Starling Travel

I had a comment on one of my entries from Christine Swalgin:

One a side note: my bed end canvas never sees rain, I tarp the whole camper length wise and tether the ends down to the bumper and tongue. Seems that are canvas to vinyl leak no mater what and the ends pool. Still trying to engineer a better solution.

I was just going to email Christine and tell her about waterproofing options, but then I realized that other people might want to know about this.

Most tents and tent trailers have treated canvas or nylon to keep out water. Unfortunately, these treatments don’t last forever and need to be redone every few years, especially along the seams. There are lots of products on the market that can be used.

• Kiwi Camp Dry, Heavy Duty Water Repellent, 12oz
• TX Direct Spray On by Nikwax
• Scotchgard Outdoor Water Shield, 10.5-Ounce
• Starbrite Waterproofing & Fabric Treatment

You need to treat the tent outside and make sure you don’t inhale the fumes. Here is a video from one of the manufacturers about how to treat fabrics.

It helps to give the tent plenty of time to dry, so make sure you can leave your tent out and deployed for six hours or so.

Mike and I found out the hard way that our tent trailer was in desperate need of waterproofing in a huge storm last August. We haven’t camped in another storm since, but we are eager to see how the waterproofing will hold.

I found out that half the roof of our tent trailer has wood rot. It will easily last another five years or so, but it got me to thinking what I would do if we had to replace the roof.

In all honesty, we’d probably junk the trailer and just buy a new one, but if I got creative, I might be able to replace the roof with something that might make the trailer look interesting and give us a little storage space.

What if I made the tent trailer into a teardrop?

Here’s what it looks like when I paste the top of a T@b trailer onto my tent trailer. It would open the same as a tent trailer and give us a TON of headroom and storage along the sides. I would have to make a spot for the Fantastic Fan, because the addition of that has been a godsend on those 104 degree trips to St. George. I don’t think I’d even have a window or that door because then there would be more room for storage.

This idea has gotten me all excited about replacing the roof of our tent trailer. I could turn it into something adorable AND have all the space I could dream of when the trailer is deployed. I have absolutely NO idea how to make this a reality, but I want it!

Just when I was about to let my subscription to Trailer Life Magazine expire, they FINALLY do an article about small trailers that is interesting. If you haven’t picked it up, the January 2014 issue is actually worth buying this time.

Not only did they do an article on a truck camper for their cover photo, they did an entire article about tiny trailers AND one about restoring retro trailers. It’s like they wrote a magazine just for me.

The Unique Trailers article didn’t showcase anything I hadn’t seen before. They covered the following tiny trailers:

• Aliners
• Rooftop Tents
• Livin’ Lite Quicksilver
• Little Guy Silver Shadow
• SylvanSport Go
• T@B Teardrops Trailers
• Tail Feather Campers by Teal

They could have written full articles about each of these trailers (like I have), but at least they acknowledged that the world of camping is more diverse than the GIGANTIC fifth wheel trailers they usually highlight.

Good job, Trailer Life!

I’ve been desperately looking at the local classifieds for a new trailer. We bought the Subaru XV Crosstrek, so we can tow 500 more pounds than we could before and I’ve been obsessive. Then I got some good advice…

from a video game…

The Kap’n sang to me,

Yo-ho, me eyes! Don’t stare at cool new boats. Yours is fine. Just blink, and look skywise!

He’s right. I keep finding myself looking at new campers when my cute little tent trailer is just fine. Just look at how adorable it is with its homemade awning.

I actually LOVE that camper. Sure, I’d like it to have a toilet, but then again, I don’t particularly want to EMPTY that toilet, especially when we camp in places where there are facilities within walking distance.

The problem isn’t that I want a new camper. The problem is that I want to go camping, but we are buried in snow.

Even our usual winter camping favorites, like Saint George and Lake Mead, are too chilly for us right now. Sure, we could go camping in 23 degree weather, but it’s not very pleasant when we do.

It doesn’t help that the dead of winter is the absolute BEST time to look at campers in the classifieds. People are desperate to sell their trailers to pay for Christmas, to get it out of their driveway or to unload it before they move away. There is a screamin’ deal on a 2010 tent camper with a toilet right now that is so appealing to me that I have to stop myself from looking at the listing every day.

I don’t want that camper. I want to go camping.

I just need to blink and look skywise, I guess.

I was looking around Google Images for Kampmaster teardrop trailers and I found this website: Gage Enoch – First International Teardrop Gathering, page 3. One of the trailers that he photographed at that gathering was Randy Begger’s teardrop trailer.

If you notice, a door folds down on the driver’s side and out pops a tent. On the other side of the trailer is a tent area for changing clothes.

I really like the design of this trailer and would love to see what it looks like in the cabin area, but I haven’t been able to track down the guy who built it. For now, I’ll just have to stay happy with the photos from Gage’s 56 website.

With over a foot of snow and temperatures at seven degrees Fahrenheit, I am missing camping. We usually camp all year long, going down to St. George and Lake Mead to camp, but even those areas are dealing with snow and low temperatures this year.

And then I remembered, it’s summer in Australia. I watched this video and loved the UEV-360 trailer with its Wild Goose style pop-up lid.

Rather than satiating me, it only made me miss camping even more. Man, winter is hard for me…

After over a year driving either the teardrop or our tent trailer, I have yet to learn how to back up with a trailer connected to our vehicle. This video is helpful.

I think the best bit of advice is that learning this takes LOTS of practice. Mike and I chose lightweight trailers because we have been scared of this part of the process. We have tried to learn to back up the trailer properly, but every time we screw up, we just take it off the hitch, put on the wheel and hand roll it into place.

That’s the benefit of having a lightweight trailer, you don’t have to learn how to back it up.

Then again, that’s the BAD thing about having a lightweight trailer. We have never learned how to back it up.

I’m beginning to think that we need to purchase some traffic cones and just practice backing up the trailer over and over until we can do it without thinking about it. If I ever want a cute canned ham trailer, I’m going to need to know how to do this.

My friend, Christy Strebe, posted this photo on Facebook the other day.

She said:

On the way back to San Diego from Yuma… not sure why there is a group of RV’s and alien space ships.

She posted it from In-ko-pah Automotive in Ocotillo, CA.

I was perusing the local classified ads and I found a really unique teardrop trailer.

• KSL Classifieds – Tear drop trailer 2010 Moon window, insulated, CNC cut. excellent

It looks like a normal teardrop until you see the “moonview” hatch in action. (Continue Reading…)

Kenny on Flickr posted some scans of an old Kit Coach Homes brochure. It’s a treasure trove of retro trailer goodness! (Continue Reading…)