Typical Eli: we pulled into the campsite and he ripped all his clothes off.
We’re still mourning the sale of our 1980 VW Vanagon Westfalia (almost a year ago). It was a sad day but it only had four seat belts, and the thought of, I don’t know, saving it for 20 years for some other use, or bolting Zuzu’s seat to the floor, didn’t make much sense. So we sold it to an adorable fresh-faced young couple who was planning to drive it to California (perfect!).
Two weeks ago we finally got a replacement, a 1998 Coachmen pop-up camper (it’s the “Hunter’s Edition” which thankfully doesn’t mean it has a gun rack or anything; I actually don’t know what it means). We did our first trial run last Friday at Winslow Park in Freeport (on the water and it has a playground), and now we’ve added some essentials (like, um, plates), and are going to go again tonight if it’s not pouring, and next weekend for sure.
The kids all love love loved it. The boys especially loved their new sleeping bags, and spent a lot of time galumphing about the pop-up and campsite fully ensconced in their bags, like giant kid worms or something. After they went to bed Dave and I sat at the table and played Scrabble, which we haven’t done in approximately forever. I won, which I think might be the first time (I’m always way more concerned about the awesomeness of the word itself than with the points that word will gain, but I trounced my way to the finish line with “whey”).
It’s completely cozy and comfortable, maybe even more so than the Vanagon was, though of course not nearly as much fun to drive.
The boys in their sleeping nook (ok, I guess a normal person would call it a "bed"). This is my new favorite photo of Henry.
Zuzu in her sleeping nook (which was also Dave and my sleeping nook), playing with the lantern which was almost as big a hit as the sleeping bags were.
The next morning at Isabella's Sticky Bun Cafe, since I had forgotten to bring anything decent for breakfast other than coffee.
Are you still driving a Subaru? Can it tow the pop-up?
No, no more Subaru. I drive a minivan, which will be able to tow the pop-up once we get a tow hitch on it. Dave drives an Isuzu Trooper, which already has a hitch, so that’s what we’ve been towing the pop-up with. What you need to do is look in your manual to see what the tow capacity for the car is, and then see what you can haul. The pop-up weighs about 1500 pounds. We looked at another that was too heavy for the van at 2200 pounds (it had a shower and a toilet inside, which in retrospect would be too much stuff, I think).
When I first looked at the pictures I didn’t read the captions and thought that the breakfast scene was taking place in the camper and I was very impessed with its spaciousness. Love Zuzu’s pose!
For some reason (my mood?) this was one of my very favorite of your blog posts… 🙂
Jaya would LOVE LOVE LOVE this!
Yes, Mom, the camper comes with a chef and maitre-d’. You can get anything on Craig’s List.
Sarah, you should get one! I bet you could tow one with your car! The kids really do love it so much.