Category Archives: Trailer

We had a Sticker Deficit

…the USA map on the back of our trailer had a lack of states visited in the northeast part of the US.

The USA map on our trailer was missing some states.
With five years of travel we saw that we neglected the northeast USA

So we planned a trip for mid-September 2021 that’d take us from Chicago to Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York also adding the cities of Montreal and Quebec, Canada since we’d be going that way.

Our route included stops in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada

Since Covid 19 is a concern, we had to have a negative Covid 19 test to cross the US/Canada border. We got out tests near home and headed to Port Huron, Michigan to wait for our results. Luckily the results came in a day and we passed through the border without a hitch and traveled the 520 miles to Montreal.

Montreal Canada
Side streets near Montreal’s Place Jacques Cartier are picturesque.
Montreal's Notre-Dame de Bon Secoirs Chapel “the sailors church”
Montreal’s Notre-Dame de Bon Secoirs Chapel “sailors church” has little boats hanging from the ceiling.

Then on to Quebec City…

Old Quebec City square
Old Quebec City square
Mayan exhibit at the Musee de la Civilisation, Quebec City, Canada
Quebec City’s weather wasn’t the best during parts of our September visit, so we spent a rainy day at a Mayan exhibit at the Musee de la Civilisation
Quebec fall color
Some fall color at Parc national des Îles-de-Boucherville.
Umbrella street in Quebec City.
Umbrella street in Quebec City.

We left Canada at the Derby Line Port of Entry, Derby Line, Vermont crossing and were back in the USA. Cindy was disappointed that the border guard didn’t extend a “welcome back” greeting!

Our first stops in the US included…

The Flume in Franconia Notch State Park, Franconia, New Hampshire
The Flume in Franconia Notch State Park, Franconia, New Hampshire
set-in-the-woods yoga studio Harvest Hosts
We use Harvest Hosts for some stays, this one was a set-in-the-woods yoga studio. While you don’t pay a Harvest Host, you do purchase their goods so we did a 9 am yoga class before breaking camp.

We tour boated on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. This is the lake where On Golden Pond was filmed. At one point the guide was showing us an eagles nest and the eagle swooped in right on cue.

Making our way down the coast toward we saw…

the Mayflower II, Plymouth, Massachusetts
We toured the Mayflower II a ship similar to what the Pilgrims came in.
Plymouth Rock and footprints
Plymouth Rock was protected by a guard but there were still footprints in the sand.
Massasoit statue in Plymouth Massachesetts
Massasoit, Great Sachem of the Wampanoags.

While chatting with some other campers we learned about a whale watching boat they were going on. We checked it out and were able to get tickets also. The boat took off from Provincetown which was great because we wanted to visit this town also.

Whale watching off the Provincetown, Massachusetts coast
Whale watching off the Provincetown, Massachusetts coast.
Provincetown main street
Provincetown’s main street is lined with quaint shops and restaurants.
Shining Sea Bikeway bike riders
Since we have bikes with us, we like to find places to ride, about 30 miles from Plymouth the Shining Sea Bikeway winds along the Vineyard Sound shorelines.

Making our way to Newport, Rhode Island we set up the trailer at Fisherman’s Memorial State Park. Newport is famous for its Cliff Walk with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the estates of Guilded Age barons on the other. You can’t see much of the mansions from the walk but several are open for tours, we did the Vanderbilt’s Breakers and The Elms.

Newport Cliff Walk
This portrait of Elizabeth Drexel Lehr hides a sad story. On her wedding night Elizabeth’s new husband Harry Lehr said “I do not love you, I can never love you. … Your money is your only asset in my eyes.”

Next stop Glastonbury, Connecticut and another Harvest Hosts stay.

Harvest Hosts, Rose’s Berry Farm
One of the best places we stayed was a Harvest Hosts, Rose’s Berry Farm, our campsite was between a pond and a planted hillside.
mystic pizza
On our way to the Berry Farm we stoopped in Mystic, Connecticut for a slice at the Julia Roberts movie-famous Mystic Pizza.

We made our way into New York for a stay near Cooperstown, New York and of course a visit to Cooperstown & Baseball Hall of Fame

Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame
Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams in the background.

