a tale of two campers.

Actually the truth is, if you go back far enough, it's a tale of *four* campers.

Camper #1:
In 2006, we took out a loan and bought a 1999 Skamper pop-up camper. We had a lot of fun adventures with it that summer... the most memorable of which was staying by the ocean on Hunting Island in South Carolina. 

This was our second night in the camper, somewhere in Tennessee.

In 2007, we sold the Skamper and paid off that debt before our move to Arizona.  We hoped to one day get another pop-up.

Camper #2:

Then in 2009, we found a 1993 Apache (or so we were told) camper on  Craig's List and paid cash. Yay!  

We set it up in the driveway and slept in it when we had houseguests one night.

Turns out, when we went to register it that the title and VIN didn't match. It was stolen and the MVD had to confiscate it. (The sellers, who never knew it was stolen, paid us back in full!)

(and now we finally arrive at the "two campers" about which this tale began...)

Camper #3:
A few years later, we found a 1990 Rockwood pop-up on Craig's List and paid cash again. But this one needed work. A *lot* of work.

Here's the fixer-upper camper in our garage.

We bought new springs for the lift system and replaced them. But when we pulled it into the driveway, we couldn't get it to work. Bah. That was discouraging, and so it sat in the garage taking up space.

Camper #4:
Then last year, on our way out of Marquette to visit some friends, we saw a 1997 Jayco for sale by the side of the road for an amazingly good price.  Turns out, it was our friends' former pastor selling it, and he offered it to us for even less than the price that had caught our attention. We paid cash on the spot and it stayed in the U.P. until we were back this year.  

At Camp Concordia in Michigan this summer.

It was so great to use our camper during our vacation this year! :)  Near the end of our time in Michigan, Matt suggested bringing our van & camper to Arizona and selling the van & camper we had here. We decided to go for it, so he & Marissa brought the Michigan van & camper out here. 

We listed the fixer-upper camper on Craig's List; in the process of getting it ready, Matt discovered the lift system actually does work! (apparently, it wasn't level when we'd tried before)  We had quite a few low-ball offers and several offers to trade unusual things (AK 47, fishing boat, etc.) for the camper. But we held out for cash, and last Saturday, a man bought the old camper and drove away, leaving us with a nice stack of twenties.

Now we have our Jayco in the garage, ready for some Southwest & Pacific coast camping adventures!  Can't wait.