Well I'm buying a hard-side camper, and selling my pop-up Alaskan Camper when I complete the trim on the newly installed compressor refrig.
The wife NEEDS a shower, a larger bed, and hot water, things the Alaskan camper that I own, and like so well, just does not have. Mandatory features. Non negotiable features. The replacement camper will be used in retirement to travel around the country and snowbird. The wife is not into camping nor back country adventuring. Tolerates it occasionally in the Alaskan, but no-go on long term trips (she has been there, done that), and especially not mostly living in it on the road. Ain't happenin' (heavy sigh...).
So I started my search for an acceptable (to her) replacement TC. I put a 2000 lbs (dry) target for my search/quest. That eliminated the XP-V1 camper that I have been SO sweet on (wife did NOT like it - Price, pop-up, size). In fact, the wt target eliminated the vast majority of truck campers. Pickups have increased in power and weight hauling capability through the years, and almost all the TC builders have found that to be the market.
On the web I found a TC maker that sounded promising made about 4 hours north of me. I made a trip to Penticton, BC to look the camper, and campers in production at Westland Camper. Liked what I saw overall, but both the local (BC) sales person which I was referred to, and camper builder were completely unresponsive to any modifications (install compressor fridge, etc) to the product. The builder is a very small operation, and he has a backlog of orders. I moved on.
A couple weeks later I returned to the Okanogan Valley in Canada (BTW-beautiful area!), but went further north to Kelowna, BC, to see the Northern Lite factory building campers. Very impressive build with top/bottom clamshell foam/fiberglass camper structure. Very nice, indeed. Quality materials inside and out. I was impressed.
My contact person at the factory was very nice, and he was willing to at least research the custom items I was interested in. They are also backlogged for many months.
After I returned home, and was pondering what I had seen and took px of, I realized the lack of adequate storage-drawers, cabinets, cubby holes-was unacceptable in both the Westland, and the Northern Lite camper in the target weight rigs. My 10' CO Alaskan weighs 1910 (data plate) and has more storage than the new ones I had looked at (my Alaskan has narrow dinette for 2, so more storage than typical).
What now?
I started pondering various cabinet modifications/additions that I could do to increase the storage in/on the NL. At least eek out a bit more. Then it dawned on me I was thinking about scabbing on cabinets on a beautiful new camper, and my cabinet building skills are zero. Well, maybe .1 on a "zero to ten" scale. Doing that did not make sense.
So I decide to buy a used NL camper to hack, paste, screw and glue on. Started searching, but there were very few used FS near my target weight, and none within driving distance to follow up on.
While I was googling various combinations of words that included NL, finally one popped up on Craigslist. Older NL unit in N. Idaho. A 1998 NL 8.5 that weighs about 2000 lbs. (before the A/C was added later). The ad said "awesome storage". Well, I thought I knew better, but I dropped everything to go see it.
I was amazed. It had acceptable factory storage. Actually large in comparison to today's product. Camper exterior is a bit rough (chalky gel coat, UV damage to all exterior plastics etc.), which can be spruced up. The inside looked used, but not abused. I had managed to luck upon one of the NL campers that they had made their handsome reputation on. I agreed to pay what they were asking for it, and have made a deposit on it. They are holding it while we assemble the necessary money & time (wedding season) to complete the transaction.
It was not everything that I wanted. It's on a quite tall (to me) basement with very generous interior headroom over the bed. It is TALL, so I'll be pushing a lot of air going down the road. Also, unfortunately, the tall height will eliminate roads/trails with low overhangs. Can't have it all. Trade offs dominate most decisions..
The camper has a plenty big enough (queen size) bed (E-W), WB shower, and HW tank, plus bigger refrig with separate upper freezer door (3 way).
Overall pretty nice. Not my preference, but maybe happy wife, happy life.
Completed the transaction today, and also bought the 2009 Ram 3500 diesel dually long bed it was/is mated to.....
The wife NEEDS a shower, a larger bed, and hot water, things the Alaskan camper that I own, and like so well, just does not have. Mandatory features. Non negotiable features. The replacement camper will be used in retirement to travel around the country and snowbird. The wife is not into camping nor back country adventuring. Tolerates it occasionally in the Alaskan, but no-go on long term trips (she has been there, done that), and especially not mostly living in it on the road. Ain't happenin' (heavy sigh...).
So I started my search for an acceptable (to her) replacement TC. I put a 2000 lbs (dry) target for my search/quest. That eliminated the XP-V1 camper that I have been SO sweet on (wife did NOT like it - Price, pop-up, size). In fact, the wt target eliminated the vast majority of truck campers. Pickups have increased in power and weight hauling capability through the years, and almost all the TC builders have found that to be the market.
On the web I found a TC maker that sounded promising made about 4 hours north of me. I made a trip to Penticton, BC to look the camper, and campers in production at Westland Camper. Liked what I saw overall, but both the local (BC) sales person which I was referred to, and camper builder were completely unresponsive to any modifications (install compressor fridge, etc) to the product. The builder is a very small operation, and he has a backlog of orders. I moved on.
A couple weeks later I returned to the Okanogan Valley in Canada (BTW-beautiful area!), but went further north to Kelowna, BC, to see the Northern Lite factory building campers. Very impressive build with top/bottom clamshell foam/fiberglass camper structure. Very nice, indeed. Quality materials inside and out. I was impressed.
My contact person at the factory was very nice, and he was willing to at least research the custom items I was interested in. They are also backlogged for many months.
After I returned home, and was pondering what I had seen and took px of, I realized the lack of adequate storage-drawers, cabinets, cubby holes-was unacceptable in both the Westland, and the Northern Lite camper in the target weight rigs. My 10' CO Alaskan weighs 1910 (data plate) and has more storage than the new ones I had looked at (my Alaskan has narrow dinette for 2, so more storage than typical).
What now?
I started pondering various cabinet modifications/additions that I could do to increase the storage in/on the NL. At least eek out a bit more. Then it dawned on me I was thinking about scabbing on cabinets on a beautiful new camper, and my cabinet building skills are zero. Well, maybe .1 on a "zero to ten" scale. Doing that did not make sense.
So I decide to buy a used NL camper to hack, paste, screw and glue on. Started searching, but there were very few used FS near my target weight, and none within driving distance to follow up on.
While I was googling various combinations of words that included NL, finally one popped up on Craigslist. Older NL unit in N. Idaho. A 1998 NL 8.5 that weighs about 2000 lbs. (before the A/C was added later). The ad said "awesome storage". Well, I thought I knew better, but I dropped everything to go see it.
I was amazed. It had acceptable factory storage. Actually large in comparison to today's product. Camper exterior is a bit rough (chalky gel coat, UV damage to all exterior plastics etc.), which can be spruced up. The inside looked used, but not abused. I had managed to luck upon one of the NL campers that they had made their handsome reputation on. I agreed to pay what they were asking for it, and have made a deposit on it. They are holding it while we assemble the necessary money & time (wedding season) to complete the transaction.
It was not everything that I wanted. It's on a quite tall (to me) basement with very generous interior headroom over the bed. It is TALL, so I'll be pushing a lot of air going down the road. Also, unfortunately, the tall height will eliminate roads/trails with low overhangs. Can't have it all. Trade offs dominate most decisions..
The camper has a plenty big enough (queen size) bed (E-W), WB shower, and HW tank, plus bigger refrig with separate upper freezer door (3 way).
Overall pretty nice. Not my preference, but maybe happy wife, happy life.
Completed the transaction today, and also bought the 2009 Ram 3500 diesel dually long bed it was/is mated to.....
