{"id":1194,"date":"2018-07-22T22:38:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T02:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-rageous.net\/Soul-Journer\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2018-07-27T00:11:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T04:11:40","slug":"where-do-we-go-from-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-rageous.net\/Soul-Journer\/?p=1194","title":{"rendered":"Where do we go from here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just before our last camping trip, I checked under the bed to see if I had anything stored there.\u00a0 I was shocked to see what appeared to be water stains on the support platform for the bed.\u00a0 We’ve found and repaired so many<\/em> leaks over the years, and I was really, really hoping this wasn’t what it looked like.<\/p>\n

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After some heavy rain, I checked under the bed again.\u00a0 I put some toilet tissue between the pinchers of a long-reach grabber tool and pushed the paper along the floor and carpet in the corner near the bed frame.\u00a0 When I pulled it back out, the paper was wet; not saturated, but definitely wet.\u00a0 Not good.<\/p>\n

When I looked UNDER the trailer, I could see that this area had been PATCHED at some point by a previous owner.\u00a0 \u00a0And when I touched the wood, it felt damp and spongy.\u00a0 SERIOUSLY not good.\u00a0 It seemed pretty clear that someone had made an attempt to fix the obvious<\/em> problem (the floor) without first finding and repairing the cause<\/em> of the problem (a leak).<\/p>\n

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By building a full-sized, permanent bed in the back, we’d been totally unaware that this was happening.\u00a0 However, now that we were<\/em> aware of it, we had to decide what to do.\u00a0 If we’d discovered this when we were just starting to renovate our Scamp, it would have just been one more project on the list.\u00a0 But now…?<\/p>\n

We love this little trailer.\u00a0 We’ve taken it from “shell to shelter” over the last few years, and we’ve taken pride in all of the work we’ve done.\u00a0 We dusted off old skills and learned new ones in order to create our cozy and comfortable little house on wheels….<\/p>\n

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While we were planning a variety of upgrades<\/em> (such as putting in a fridge, a sink, maybe a stove, etc.), the thought of doing more\u00a0repairs<\/em>\u00a0on the trailer made me feel both sad and frustrated.\u00a0 I also wondered if we were physically<\/em> up to the challenge of doing the type of work that would be needed to fix this latest problem….\u00a0 And with just a few weeks left before the start of the school year, did we really want<\/em> to spend the precious time remaining ripping out the whole floor in the back of the trailer and possibly tearing out sections of the wall and ceiling covering (again) to look for leaks?<\/p>\n

Personally, I was done.\u00a0 Enough.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, July 18th, the weather was beautiful and we decided to go for a drive through the Shenandoah Valley and on the Skyline Drive.\u00a0 \u00a0I also wanted to stop by a couple of RV centers in the area to look\u00a0at some of the trailers that were conceivably within our price range.\u00a0 (We did this a few months ago, too, and we saw several trailers we liked<\/em>, but none that we loved<\/em> more than our little Scamp.)<\/p>\n

At our first stop, we checked out a Jayco Hummingbird.<\/p>\n

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Certainly a nice trailer with an interesting floor plan, but as before, we liked<\/em> it, but we didn’t love<\/em> it.\u00a0 On the positive side, I got an estimate at their shop for repairing the 7-pin plug and wiring on the back of my car, so that was a good thing.<\/p>\n

At our next stop, we drove past a few behemoth-sized trailers and parked near a small Coachmen Clipper.\u00a0 Interesting….\u00a0 Hmmm, VERY interesting!<\/p>\n

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