A Little History

Last year, when the Big Bad Recession had decimated our investment accounts, the dream of travel began to recede dimly into the mist. What could we do? Perhaps follow the example of our friends, the Norreds, and get a camper. The logic being that with the savings on lodging and food, over time it would at least partially pay for itself, and recoup part of the investment when we sold it. And it would be an adventure.


Gene had enjoyed a pop-up years ago, but was astonished when I mentioned it because I always said my idea of camping was the Holiday Inn. Desperate times call for desperate measures. However, Gene was stuck on another pop-up which was waaaayyy too much like a tent for me and not at all cute. "What has cute got to do with it?" he asked. "Everything!!" I replied. So there we were in a Mexican stand off.

In August, on the way back from Dad's 90th birthday celebration in Orlando, I was amusing myself looking at campers on Craig's list on the iphone, when suddenly the solution was right before my eyes. It was a hybrid camper, lightweight, 17' long with beds that drop down like tents on each end. And it was in Watkinsville. Gene agreed to go see it.

Three days later, there we were. And we liked it. Though it was 7 years old, it was well kept and had some improvements we liked. We bought it on the spot and brought it home. Gene named it Conestoga for its covered wagon like look.

A few weeks later we went with the Norreds to Indian Springs State Park for a "shake down cruise." This was very helpful and Art and Sandra both gave us scads of tips on the hows and whys of camping. I was still apprehensive about the tent like bed and hearing all the noises of outside, but it worked just fine and we had an enjoyable lakeside weekend.

My Facebook friends seemed to enjoy news and photos of our travels, but everybody is not on FB, so I decided to revive this long unused blog to share our news.