Front Porch Campers

Last night as I cruised through the automotive section at Walmart, I saw a 12v lighter kit for $3.88 (ever notice how almost everything there has a price that ends in 88?). It came with the suitcase connectors and everything except the 7/8" drill I needed to mount it below the bench door on the dinette. Pretty cool mod for lunch money and about thirty minutes of my time.

While at Wally World, I bought some plastic containers to organize the contents of the Caboose. I've forgotten more than a few items after taking them out to clean, and now I've got a shelf in the garage just for camping gear. Everything comes out, gets washed, placed back into the container, and then loaded back onto the caboose. I'll still forget something on the next trip. There are three boxes for inside the benches, two small boxes for the bottom galley, one for the top galley, plus two medium and one small in the isle cabinet. Everything else gets packed in the truck.

A daily stop on my web surfing is PopUp Portal. There is a post by Randy Rusnak that just really summed up the joys of pop-up camping. "Pop-Up campers are 'Front Porch' kind of campers." He explains, "Our campers don't provide us with any reason to just sit inside them. No big areas, with full kitchens, and separate rooms to get away from each other. Pop-Ups are only really good for sleeping in and maybe a quick meal and/or shelter from a rainstorm. Not big enough to hang out in with all the kids. So, you find yourself sitting outside all the time. Hence 'Front Porch' kind of people."

"Pop-up campers are the ones that say 'Hi' as you walk past. They are sitting under their awnings in the rain, enjoying a cup of coffee watching the rain fall. They don't go inside unless they really have too... We don't have a lot of room, so we don't pack a ton of stuff... I like being the 'Front Porch' kind of camper, and I sure hope I don't lose this mentality when I finally upgrade to a bigger camper." Me too, Randy. Me too.