jim65wagon
Well-known member
The backstory:.My wife Elizabeth and I made a plan about 3 years ago. We called it our 10 year plan. In the 10 year time frame the kids will be nearly through with college and setting off on their own. This will leave us as the cliched “empty nesters” in a very large and expensive house, in an equally expensive area of the country to live. We discussed moving to other areas of the country briefly, but our conversations continually returned to our love of travel and the enjoyment we get finding the interesting spots wherever we roam. The plan slowly evolved into our decision to sell everything (or nearly so) and travel for a year (or more), and when we find an area we really like we will settle down a bit, find part-time jobs and live and travel some more..Once the traveling bit was settled we had to decide on the how. I love the looks of the Adventure Trailers, and their Australian and African cousins. Searching the web for the various brands brought us to the Campa Trailer - mmmmm all stainless, rugged, cool. We started our saving plan, a rough itinerary plan (slowly adding to my "Places to Visit" file when I come across a cool place on the web)..The Campa Trailer seemed the perfect choice for us. We began discussing our plans with our families and friends. Through many conversations, we learned one of the foibles of the trailer/RTT combination. Camping in inclement weather. Some have found that high wind and driving rain make setting up or taking down their RTT to be “an experience”. We are pretty confident that the likely hood of inclement weather in our year of travel is pretty fair. We decided something hard-sided would be beneficial to us considering the unknowns of long-term travel. Thus our search for an alternative..Adventure Trailers have their Teardrop (as did SoCal Teardrops) and we found some versions of home-built offroad tears on the net. These piqued our interest and got us rethinking our plan. A teardrop solves the wet weather setup, is still capable and smallish, and could work if we have enough storage space between it and the truck. The AT and SoCal trailers were nice, but we figured if we bought one of those we’d still have to modify it to meet our storage needs inside and out. Plunking down large amounts of cash and then plunking down even more to customize it wasn’t very appealing. A homebuilt version was very appealing - heck, we’re handy people. We’ve rebuilt a farmhouse, built cabinets and restored a car….how hard could a teardrop be?.We originally planned for a roof rack and custom boxes on top to solve our storage issues.
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It looked good on paper, and we were settling into a plan to work them around a roof vent - when - DingDingDing - a bell went off in Beth’s head. “Why can’t we have storage underneath the bed?” With access doors to the outside, gear would be easily accessed and the roofline is smoother and free for the vent. Perfect! We were curios how it would look in 3D, so we did what any normal people would do.....we built a scale model. Beth even made a little Mini-me to provide the proper scale; well those who know me have a sense of scale now....
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.Elizabeth discovered Googles Sketchup program and began work on our own teardrop. As she worked through the winter with the CAD program we discussed the items we needed for our travel. Refrigerator, stove, oven, wine rack, classic looks - yet fitting to the style of the tow vehicle (2003 Toyota Tundra 4x4). Boxed steel frame, offroad tires (same as the truck), big water tank, 2 propane tanks, inflatable kayaks, the list goes on..Beth designs, I build the frame, we both build the body. Plan in motion…..Beth joined the Teardrops & Tiny Travel Trailers forum and I joined the Tearjerkers forum..At one point during the design process we flitted with the idea of a Sportmobile style 4x4 van. It was an attractive option for us, until we went to the RV show in DC. There were van conversions there for the crawling through. I was less than impressed with the room in the kitchen and the thought of frying bacon inside (bacon is awesome, but I don’t want to smell it weeks after I cook it!) made me queasy - then we got to the price tag. Back to the teardrop.. More sketchup plans. It’s getting better all the time.
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Planning, reading, and discussing into the springtime of 2011. We decided to see how it would look with the truck and taped out our scale version on the garage door. Nice! I think it looks pretty darned cool!
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At this time we were also discussing our plans for our 20th Anniversary (July of 2011) Travel was a definite, and we wanted to go somewhere new. Our first plan was to rent a VW van in Cali and tour the west coast. That would be cool. Neither of us have been to Cali (except in the airport) and the cost wasn’t bad for the rental - plane tickets would be a different issue. Then I found it. A rental teardrop. Nearby. Less cost than the van, no plane tickets, and we could try it out to see if we “fit” the tear droppers lifestyle. I called the company Miller Trailer Sales in Pennsylvania and booked their 5x8 Silver Shadow for our anniversary week. We planned on a Vermont trip (hmm, never been there) and touring some new countryside..In the meantime Beth worked trailer plans and I worked on my 1965 Nova Wagon getting it ready to sell (the first victim in our “sell everything” plan as it was to finance building materials).
The Tearjerkers had a teardrop get-together nearby. We went and met a lot of nice people who let us crawl all over and under their trailers. We garnered some “new” ideas and learned how to install the Hurricane hinge for the galley..Our Anniversary came along, and teardrop traveling was pretty sweet. Setup in minutes, compared to an hour or so for the tents. Comfy, warm (or cool with the vent on), pulled down the road easily, and looked good with the truck.
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The trip was awesome..Miller Trailer Sales happens to be a dealer for Cargomaxxx aluminum trailers. The day we returned our rental trailer we took a long look at the utility trailers they had for sale. We were told that SIC Metals produce the Cargomaxxx and they do custom work. Oohh the gears are turning again! An aluminum trailer solves any rusting issues from weather, is lightweight, and the 2x4 frame should be quite durable..We contacted SIC Metals about building our frame. They were interested in the build, and we thought the quality of their work was outstanding. A tentative agreement was made and we began the process of sending design parameters, and basic needs for the framework. Many emails and phone conversations later and we had a finalized plan. .Conveniently enough a buyer for the car came along( do not cry, do not cry, do not cry, sniffle, snuff, hmmmm, it's OK I'm good). We had financing for the frame!
We signed the build order from SIC and started our online shopping spree for “stuff”
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