New Northstar TC650 and 2013 Toyota Tundra

Tatted

Adventurer
I have been around off-roading and camping all my life(by no means anywhere near a pro). I have owned many trucks but about a year ago I fell in love with my Toyota Tundra, I met my fiancé 2 years ago and we have been on the road camping or flying to a beach as much as possible ever since.....we both have a love for the outdoors and recently have been obsessed with learning about overlanding, last year we purchased a Rockwood Roo that was awesome but just hated the idea of campgrounds so we sold it in November. Along comes my discovery of Expedition Portal. Lol. Since then the truck camper idea has been an obsession. We looked at FWC, Outfitter,Hallmark,Northstar, and finally Palamino Backpack .....we wanted to stay around 10K and could not find anything used in our area so we looked at a brand new Palomino Backpack SS550 for the price, very nice camper, we loved the bed, it had electric jacks and an electric lift, we arrived at a deal with the dealer and purchased the camper...very excited, but now was time to get the truck ready(money,money,and more money). After following Zidaros post and some others, we went straight down and purchased air bags, I ended up getting Firestones with compressor and Daystar cradles, then had Torklift front tie downs installed (sliders with tie down points coming next year). I put the knob style tie downs on the rear and had a custom rear basket with an 8" rise made at my welders, now we are ready, go to pick up our new camper....go through the walk through and bam.....the roof won't go down,I'll save you the 6 week story but the roof never went down. We had to fight to get our money back. STAY AWAY from this brand....now all the manufacturers are months out, the Northstar kept calling my name, I called Billy at Northstar and spoke with him for an hour and We were sold, we found a TC650 in Brighton it was a 2015 with the sub zero package and we bought it..we are very excited and will have pictures today...we have had snow and cold the last few days but hey we did purchase the sub zero package so we are camping as soon as we pick it up, her are a few pics of our start until we pick up our new camper.....sorry for rambling....we are hoping to meet people close to us with the same interest to go with.
Day I bought her:
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After lift and tires
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Our new camper last year
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Camping on the beach in Nebraska after our 3rd camper pickup attempt failed
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Exploring an old military ammunition depot from world war 2
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One more on the beach
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More to come:
 

brian90744

American Trekker
Very nice combo, I noticed no door or rear window ? You may want to remove the jacks and save some weight unless you remove the camper after each trip? You will have fun with a well made rig.=brian.
 

Tatted

Adventurer
No rear window with the sub zero option, wished I had one. But love the warmth so far. Thanks for the compliments
 

Tatted

Adventurer
Yeah, having the screen door helps, we camped in a mild 35 degrees last night with 50 mph gusts, not bad at all, we have sub zero sleeping bags, set the heat at 70 and stayed warm all night, the insulation on the soft wall helps a ton on the flapping of the wall. It barely moves. Very happy with the camper.
Not much of an adventure today, we chose campground camping to check everything out, the mountains in Colorado got about 3' of snow they said so we were not real crazy to deal with that the first time out
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Chicken tacos
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Lake view
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Inside shots, sorry it's messy, we were just happy to try it out
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doctorit

Adventurer
Sweet looking rig! We love our TC650, such a well-made camper.

Question about your hitch-mounted gear rack: is it on a pivot/hinge by any chance? I've been looking for some good solutions for more storage, but don't want to block the door.
 

Tatted

Adventurer
Sweet looking rig! We love our TC650, such a well-made camper.

Question about your hitch-mounted gear rack: is it on a pivot/hinge by any chance? I've been looking for some good solutions for more storage, but don't want to block the door.
thank you, I love it so far, it is not on a pivot, I had it built by a welding shop, it is very heavy duty and we can still get in the door, they are building a deck we can put on top and attaching a stair bracket to it so we can use it that way as well, the hinge pieces are nice but we were concerned with strength.
 

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