As we traveled back west to home we enjoyed stops at…

Letchworth State Park waterfall
Letchworth State Park, “the Grand Canyon of the East” no less, the Genesee River roars through the gorge over three major waterfalls.
Haymarket Brewery Harvest Hosts in Bridgeman, Michigan next to a cemetary
At the Haymarket Brewery Harvest Hosts in Bridgeman, Michigan we had VERY quiet neighbors.
trailer USA map with the northeast states filled in
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED…our USA map with the northeast states filled in.

Pacific Northwest Excursion

After a winter stay in Tucson, Arizona we wanted to visit relatives and places in the Pacific Northwest again. Leaving Tucson in April, 2021, one of our first stops was Quartzite, Arizona. Since it was mid-April Quartzite was pretty quiet, many of the shops were on reduced hours. We found a place in the desert a bit north of town and set up for an overnight there.

Quartzsite freedom camping at sunset
There were few other campers in the area we chose, a bonus…cell phone reception is outstanding, four bars!

We moved on to Palm Springs to explore some of the mid century modern architecture. Both and Modernism Week and Desert X were happening while we were there.

Palm Desert mid century house
Palm Desert is loaded with mid century homes.
Desert X car/artwork installation
Desert X car/artwork installation.

A drive of 300 miles got us to Three Rivers, California and the southern access to Sequoia National Park and the Giant Tree Grove, General Sherman tree and the Scenic Highway.

Sequoia National Park Giant Tree Grove
Named after Civil War general William Tecumsah Sherman, General Sherman is thought to be the largest single stem tree by sheer volume. Believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old, it’s 275-feet tall and has a trunk diameter of 25-feet.
Standing in a sequoia tree
Yep, sequoias are big trees.

Friends of ours had a home on Bass Lake, California and they kindly invited us to stay with them and tour Yosemite National Park which is about an hour from Bass Lake.

Greetings from Bass Lake
Nuff said
Travel bikes in Yosemite National Park
Our friends suggested bike riding around Yosemite.
Beautiful mountain reflection
Yosemite is beautiful.

From there we headed to the Pacific Ocean coast north of San Francisco. Originally we had planned on visiting San Francisco, but Covid 19 had us preferring to avoid big cities. Mackerricher State Park was our stopping point, from there we visited Glass Beach which I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Glass Beach used to be a garbage dump, it was active from 1906 to 1967 at several places in the area. After cleanups all that’s left are small pieces of beach glass.
Mendicino, California  flowers
We wandered around historic Mendicino, California.

Traveling north on California Highway 1 and US 101 we stopped at Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon. One of the first things to do once we hit the coast is get a tide pool chart. We visited tide pools at Heceta Head Lighthouse then lunched at Luna Sea Fish House in Yahats.

Heceta Head Lighthouse tide pools
Heceta Head Lighthouse tide poolin’
Heceta Head Lighthouse tide pool
Luna Sea Fish House in Yahats, Oregon
Luna Sea Fish House in Yahats, Oregon.
Newport, Oregon seals on the docks
We had some noisy lunch companions in Newport, Oregon.

Continuing north we made it to Nehalem Bay State Park for another multi-day stop. There’s a lot to do in the area…

Cannon Beach sunset
Iconic Cannon Beach draws watchers and photographers at sunset.
Tillamook Creamery photo oopportunity
Photo opportunity at Tillamook Creamery.
Sleepy Monk Coffee in Cannon Beach, Oregon
Sleepy Monk Coffee in Cannon Beach, Oregon
Fort Clatsop stockade
Lewis and Clark wintered near Astoria, Oregon at Fort Clatsop

As we turned east, a wonderful stop was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, several people had advised us to visit there, so we did.

Cycling Lake Coeur d’Alene on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.
Cycling by Lake Coeur d’Alene on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes.
Coeur d’Alene Artwalk

Arriving at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota I was assured by the ranger that we’d see wild life. Well that was an understatement, within five minutes we encountered bison grazing by the side of the road.

Viewing bison right from the car
Like a safari, at Theodore Roosevelt National Park you see the animals right from your car.
Bison wander through the campground
Bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park wander through the campground.

