We are home now from our maiden voyage in our new-to-us pop-up camper! We stumbled upon this pop-up at the end of the summer. Hubs and I both grew up camping with our families and although we had only made it camping about twice before the kiddos came (both times tent-camping), we always knew we wanted our family to have the same wonderful memories.
Hub's family had a pop-up when he was growing up so that had always been a dream of his. My family always tent-camped but my grandparents had a 5th wheel and we often went with them so I knew the advantages of having a camper! My parents recently bought their own 5th wheel camper which brought up the idea of getting our own PUP - but in the future. (The far, far, future I thought!)
We decided to test our family camping feet this summer by taking the kids to Hillsdale Lake for a few days. Unfortunately, we chose the hottest week of the summer to tent camp (in a primitive site, with no electricity, not smart) and it didn't turn out as pleasant as we wanted (to put it nicely). We forgot about 15 different things, probably sweated 10 pounds off each, and gave up around 10:30 the first night and drove home! We did get up and head back out to the campsite the next morning where we spent the day at the lake's beach then driving around in order for our babies to nap in the car. (It was still entirely too hot to try and sleep in the tent!) We ended up and broke camp after dinner (right before the rain started too!) and headed home.
This trip sparked a fire under Hubs to keep his eye out for the perfect PUP for our family. Little did I know how serious he was about it...
A family friend happens to live across the street from Hubs' sister. She called one day, not long after our disastrous trip, to inform us that their neighbor was getting ready to sell their PUP and we should come take a look! I laughed and said "Whatever!" when Hubs asked if he could go take a look.
We came home with it two days later.
It really was a pretty sweet deal that we couldn't turn down. A 2011 Jayco that had been taken out only twice. Yes, TWICE. And we got a pretty good deal on the price too. ;)
She really does like the camper, I promise! :)
We got a crash course in the ins and outs of PUP set-up, tear down and all of the in-betweens and then it was ours! We have already made grandiose plans for future camping trips in our new toy and I personally can't wait to get in and get it all organized!
I hope that I can use this blog to keep track of all the ups and downs (which I'm sure there will be!) of our PUP camping adventures - tips and tricks we've learned along the way, places we've camped and places we'll go back to, and places we want to head to in the future!
Welcome to our journey as
The Schultes Do Camping!
