My girlfriend, Kerri, and I love a good camping trip. We
live in a corner of our country abounding with verdant and wild beauty, the Pacific
Northwest. So there are few thrills greater to us than getting out of town and
getting out there on a good trail. We love every part of the experience: the
whirlwind of choosing where to go (national forest or park? mountains, high
desert or seaside?), planning the menu and packing the cooler, picking the camp
site (hopefully by a river), finding the right trail (obscure or popular? too
easy? too difficult? are dogs allowed?), consulting the maps, hitting the
highway and the first gratifying inhalation of sweet country air. From quiet
solitude to raging river songs, we love it all.
Except sleeping on the ground. That part can kiss my ass.
When we first starting camping during the summer of 2011,
Kerri and I both knew that camping was an activity we wanted to share with each
other. The time away from the feverish energy of the city encourages meaningful
reflection and enables us to keep the tedium of work in a healthy perspective.
Plus, the excitement of wind swept mountain vistas or clandestine
skinny-dipping in warm, hidden waterfalls makes us feel like real adventurers. Together
we made trips all over the Columbia Gorge and up into national forests like
Gifford Pinchot in southern Washington. As Kerri and I were developing our
camping acumen we soon came to one definite and aching conclusion: sleeping on
the ground, even verdant and wildly beautiful ground, sucks.
Putting aside the difficulties I had with pre-existing lower
back pain, there would have been nothing even remotely desirable about sleeping
on the ground in our tent no matter how many inches of blankets we put down to
soften our burden. My back pain was just extra worry. So, as we ventured more
and more out of town and into the wild and came to dream of an entire summer
spent camping in our nation’s great parks and forests west of the Rockies, we
knew that we’d need to make a serious investment in mobile accommodations.
We fell in love with the idea of owning a recreational
camping shelter of some kind.
We looked at trailers,
campers,
fifth wheels,
teardrop trailers,
sheep wagons,
and pop-up trailers.
Each had
their appeal and each had their flaws. Some simply would not work. Campers were
out because we didn’t have plans on owning a truck by this year. Same with
fifth wheels.
Teardrop trailers held our interest for a long while. We
think they offer a great amount of mobility with a minimum amount of shelter
necessary to travel well. The fact that they seem pretty bear-resistant was
especially appealing to me; I have an unhealthy fixation on bear-related death
stories. I blame Stephen Colbert. Sifting through the sands of the internet we
found a few gems of teardrop design plans that we fell in love with,
particularly this one, The Wild Goose.
But, we neither have the money or the
skills to build one of our own at this time.
Generally speaking, we find most of the modern day camping
trailers, campers, fifth wheels and pop-up trailers to be 100% tacky. Their sterile interiors lack any real character and
make me feel like I am sitting in the lobby of a Best Western in 1995. However,
classic canned-ham trailers are a very appealing choice. Kerri and I fell
head-over-heals in love with the idea of owning a restored vintage Shasta,
Airstream, Aristocrat, Scotty or Comet. For those of you unfamiliar with classic canned-ham trailers here are a few examples:
The best source for our fascination was
the classified sections of the website, www.tincantourists.com.
Many a winter hour was spent admiring the selections and imagining the
places we could go.
Another interesting design that we investigated was the
classic sheep wagon, straight out of history. You can learn more about the modern versions of these year-round mobile shelters here and here.
Finally, we looked into modern day pop-up tent trailers.
Again, we ran into a vast array of horrid interior design and really heavy and
really expensive units. Generally speaking, we love the idea of the pop-up
trailer, but we didn’t figure we would need the standard two to four beds and
the ability to sleep up to eight people. Plus, if you have never been inside a
new or recently built pop-up trailer or camper, they smell like a shitty
plastic factory. It would take years to air out the factory smell from those
things and that is only if you can stand camping in a 1995 Best Western lobby, anyways.
After spending the fall, winter and spring eyeing every
camper or trailer we crossed in Portland (they are on EVERY street) and
scouring the web tubes for innovative or retro camping shelters we finally made
a checklist of our adventure needs and wants. We had no plans on buying a truck
anytime soon. Therefore, we needed to consider the towing capacity of our 1998
Subaru Forester. While canned-ham trailers of the mid-20th century
and sheep wagon designs of the frontier days still appealed to us, we concluded that one of the greatest parts of camping is the feeling of being
outside in a tent. Walls are great for home, but we’d like to still feel
outside while camping. We decided the minimum of accommodations we desired was
a full sized bed, a table, a place to sit, some storage bins for various
camping items and a tent-like structure so that we wouldn’t feel like we were
taking the city with us so much as just barely covering up the rough in “roughin’
it”.
In early May, 2012, we took our first camping excursion into
the Columbia River Gorge. It rained. It kinda sucked. Our new tent worked well
enough but there we were again, on a palette of blankets. Aching. Aching bad!
Waking up throughout the night. I came home with pains in my back and an urge to hit up the
craigslist again. I was desperately dreaming of a solution we could afford…
I consider it odd that after spending dozen of hours over
the last year researching mobile shelters that I never came across vintage pop-up tent
trailers. But I didn’t. Strange it was because as soon as I saw this ad on
craigslist here in Portland I knew I had found what I wanted:
“Vintage
1967 Apache Eagle Tent Trailer. This trailer is in magnificent condition.
Canvas is in very nice shape with no shrinkage or tears. Zippers all work.
Mechanically sound. We bought this trailer a few years ago from the original
owners who stored it indoors for all of its life. This is a very cool
lightweight trailer that would be great to take to Hot Rod events or tow behind
your classic car. Easy to set up and always draws attention everywhere we took
it. This is very complete, it even has the hard to find zip on dining room
option. This is by far the most complete Apache Eagle that you will ever find.
All the stabilizing legs are in perfect working condition, it has the original
clam shell hangers, and the original Apache logo on the factory floor. We
absolutely loved this trailer and hate to see it go, but our lives have changed
and we really want it to go to a good family to take care of it and enjoy it
for many more years. For more information on these trailers go to
http://www.apacheowners.com/ I have many more pictures than I can post here, so
please email me if you would like to see them. Free and clear title in hand and
tags good until 7/12.”
Alas, that Apache Eagle was selling for $1600. And while it
did appear to be in excellent condition, Kerri and I didn’t feel ready to
consider that much so soon into my return to school and while I was awaiting
the opening of the new restaurant I have accepted employment with.
However…I eagerly began researching the Apache company… And
I found a lot of things to like.
