Where do you put your trash?

Yeah, we take ours to the dump, too. But in reality, here's a problem for us who boondock in a truck camper: After a few days of sitting tight in one spot, our garbage began to load up, in a fearsome sort of way.

Camped, as we were, in the national forest near the Grand Canyon, there were plenty of little critters around who would have loved to root around in our trash and fish out delicacies. Obviously we don't want to feed the wildlife (nor have to chase around a couple of acres of woodland, picking up what they scattered). Our only recourse that came to mind was to carefully stow the bagged trash in the cab of the pickup. That was fine for the time, but after a couple of days of ripening, it took a good half-hour to air out the cab before we could bring ourselves to climb in.

Some have suggested they tie their trash bags to their roof access ladder. Great, as long as Rocky the Flying Squirrel--or worse--Yogi or his kin don't show up--and provided you have a ladder rack. We're struggling with this one, and hope our readers have great suggestions.

photo mike willis on flickr.com

Japanese home-brew truck camper could give us ideas

Some enterprising Japanese students built what they describe as a "camping car," that might give truck camper manufacturers--or home building enthusiasts--a few ideas. The genesis of the idea came to the three high school students as envisioned a trip to a Japanese island. With the glowing ideas of youth, things got a little bigger. As they put it, "The talk swells greatly. After all, we decided to go on a round-the-japan trip!!"

As the plan unfolded, more and more equipment for camping had to be included in the plans. From their web page, "However, the bed space has disappeared when various equipment is packed. Then, the idea adjusted to two stories appeared." Working on their project for a couple of years, the completed camper is a two-story model--using compressed air to deploy the upper story once the rig is on place.

The eventual product has turned out to be an inspirational recreational vehicle. Complete with LP stove, shower, a traditional Japanese-style "sleeping room," and of course, an LP-fired rice cooker. Here's a new thought, too. The rig is fully self-contained, including a removable, wheeled black water tank. No more fussing with transferring icky stuff to "blue boys" to haul away your sewage, just disconnect the tank and wheel it off. While the body of this big camper is a free-standing construct and was lifted onto the truck chassis, no ordinary pickup truck would accommodate the big camper.

The entire project is a fascinating look into building a reality from a dream. Check out more pictures and the whole story on the ingenious engineers' website.

Can your fifth-wheel enabled pickup carry a truck camper?

It's a problem for those who own too many RVs. We fulltimed in a fifth wheel for several years, but yearned for the "old days" when we flitted around the countryside, going anywhere we wanted with a truck camper. So now we have a fifth wheel, a travel trailer, and a truck camper. What to do about hauling the truck camper when the pickup bed is tied up with fifth wheel hitch equipment?

The first line, of course, is to pull the fifth wheel hitch out of the truck bed. That's easy enough, but still you're burdened with the hitch rails in the bed of the truck. When we first brought home our new "project" truck camper, we simply loaded into the truck bed, right over the top of the fifth wheel rails. Not a great idea--the poor camper rocked back and forth, giving everybody in the truck a new spin on the term, "vertigo."

With a measuring tape, we soon discovered that the bed rails in the truck were three-quarters of an inch high in the bed. With a little bit of work with the skill saw, we soon chopped up a piece of three-quarter plywood, making the pieces fit around the hitch rails, thus "leveling out the playing field." We made sure we got quality, exterior plywood. Even so, the sun took its toll on the plywood: After a year of baking in the sun, the plywood was trying hard to deteriorate. So it's not a bad idea to take the extra time and effort and hit your new "decking" with a couple of coats of high quality paint--porch and deck paint might not be such a bad idea, to stand up to the wear and tear.

Since then, we've found a permanent place to moore the fifth wheel, and simply pulled the fifth wheel hitch rails out of the truck. Yep, it'll be a major hassle when the fiver has to be moved again, but we're going back in places we'd never be able to get the Old Girl into--and getting out again without scratching the paint!

Thinking about buying your first camper? Check out the leg room!

Now on our fourth truck camper, we've "been around the block," a couple of times. The first time we were green RVers, had a new family, and just wanted something to get out in. It was an old rig, not equipped with any "conveniences," like a real refrigerator, and certainly no plumbing, other than a hand pump kitchen sink faucet. We had a long time pass between it and our next rig, which "came with the truck," a teeny rig, but wow! It actually had a small furnace and electric lights. We were "hooked" on the RVing lifestyle.

It didn't take long to figure out we needed a "bigger" camper (and of course, a bigger truck), and we picked up an 11 1/2 foot rig of ancient vintage, but this one--meeting the wife's requirements--had a bathroom. And here's the point of this blog: Truck campers are by nature, compact, and sometimes the space given to other areas of the rig is stolen from the bathroom.

Truck camper 3, our first with a bathroom, stuffed a toilet and shower stall all on one fiberglass foundation. No sink, but if there had been, life would have been very compact, for as it was, if you needed to un-bend your knees while seated on the throne, you wiggled your toes in the shower stall. Our current camper incarnation donates a bit more floor space to the bathroom: A free-standing shower stall, toilet, and a sink. Still, it's a shoe-horn affair: To be really comfortable, you need to pop open the bathroom door and shove your feet out into the middle of the dinette area. It makes for close companionship with your family--in our case, if somebody really needs the leg room, the other party sits on the far end of the dinette, hiding behind the open bathroom door.

Here's our advice: Unless you're shopping for a camper to take with you in your act as a contortionist with the circus, really check out the bathroom in any potential camper purchase. Don't be embarrassed, sit on the pot and see how your legs and feet feel about the available space. If you're an inveterate reader in the biffy, maybe you'd best take your latest paperback with you on the test, allowing a few minutes for rigor mortis to set in. Yes, you can probably expect to get a few odd looks from the RV salesman, but he's not the guy whose comfort is in question.

While you're at it, you're miles ahead to step into the shower stall and check it out for elbow room. Will you need to give a bit of an extra shove on the shower curtain (or door) in order to soap up? Where will you hang your wash cloth and towel so that both are in easy reach? Go thrown all the motions to make sure you can live with the 'little room of rest' in your future truck camper.

photo courtesy marada on flickr.com