Our Chalet Truck Camper

Our Chalet Truck Camper

Thursday, May 29, 2008

On The Road to the West

After many years of planning, we are finally on the road to the western part of the USA. First 350 miles was just turnpike driving over to Elizabeth and Dick's house in NY. These are TC friends met several times now at rallies. Great dinner and hours of chatting and a super night in the TC.



They live on big acreage with lots of room for toys like TC, tractor, boat, gardens, perennial and vegetable gardens. Today we are headed west through PA headed for Ashtabula, OH and the Maaritime and Coast Guard Museum.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Spring Rally in Andover, VT

What a great time we had in Andover, VT at the North-East Truck Camping Jamboree last weekend. We've finally gotten the truck camper all cleaned up inside and out, reprovisioned and the extra stuff taken to VT taken out. We're planning a long summer trip and are trying to lighten the load to haul along.

We went from an empty field to a total of 31 truck campers with over 65 people!


Part of the crowd



We had classes on propane compartment leaks, refrigerator maintenance, fly fishing, DeLorme mapping for route planning and seam caulking/maintenance. We played "Fishy" a form of Bingo, held a 50/50 raffle and raffled off a multitude of great door prizes. Here's Mike T talking about refrig maintenance.



The Friday night hot dog roast was a smashing success with only a dozen dogs left over! We had drink/snack gatherings, pot luck supper, and the traditional men cook the breakfast morning.



We had great weather with only one gully washer rain storm but that was when we were in the rec hall having pot luck. Lots of old friends seen again and lots of new friends met. We're so glad we started truck camping.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Front basket added to the TC

Well we had to keep up with the Assateauge TC folks we met at the Tall Pines Campground rally. Many had these beautiful front carry baskets. However, we had to do it with a New England flavor, without the fishing gear pole holders and the coolers since we don't have too many of those wide, warm beaches we can get out on.



The front receiver is a Drawtite front hitch. Glad we had it installed rather than trying to do it ourselves as the bumper had to come off, fog lights out, and the frame drilled in two places. Even with an air powered drill, it took quite a bit to get through the front frame piece. Guy at the hitch place really knew what he was
doing but it still took him an hour total install with the right tools.



The receiver has a swivel so that the platform basket can be raised up 90 degrees and travels flat against the truck grill. We wanted the ability to carry extra though we won't be doing it a lot - thus the basket that can get out of the way. Doesn't stick out far. Basket is more a platform with a 4" lip, not a deep basket like Mike T and others in our North East Truck Camper group have.



Total weight added was 90 pounds (prior to loading it). Here we are trying to get lighter and we added. We'll try it out going to Andover for the North East spring rally next week by carting along some firewood in those plastic milk crates.