So we drove to Montana in early June as soon as school let out to pick up a camper my husband spotted on Craigslist. This isn't just any old camper, it's the "one" he would have if we owned a camper. Fleetwood made the Scorpion from 2005-2007 and then stopped making them. Probably due to the 1000lb tongue weight where most light weight vehicles can't tow them. We had to have this camper because you can tow a Jeep Willies on the back! Duh...
Honestly, I don't care. After my back injury, I have no desire to camp sleeping on the ground. If this is what it takes to get Jason to give in, then so be it. I'll consider it our compromise.
We hiked the 10 hour drive up towards the Bozeman area to pick up the camper. Why Montana? Did I forget to mention finding these things are difficult? When you do they often go for a ridiculous amount of money. Let's say Jason found one of his signature deals. The camper was in decent condition. It definitely needed a few tweaks here and there, but for the most part is was ready for camping. So we headed back to Colorado via Yellowstone National Park and put the camper to immediate use.
Once back in Colorado, we discovered that most of the water line fittings were destroyed, causing leakages everywhere. So that was number one on the list to fix. I'll leave that to the husband...no creativity involved. Although I can say I proudly got the toilet cleaned out and working with very little headache. Wait, a huge headache because I exploded the Formaldehyde crap all over myself. Ewwww. No worries we bought the Formaldehyde free/Biodegradable toilet treatment that's now available. And yes, I plan on using the toilet since I put a little work into making that sucker work.
We changed all of the lights to LED lighting. They've made super advances in the LED department! Instead of drawing tenths of electricity with every light that turns on, we now draw hundredths. In fact all of the lights draw less than what one light was drawing from the standard bulbs. You're welcome battery.
Now the curtains were disgusting. They were starting to tear and smelled yucky. My mom bought me a nice Husquavarna sewing machine a bunch of Christmases ago. I took a class on how to use it and then I promptly forgot. So I never really wanted to take on the task of sewing because I was scared I would break the machine. I guess I hated the curtains so much, I got over my fear.
I looked online for new RV curtains. The searches all came up with boring colors and $100 for a set of two. I needed eight. Two for each bed (two of those), two for the kitchen area, and two for the bathroom. The bathroom had an odd size and I was having trouble finding the correct size on RV outlets online. At the same time, I received an email from Hancock Fabrics on on of their crazy sales. Fabrics between 30-50% off, plus an extra 20% coupon if you spend $50 or more.
I immediately called my mom. Super woman of all sewing projects would know what I need to do. I took the old curtains out and ripped them apart with a seam ripper. This way I could have a nice pattern. With a little bit of measurement, mom was able to tell me I needed about 10 yards of fabric. So off to the fabric store I went. I went to the back and found sun resistant, heat resistant, water resistant outdoor fabric that is usually $25 a yard. They had it marked down 40% off. Yay! Plus with my coupon I ended up paying what it would cost to buy one set of curtains from the RV store.
I went with a gray and yellow striped fabric because the trailer is black, gray, and yellow. The old curtains were a dark gray and it made the trailer feel small. So after using the old curtains as a pattern, I was able to make all of the curtains. My rotary blade and cutting board were a life saver. The sewing machine did a great job after I got used to using it. The first lines of stitching are not that good. I needed to dial in the tension and my own handiwork.
The brackets to hold the curtains into place were still in good shape so I decided to use those again. The only problem was I didn't have a need or feet on my sewing machine that were strong enough to plow through the plastic. I didn't want to take any chances on breaking my machine (original fear). So I Gorilla glued the brackets to the fabric. This idea worked out perfect. So now I have beautiful new curtains in our camper. The colors make the camper feel more airy and open. I love our new camper!
Now all we have to tackle is why the fridge is running at 40-44 degrees and not 35-40 degrees. Fun stuff!
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