On the road again

Or I soon will be.

I’m about to head out for a couple of months. The plan is to make a large circuit of the country, heading out across the south, then north to Connecticutt where a couple of my brother’s grandchildren are (they are the main draw), then west across the north to Bellingham, WA, then back south to CA and home.

After my tent adventures a couple of summers ago (which you can read about by clicking on “travel” from the pop-down menu on the right. The first one that’s really about the trip is “Tent stories 3”, and the next ten posts cover the rest of the trip) I decided I needed access to air conditoning in the future (the temperature hit the hundreds nearly everywhere I went on that trip.) Even though I’m getting out earlier in the season this year, AC will be needed in the South, I’m sure. Tents being not amenable to air conditioning–and a pain to put up–I have acquired a trailer that’s probably the world’s smallest RV. It’s interior square footage is about the size of a double bed.

Originally I thought I’d go with a teardrop like the one you can see here, but due to a series of events too long and tedious to relate, I ended up with a hardbody popup Alite by Aliner. I bought it at the end of January in Vancouver, WA and towed it home. Here it is shortly after I got home with it; it had just been hauled over Donner Pass, so it’s a bit muddy.

It only weighs 460 lbs. empty, which was one of it’s serious selling points since my car is only rated to tow 1200 lbs and it’s nice to be able to take along some luggage as well as one’s trailer. The other selling points were that I can stand up in it, and it has lots of lovely windows so it’s nice and light inside. The fact that I can see over the top of it while towing turned out to be an unanticipated side benefit.

Aliner claims it only takes 60 seconds to set up, and they’re right–sort of. Here’s the first stage:

You grab the handle on the side and haul, and up it goes, helped along by a couple of bungies. Then you put up the near side, the one with the door in it (I took the picture from the other side so you can see what’s happening):

Then crawl in through the door and lift the far side, and there you are:

When it first opens up, it has cushions wall to wall, like so:

But the cushions can be rearranged so there’s a center aisle with seats around it, storage under the seats. Hence–I can stand up in it.

It can take 15 minutes more before I have everything set up the way you want it–I have to move cushions, make the bed, put down the stabilizer jacks, find tie-out spots for the dogs, etc. But it’s still considerably less work than setting up camp with a tent.

Yes, it is tiny. Nonetheless, I think it’s going to work for me just fine. I have managed to add an air conditioner, which lives mainly in the little front bubble of storage in the front, with a hole cut out so it blows nice cool air into the inside front sorage area. I just have to remove the seat from that area, and it will keep me nice and cool. And the dogs, if necessary.

I wanted to have “green” electricity out in the boonies–it gets hot even in the mountains–but the math just didn’t work. Covering all available space with solar panels and with about 200 lbs of batteries, I could maybe get 1-2 hours of AC per day–just not enough. So I ended up buying a small Yamaha generator, which should keep me comfy for 7-8 hours/day for 3-4 days on 2 gallons of gas. The trailer is wired for shore power, so when I’m in any kind of trailer park with hookups, I won’t need the generator, which is nice because it means I don’t have to carry gas in the car with me at all times, only when I’m headed out to camp in wilder places.

I’ve had it out for a couple of shakedown cruises, which has been very worthwhile–each time I’ve figured out how more things can work. Here it is at Fremont Peak State Park, shortly after we arrived:

And a few minutes later:

Most of my spare time for several weeks now has been taken up with getting ready for the trip, and I’ve finally begun the final stages of packing and loading. I’m not used to planning for such a long trip, and I’m going to be traveling where I’ve never gone before, so I’m trying to take a lot of stuff to cover a lot of contingencies, which makes the packing and loading a bit of a challenge. But I should make it out of here in a couple of days in any case. My first destination is back to the Navajo reservation, where I’ll stay a few days, then head down to Carlsbad Caverns and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which I’ve heard is wonderful and has a unique ecology. After that my plans get a bit vague–I’ve never been in the south, so I’m not really sure where I should go or what to see. I’m thinking of cutting across Texas fairly quickly (unless you hit the panhandle, you can’t really skip it altogether) and then sticking to the gulf coast for awhile. That’ll depend on the weather–I have no desire to be on the coast if a hurricane hits. But then–further inland, there’s tornados. So we’ll see. I’m going to try to update the blog at least once/week during the trip, so I’ll keep y’all posted on where I end up going.