My first camping experience was in 1976 at 2 years old with my grandparents. As an employee of an oil company, they had moved and camped all over the Western United States for years in various rigs. By the time I came along they had a Mobile Scout TT and '76 Suburban with a standard transmission, AM radio and no A/C. It was a monster TV, but was hot and windy traveling through West Texas. In 1987 my grandparents bought a new 1988 Suburban, this time with AC, in prepration for a trip to the Grand Canyon and Colorado. However, a few weeks before leaving on that trip my grandfather passed away. My grandmother did not want to pull the big trailer herself and it was sold. For the first time in a LONG time the family was without a trailer of any kind. The next year we got back in the saddle, sort of. My uncle, grandmother, sister and I went to Santa Fe (Black Canyon NFCG) in a tent.
It was fun trip, but upon returning, we started shopping for a new trailer. We ended up with a used Palomino pop up that took some muscle to get up AND down. That lasted 3 or 4 years and we were done. Headed to the RV show in early 1992 to see what was available. My uncle and grandmother went in together and ordered a 1992 Jayco Cardinal SD through one of the dealers at the show. It came in sometime in May and we made the first trip that summer. We used it every summer till 1998 when it was getting more difficult for me to get off during the summer and other family members did not want to go any longer. The old Jayco has been sitting in the driveway since 1998 unused and lonely. I'm married now and have a 5 year old and a 2 1/2 year old, so I am excited to get back to the mountains. I am doing some serious thinking about if I want to get the old Jayco up and running again or move on to something else. We the Jayco was ordered, they decided NOT to get an AC unit since most of our trips were going to be over 9,000 and it wasn't really needed. I think we might want to make some weekend trips in Texas and that is going to be a drag without the AC. So, I am looking into adding AC to the Jayco. It also needs new tires, wheel bearing, and work on the surge brake system as well as new brake shoes. Those are just the maintenance items. I also need to make sure everything inside stil works as it was intended. The biggest deciding factor is my wife.
I need to open up the Jayco, get it all set up and see if she is going to like the toilet/shower situation and just general pop up camping. I keep looking at the hard side trailers that are marketed as "lite". With my kids, I am also looking at trailers with bunks because there will be a time soon they will not want to sleep together or with myself or my wife. So, there are alot of consideration I am going through in this process.
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