Soon, however, our family outgrew it and we needed something with a little more room and a little easier to set up, so we sold Patches to another family looking to try out trailer camping. In August 2011 (actually, coincidentally, it was Ethan's 4th birthday) we bought a 1998 Coleman Casa Grande pop up trailer. This one had a tonne more space due to having a slide out dinette. Michael named her CC, as in "Canvas Castle" because of her size over Patches. Eventually as the children matured (especially having a daughter who wanted more privacy) we sold CC in October 2013.
We knew we were no going to go with another pop-up trailer. We knew we wanted something with even less set up when arriving to camp. We knew we wanted a bathroom in the next trailer. We knew we had to go to a hard-sided travel trailer. In May of 2014 we bought our very first travel trailer. She was a 1982 Prowler. Ugly, but loveable. I painted the ugly old wallpaper a lovely bright green (the rest of the inside was wood panelling) and made bright green curtains to match. Our family loves the Robin Williams movie RV so the kids decided to name her the Big Rolling Turd. (Seriously, if you haven't seen the movie already, DO IT, and if you have, DO IT AGAIN!). We enjoyed BRT for three and a half seasons, but her time was numbered. Even though we put new tires and a new axle on she wasn't as road worthy as we'd like. The dry rot was starting to show and we knew, although we loved her she wasn't going to be our forever trailer. On October 15, 2017 we sold her to a guy with a dog who towed her to a little local trailer park where she will spend her retirement. She'll probably live another 10 years just sitting in a trailer park. It was the towing and constant jostling due to bumpy roads that was going to cause her early demise.
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| Big Rolling Turd |
That brings is to present day. Well, actually, it happened the same day as BRT left the building, sort of. On Thursday October 12th Michael and I were browsing kijiji as we often do, looking at trailers and dreaming about which one we would buy if we won the lottery. He found an ad for a 30' trailer with bunks (a must) at a reasonable price. It was a little longer than we wanted (we were looking for around 27'). Michael messaged the guy for some more details (year, model, etc.) so he could do some research. I was NOT at any way, shape or form for getting a new trailer at this juncture in time. I was actually against it and voiced my opinion loudly.
Michael persisted and made an appointment to go view the trailer on the following Saturday morning while I was at work. Saturday my phone was going NUTS. Michael sending me pictures and texts telling me how amazing this trailer was, and that it was actually a 27' box and 30' from tongue to bumper, which was great, because we could still fit it in our driveway.
He told me he and the guy had negotiated the price WAY down to what we wanted to pay because the guy would rather drop his price and give it to a nice family than sell it to just anyone for his full asking (and he had other offers that were higher than ours). Michael gave him a deposit. He spent much of his day texting me to convince me it was the way to go. If we sold BRT the difference would be next to nothing for a trailer that would be safe for towing and better for our family ...
Sunday morning we got up bright and early and made our way back to Dunnville so I could have a look at the trailer and give my final okay. It was BEAUTIFUL. They owned it 13 years and had taken such good care of it. So I said 'okay' and paid the guy the remaining balance.
After a couple of hiccups with the tongue jack and a leaky valve stem on one of the tires, Michael successfully and strategically backed it out of the tight spot it was in. Before we pulled away the guy shook our hands and THANKED US for being the ones to buy it. He explained again how he and his wife were happy it was going to have a family making memories in it, like his did for 13 years (his sons were 5 and 2 when they purchased this trailer) and was on the verge of tears. We got in and he took a picture for his wife and we were off.
We headed to the nearest Canadian Tire to get the valve stem replaced. Lo and behold who showed up? Trailer guy. Any other person and I would have thought him to be stalkerish, but he felt bad about the valve stem and wanted to buy us lunch. We had already bought and eaten lunch so we said our good-byes again and off he went. Well, five minutes later he walked up to me, shoved $25 into my hand and said "that's for your lunch." When I tried to protest he insisted even harder, so I thanked him, he wished us well and he left (again).
The travel home went well, though the winds were high. The trailer pulled nicely though. Much nicer than the Big Rolling Turd.
This time *I* named the trailer. I took another moment from the movie RV and I named the trailer Erv.
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| Erv |
On our way back we got a phone call from someone wanting to buy BRT. We asked them to come back to the house around 2pm, when we'd be home. I was anxious because unless we sold BRT we literally did not have any place to park Erv. When we got home, we temporarily parked Erv on the side street (still attached to the truck). To make and even longer story short (because this post is long enough) we sold BRT for what we wanted and by 3:30pm we had Erv set up in the driveway in her place.
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| Dinette (with the place mats Valerie gave me) |
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| Master Bedroom |
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| The boys' bunkbeds |
Owen and Ethan get the super cool bunk beds near the rear of the trailer. Michael and I, of course, get the master bedroom at the front of the trailer. Miss Lily gets the sofa. It's not as bad as it sounds. It pulls out into a double sized bed, so there will be lots of room for Lily and all three cats.
We are doing our first camp-out in Erv this coming weekend. It's going to be great! Everyone is super excited about it. :)
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| Dozer approves |
We are doing our first camp-out in Erv this coming weekend. It's going to be great! Everyone is super excited about it. :)
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