Our home away from home

We have always enjoyed camping and now own a pop-up type trailer called a Trail Manor. We sadly ( and happily) sold our diesel truck and large fifth wheel to a friend's husband who will use it in his oil field business. He was quite happy to get it since he will be away from Midland for the next few months and accomodations are at a premium in oil boom areas. In early July, we drove to Houston to purchase the trailer. Now that we have a light weight trailer and a gas truck we will be better able to travel. The trailer is hard sided but folds down like a pop-up. It is amazingly engineered. I could put it up by myself and it takes less time to put up than any of our other pop-ups ever did. There is a good amount of space and the inside is well designed except that the designer did take two large dogs into account. We had a shakedown cruise in mid-July and the dogs finally got used to the small abount of floor space. Ulysses, the lab puppy, was not sure he liked it at all at first but finally did settle down. He wanted to perch like a cat on the back of the couch to look out the window -- that was firmly discouraged. We had to load the area with obstacles to thwart his plans.

You can see by this picture how the trailer "pops up" and becomes a solid trailer. I think we are going to really enjoy it. We should be experts by the time we get home in October. I just wish we could take much more time for this trip. We have lots we want to see.

We would welcome your questions or comments. All you have to do is to reply to the various posts. In fact, we'd really love to hear from you. We are leaving on August 22 after I teach a seminar for a small school district near Midland.

Ready...Set...