Almost home, our last night out was a Harvest Hosts, Zymurgy Brewing Co., in Menomonie, Wisconsin. This was out last night out. When we got home to Illinois, we’d covered 5, 167 miles in the five weeks since we started out in Tucson.

Zymurgy Brewing Company in an old gas station
The Harvest Hosts Zymurgy Brewing Company in Menomonie, Wisconsin in an old gas station.

Trailering at Joshua Tree National Park with the Flintstones

Jumbo Rocks Campground
The Jumbo Rocks Campground in Joshua Tree National Park

Back in 2016 we visited Joshua Tree National Park for a day. It’s another world, a prehistoric one and no part of it is more prehistoric-looking than its Jumbo Rocks Campground, you literally expect to see Fred Flintstone emerge from around the rocks. We vowed to someday camp there.

Fred Flintstone

So in spring 2019 we headed there with our trailer with a two-night reservation for the Jumbo Rocks Campground, the thing about this campground is that it has no water or electricity for campers. Our trailer has fresh, grey and black water tanks and a single battery for camping without hookups. We figured we‘d last the two nights.

The jumbo rocks dwarf our trailer.

We climbed the jumbo rocks, sat in our private courtyard for dinner, and hiked to the Wall Street Mill that processed gold beginning in the late 1800s.

The Cholla Gardens
The Cholla Gardens look soft and fuzzy but they’re not!

The Wall Street Mill
The Wall Street Mill

At the end of two days, we didn’t want to leave Joshua Tree so we moved to another campground in the park for another night, adding water and charging the trailer’s battery a bit while we drove there. We knew we were pushing it with the battery, and sure enough we were out of electricity when we woke up after night three. So it was time to leave Joshua Tree. We never did see Fred.

trailer battery indicator reading empty
Battery indicator reading EMPTY after three nights with no plug-in power.

EastbounHistoric Route 66, Amboy, CA.
Eastbound from Joshua Tree put us on Historic Route 66, this stretch is in Amboy, CA.

WHERE THE CIGOYS ARE

Egret in an Everglades mangrove marsh.

We visited the Everglades from every angle – the west side Gulf Coast Visitor Center and its Thousand Islands and marshes, the upper east with the fantastic Shark Valley plains and the lower east’s Flamingo Visitor Center and hurricane-ravaged bays.

Leaving the Everglades behind, we tangled with the vast urban-osity of Miami/Fort Lauderdale.
Someone said that this area is getting 10,000 new residents regularly and I guess they all brought at least two cars, but somehow they left their rules of the road book where they came from.

  • U-turn? There’s no notice necessary for that!
  • In the turn lane? Why waste your blinker, everybody knows what happening.
  • Red light at night? If no one’s crossing my path, why stop?

So we tolerate it because once you hit the beach all is forgiven!
They’re just fantastic!!! One evening we visited the Hollywood Broadwalk just after a huge rainstorm, Bars were drying the seats, a rainbow hovered over the Atlantic, and everybody was out strolling again. A bar buddy at Bunny & Reads Toucan Hideway hearing we were hungry, told us about the Taco Beach Shack close by. We went, It was Two for Tuesday Tacos, and with cool guy Martini and a drummer performing.

Hollywood Beach after a rainstorm.

Martini “Hit me up on Instagram” performing at the Taco Beach Shack.

The day before we visited Miami and Haulover Beach with its sweet warm water and hot sun, plus the deco hotels of South Beach. Next, delicious lunch and great conversation with our Uruguay waiter at a stainless steel diner.

Stainless steel diner in Miami’s South Beach

Miami deco hotel

And then there’s Ft Lauderdale… we walked by the Elbo Room Bar seen in Connie Stevens’ first movie Where The Boys Are, and took the fantastic Carrie B sightseeing cruise through Ft. Lauderdale’s canals, gawking at gazillionaires houses and boats.

Rich person’s house on the canal in Ft. Lauderdale.

On the Carrie B we got chased by a thunderstorm front, disembarking just before the rain dumped big time.

Apparently you haven’t really made it unless your yacht is more than 300 feet long.

