12x12 tent from the Army Recreation Services and went to Holland for Spring break. It rained most of the time, but the tent worked well. We then bought a small popup trailer, called an Alpen Kreuzer. We used this for a season, but Jan had a problem. We pulled the trailer behind a Dodge van. Because the trailer was so small, you could not really see it behind us. In Germany, there were no speed limits on most of the freeways (autobahns). If you were pulling a trailer of any size the speed limit was 80 kmph or 50 mph. Jan got 2 speeding tickets that summer. We then sold the trailer and bought a Eureka tent like the one that we had rented. We used the tent for the next 4 years.

In 1985, we went to England for 2 weeks and rented a motorhome near London. We then headed north to Scotland. The rig was good, but it did not have power steering, and I used a lot of Ben-Gay on my shoulders for the pain

In 1986, we moved to Huntington Beach CA. We bought a small tent and went camping a few times, but in California, there were too many people and too few campsites, so you had to reserve months in advanced to camp on weekends.

In 1993, we returned to Germany for 4 years. in 1995, we bought a used VW camper van. We only used this one year, because the engine died and because it was an American Specification model, I could not get engine parts in Germany. I finally put in a German engine, but it then had no heater,so we sold it to an American engineer, who took it to the US where there was an engine waiting for it. In 1997, we rented a motorhome and went to the French coast for a week.

In 1997, we moved back to California in 1998 and started camping again. We didn't know what type of RV that we wanted. We finally bought an older 1983 Fleetwood Southwind 28 foot motorhome. We paid $7500 and put a few thousand dollars into it, because it had not been driven in over 2 years. In 1998 I retired and we decided to move back to Colorado Springs, where we still owned a home that was fully paid for. We decided to take a 5 month trip in the motorhome as part of our move to Colorado Springs. We had our household goods put in to the house here, turned on the alarm system, hired a person to cut the grass and headed east. We went to the end of Nova Scotia to Atlanta and back to Colorado Springs.

In 1993 we bought our 99 Bounder 35 foot motorhome. Unless we win the lottery, this will probably be our last rig. We drive it about 5000 miles per year.

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Comments

[Lee]

Ah, those were the good ole days.

[Dave]

I still remember the smell of wet canvas. Love the picture of the tent trainer in the mountains of Coloradeo

[Galen & Sue]

Oh yes, I remember it well
Loved our Alpen Kreuzer. Bought it in Colorado Springs in 1980 as a basket case. It was left set up and a spring snow storm bent the frame and tore the canvas. Camped in it for 10 years. Had a blast but had trouble telling the rangers we needed a larger site than what they were offering us.

[Dump Trailers]

http://www.trailersforsaleinusa.com/
wow, you have different different trailers man, thanks for posting here, i just love trailers, hope you will post more....

[Anne]

AlpenKreuzer
My goodness; we bought our Alpen Kreuzer form th factory in Holland and would love to find another. We totally loved it, and travelled way far in it with our young family. Do you know the name of the manufacturer? Are they still being made?

[Silver Back Cuda]

Amazing Love Your 40 Year Chronicle
We are traveling in a 34 ft motor home but have also been tenters and boat campers. Hope you will check out our blog. Joanne & Wes aka Cuda and Silver Back

[David Tackett]

I remember
We had an Alpen Kreuzer in 1970, when we lived in Germany. I was 7. The design doesn't seem to have changed much since then. We camped in a lot of muddy apple orchard-turned-summer- camprounds. We also stayed just outside Rome for 2 weeks. I would love to get another camper and relive those good times.