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Tom&Shelly
Senior Citizen Member
This was the Big Camping Trip I'd dreamed of when we first imagined building our teardrop. Now that it is done, I am not disappointed with the trip. Think we will have more like it in future years.
We proved to ourselves we can enjoy living out of the teardrop for ten weeks straight (previously, we had my Mom's house as a base, along with related distractions, in our long trips East). This time we had campground reservations well in advance, necessary, we feel, when visiting popular areas in the West in Summer. We sort of had a routine of traveling every two to four days or so, and spending one, two, or three at each site, going around seeing the main attractions in the area. We'd covered a lot that neither of us had seen before in the Northwest, although we left many areas we want to cover on future trips. Except when down with our colds, we were never bored.
If the trip had gone much longer, I think we might have gotten too blaise sightseeing. We can only do so much any year.
We each tried to pack about three weeks of clothing, with three season requirements in mind. Many times, I was slightly surprised at the actual temperatures at a new campsite the first night. Clothing took up alot of room in the teardrop and backseat of the truck, but was worth it so we didn't have to stress about doing laundry every week. Not sure about Shelly, but I used almost every item of clothing at some point in the trip.
Weather was pretty good for us most of the trip. Only a few rainstorms, and nothing too long. I think we would have been okay in any case, but it was nice that we could usually do our planned outdoor activities.
Nothing is perfect. Early in the trip, we spent a weekend with friends and forgot to keep up with our ice requirements, losing some of the meat we'd brought from home. Along with that, we brought a lot of food with us simply because we were afraid it would have spoiled at home. Sometimes it wasn't the best food for our camping needs. That made the early packing a little awkward. I could have wished we'd planned that part better. Later in the trip it all settled out and we were fine, buying groceries on average every time we changed campsite.
Other losses: I broke a plastic water proof container we used in the cooler. I also lost a camera dust cover on one of the trams in Canada. (Had a spare in the camera bag--so no problem.) Acceptable losses.
We burned our electrical tether, which cost some money and time installing the replacement, not to mention the stress thinking we would have had to navigate mountain roads without brakes. We should be more careful with "checklist discipline" as the pilots say. Also, we keep a tool kit with the relevant tools for emergency repairs, which served us well in this case.
We each caught colds costing us a few days of sightseeing. Not sure what to do about this. We also caught Covid on the road last year; that time we rushed home. We were simply too far out to contemplate that this time. Guess it's just as easy to be miserable in the tear as at home. We will have to think about ways to mitigate this in the future with good planning.
With this new forum, we can't post pictures in our signature blocks. I used to have maps of states and provinces that we've seen. Here is what they look like now
Louisiana and South Carolina are grey because our teardrop rode through them, but we didn't stop or see anything of significance. Hope to take care of that soon, and clearly we need to make it to the upper mid-west someday.
It has been a blast! Hope this thread helps some readers with planning your own trips!
Tom
We proved to ourselves we can enjoy living out of the teardrop for ten weeks straight (previously, we had my Mom's house as a base, along with related distractions, in our long trips East). This time we had campground reservations well in advance, necessary, we feel, when visiting popular areas in the West in Summer. We sort of had a routine of traveling every two to four days or so, and spending one, two, or three at each site, going around seeing the main attractions in the area. We'd covered a lot that neither of us had seen before in the Northwest, although we left many areas we want to cover on future trips. Except when down with our colds, we were never bored.
If the trip had gone much longer, I think we might have gotten too blaise sightseeing. We can only do so much any year.
We each tried to pack about three weeks of clothing, with three season requirements in mind. Many times, I was slightly surprised at the actual temperatures at a new campsite the first night. Clothing took up alot of room in the teardrop and backseat of the truck, but was worth it so we didn't have to stress about doing laundry every week. Not sure about Shelly, but I used almost every item of clothing at some point in the trip.
Weather was pretty good for us most of the trip. Only a few rainstorms, and nothing too long. I think we would have been okay in any case, but it was nice that we could usually do our planned outdoor activities.
Nothing is perfect. Early in the trip, we spent a weekend with friends and forgot to keep up with our ice requirements, losing some of the meat we'd brought from home. Along with that, we brought a lot of food with us simply because we were afraid it would have spoiled at home. Sometimes it wasn't the best food for our camping needs. That made the early packing a little awkward. I could have wished we'd planned that part better. Later in the trip it all settled out and we were fine, buying groceries on average every time we changed campsite.
Other losses: I broke a plastic water proof container we used in the cooler. I also lost a camera dust cover on one of the trams in Canada. (Had a spare in the camera bag--so no problem.) Acceptable losses.
We burned our electrical tether, which cost some money and time installing the replacement, not to mention the stress thinking we would have had to navigate mountain roads without brakes. We should be more careful with "checklist discipline" as the pilots say. Also, we keep a tool kit with the relevant tools for emergency repairs, which served us well in this case.
We each caught colds costing us a few days of sightseeing. Not sure what to do about this. We also caught Covid on the road last year; that time we rushed home. We were simply too far out to contemplate that this time. Guess it's just as easy to be miserable in the tear as at home. We will have to think about ways to mitigate this in the future with good planning.
With this new forum, we can't post pictures in our signature blocks. I used to have maps of states and provinces that we've seen. Here is what they look like now
Louisiana and South Carolina are grey because our teardrop rode through them, but we didn't stop or see anything of significance. Hope to take care of that soon, and clearly we need to make it to the upper mid-west someday.
It has been a blast! Hope this thread helps some readers with planning your own trips!
Tom
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