OK, maybe the city planners won’t program traffic lights to allow cars to actually move a while here, or haven’t realized that traffic circles don’t need stop lights. But wow they do have the beaches down!

Can you carry bikes on the rear bumper of a Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer?

We tried it and it didn’t work out too well.

Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer bumper failure from using a bike rack. (right view)

Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer bumper failure
Here’s the whole load that caused the trailer bumper to fail. Hanging on the bumper are two full size bikes, a bike rack, and the trailer’s spare tire and mount.

The manufacturer doesn’t recommend adding a bike rack to the 4” square bumper on our Retro trailer. But we decided to chance it.

Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer bumper failure
Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer bumper failure from using a bike rack.

I added a CURT 19100 RV Bumper Hitch to the trailer’s bumper, slid our Yakima bike rack into it, and added two full size bikes.

We did fine on a 3,687 mile trip from Chicago to the Badlands and back. We didn’t do so fine on our second big trip to Arizona. About 900 miles into the trip, in Dallas, TX we stopped for gas, and I did a walk around of the car and trailer to see if everything was OK. It wasn’t.

Trailer bumper failure from adding a bike rack.
Riverside RV White Water Retro trailer bumper failure from using a bike rack. (left view)

I found the bumper torn at the mounts to the trailer frame and our bikes and spare tire leaning toward the pavement. (These photos  recreated it in our driveway when we got home.)

Luckily nothing fell off. We were able to absorb the bikes, spare tires and racks into the trailer and car, and the trip proceeded.

Back home, we had the bumper replaced by our Riverside RV dealer and things are back to normal with the trailer.

We Buy a Travel Trailer and Take Our First Trip

Pulling out of the driveway for our first trip

We’ve been window shopping trailers for a couple of years. It started when we saw a Scamp at Patagonia State Park in Arizona back in 2014. The light weight of the Scamp’s fiberglass construction appealed to us, as well that they’re just too darn cute. So for a while we researched the different Scamp models as well as every other trailer we could find in the under 25′ range. We read up online, and even traveled to Elkhart, IN to attend a spring RV show. We were driving one day and saw a Scamp in a driveway, the owner happened to be there and graciously offered us a tour. Cindy and I were inside with the owner (a former aircraft engineer) and he wanted to close the door to show how it resembled a plane’s. Click, the door shut with us three inside the Scamp. I glanced at Cindy and could read her mind “It’s SO SMALL”.

Scamp trailer 13 foot
The first Scamp trailer we saw at Patagonia State Park in Arizona in 2014

So we found ourselves in spring 2016, ready to get a trailer (and a tow vehicle) but not being crazy for any we’d seen. We were almost at a dealer’s to check an r-pod trailer when Cindy yelled “Turn in here, NOW!”

rPod trailer
The r-pod trailer, they’re quite light weight

What had caught her eye was a red and white retro looking small trailer at Terry’s RV. They had various sizes on the lot, so we got busy being nosey and walked in them all. After a while, Mike came by, and told us that we were looking at the White Water Retro line manufactured by Riverside RV. Since they’re aluminum construction, they’re pretty light (our’s is 2,350 lbs.), the retro look is cool, and they’re pretty wide, allowing a walk around bed, which was one feature we really wanted.

The full retro treatment has whitewall tires, red upholstery and a black and white checkerboard floor. It’s way cute, but we didn’t feel a white floor would be practical for long term use in campgrounds.

Mike told us there was an alternate color scheme that has a wood tone floor and they happened to have a used one on he lot for sale. It was everything we wanted, so after sleeping on it, we put a deposit down on the 2015, 18.5′ model.

We then did the auto dealer gauntlet, finally ending up with a Toyota Highlander to tow with.

Our first trip had us leaving Chicagoland to head north to several stops in Michigan. Over the course of a week, we stayed at a state park, a national lakeshore and a county park.

The Highlander gave 15-16 mpg during the tow with plenty of power for merging. The trailer was all we’d hoped for, big enough inside and small enough to tow easily.

Our inagural camping spot at Hoffmaster State Park in Michigan

Tubing down the Platte River near Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, a great meandering 3 hour float to the Lake Michigan shore

The float ‘s end is protected from Lake Michigan by a sand bar