Truck Camper Full Circle

We got into the "RV World" almost accidentally. Decades ago when we were younger (?) and had a place in the country, we needed a truck to lug goat food and firewood. Responding to a classified ad for an ancient Datsun pickup, I, the male side of the family, drove out to the seller's place. Alas, a little brown pickup was just pulling out of the yard. "He's just test driving it," said the owner. "Why don't you look at the camper that goes with it?" she offered. Camper? Nothing in the advertisement about a camper, but after five minutes of looking, I was hooked--but certain that "test drive" would turn into a sale. As it turned out, the six-foot-three-inches of test driver couldn't comfortably fit in the Datsun, and soon we were the ecstatic owners of a truck and Western Wilderness camper.

The old Wilderness wasn't long on features: Ice box, port-a-pot, and no "house battery." We soon learned you didn't run the furnace overnight if you wanted to start the truck next morning. But we went places hither and yon that we never would've dared in a tent. And when we sold the old Wilderness to "upgrade" there wasn't a dry eye between us. We "moved up" to an 11 1/2 footer, an orphan Conestoga full of fun, and hidden dry rot. We learned more about RV repair on that Conestoga but logged a lot of miles, writing for the RV industry and getting acquainted with places we surely put on our "go back to list."

The Conestoga took us to Quartzsite--again and again. But after a slow recovery from pneumonia, the wife said, "Please, I need something bigger." You can't get much bigger in a camper than those nearly 12 feet, so we bought a 28' fifth wheel and settled down to living in a larger space that needed much larger spaces to go.

Years passed. We now fulltime in that fifth wheel. We still write for the industry. And we miss going places we "usedta coulda" get into with a truck camper but the fiver prevents it. And then, a few months ago we found another camper. Our new "project piece" is another 11 footer, an Elkhorn by Fleetwood. Like that old Conestoga the Elkhorn has gotta a few tricks up its sleeves as we learned in our initial shakedown cruise. But maybe we can work them out--and even if we can't, we're sure will have a camper in our RV fleet no matter. There's just nothing like having your home on your back.