I Think We Made a Left at Albuquerque

The thing about travel is not only the destination, but the getting there….how long will the trip be; what road(s) to cruise, where to eat, wonder where this side-road will lead (my favorite), and where to stop at the end of the day…all part and parcel of the adventure itself.

Having decided over the course of the hiatus from this blog that more than part-time adventuring was our end game there came the quite obvious interrogatory of “how exactly are we going to make this happen?”  The most reasonable answer was “RV” as we are not monetarily well endowed enough to afford a nightly hotel/motel/bed-and-breakfast lifestyle.

Tracking that mystery, we donned our Sherlock Holmes personas and spent countless miles and hours in, out, under and over every roadworthy (and a few not so) conveyances in the RV ramada; a number of RV shows; RV websites (good stuff out there) and just plain talking to folks while out and about in the teeny-tiny-tent-on-wheels we drove to Virginia to purchase for the short haul. (Picture to follow) We’ve had some good times in our Viking Express, although it was not our first purchase. (More of that later)

Viking Express Tent Camper

But…

I digress…

OMG!!! There is a fortune out there to be spent on an RV: Castle on Wheels…Holiday Inn To-Go (more like Westin, but I liked the soundage of H.I.)…Home Away from Home. We’d have to sell ALL our families houses to finance it. And who knows what else to actually drive/haul the thing. One of my favorite big footprint pull-behinds is made by Open Range….they’re nicer than the house I live in NOW (way so) and almost as big. And…I’m going to buy a really big “Billy-Bad-Azz”, chrome covered, Ram Tough Cummins dually diesel behemoth to tow it. (Pardon while I wipe the drool…I luvs me a big ole bad boy chrome Ram truck)

Really?

Anybunny hear that “chaaaa-ching?”

No.

Those rigs are bee-u-tee-mous but just not us. (still drooling over that truck, though)

In the end, “glamping” (yes….itza word…lookitup.) is not what we want. We’re the grabba-few-things, pack-the-stuff-in-the-rig-and let’s-go type of folks. We’re looking for back road adventures that might include waterfront views and yakking at sun up or down or a dry desert Joshua Tree type locale.

Fast-forward to Thanksgiving Weekend 2010, Edisto Island State Beach…snugged in our little tent-on-wheels a 16’ Casita fibreglas trailer bounces by.

“Well…that’s cute” sez I.

Mr. swivels his head so hard I thought it was going to snap off.

“But…you don’t like fibreglas trailers” sez he. (There’s a story there, yanno.)

“Uhm. Well. That one’s cute” I retorts smugly. (Remembering all the times I told him I thought they were butt ugly)

Christmas Scamp

Hoping to catch a peek of the inside we sort of stalked the guy without his knowing, but he seemed to be gone each time we meandered ourselves over to his campsite. Long story short it was the beginning of a month long search for fibreglas trailers to scope in hopes of purchase. After a bum or two, lightly used Li’l Scamp was purchased almost sight unseen involving yet another trip to Virginia to pick her up.

Somewhere between Christmas and the New Year (2011) Mr. drove to Virginia Beach in terrifically cold windy weather, laid our money down, signed the papers and towed her to her temporary home in Raleigh. Our first “camping” trip was in the drive at the home of our NC kids for Second Christmas. She has had many outings since then.

What follows in this blog are Li’l Scamp’s adventures from home-time to who knows where next as we begin our Back Road Adventures aiming for nearly full-time down the road…with a short segue or two into the more complete story of how we got from there to here in the first place.