McEwen's New Camper

Hello, our viewers and welcome to RV, Lifestyle and Repair. I'm Lisa mcewen, joined by my husband Jason mcewen making his debut if you will not too often. Are you in front of the camera? He's usually hiding behind the camera. But today, uh out here with me because we wanted to talk about something very cool um that we finally did as a family.

Not too long ago, we actually made a video about us considering to buy a new camper. Uh And we did it. That's right. So tell everybody the camper that we started out with back in 2019 before COVID hit, we bought a camper. Yeah, we bought our first camper and we were, we've had no knowledge of camping and r being really at all.

And so it was to see if we were going to have interest in this type of lifestyle. So we bought uh 18 ft high, low, 2004 18 ft high, low vintage. It was vintage and it was uh it was great. Um We, we were inspired to buy it. Actually, we were just traveling one day for, uh and we saw somebody towing it in a with a small, um, with a small SUV.

And we're like, well, that's a cool little thing. This is so sure enough, I googled it afterwards and I'm like, well, I really want one of those. I think that would be awesome for our family. And at the time our kids were only two and three years old, so very young, very young. Um, but that particular camper, we bought it on purpose, like you said, very small, it was affordable.

We wanted to make sure that RV. Camping was something we like, right? And we also had storage in mind because we live in a community that has uh rules against having your toys out and about. So we turned our garage into the storage unit if you will. And boy that was a tight fit.

It was as was camping in it. Now, mind you, we went there, we loved it for years. But the last couple of years, she didn't love it as much as she's saying. She loved it. I gotta be honest.

Yeah, inside the hilo though. Very small space, right? Uh the kids and, and you and I did not have a division of space at all. Uh We had a very tiny situation where we had to convert, right, the dining table into the main bed and then there was a bunk bed that came down from below. So, you know, we were all kind of in a sleep pile and don't forget about the half bath.

Right? And then the half bath was also a fabulous feature. Um, you know, so in that particular instance, it's a toilet and then a, you know, a connection, like basically a hose that you hook to the sink and, you know, you kind of pull a curtain around you and you pull a curtain around you in a very tight space and you kind of take a little shower. Now, all that to say, I mean, I'm glad we upgraded but at the time, it was all we needed, right? It had a bathroom and it enabled us to RV.

But like so many RV, ers, you know, once you realize that this is something that you want to continue to do, we need more space, we need a little more space and that was small, you know, 18 ft as you had made mention it was great to tow les was awesome. Yes, all true. But then we decided that we were going to go out and get a new camper, which we did. Um And like we said, we made a video on kind of how we decided to arrive at that. We obviously had to explore, we weren't upgrading the truck, right?

So we had to look at towing capacity, you know, really look at our budgets um and then consider, you know, the wants and needs of the family and we toured quite a few of them, but your budget tends to restrain, you know, the ones that you tour as well. Yeah. And I mean, we had a lot of wants for something only 26 to 32 ft originally. Um, because we were hopeful that we could get, you know, 28 or even 32 ft with our wants. But it just was not in the car of the truck's towing.

We didn't want to max that out. Right. And we were trying to make smart choices to make sure that we weren't maxing out or, or hurting the truck, but we landed on a Rockwood mini light. We did and it's awesome. It has everything we need and then some.

So we have bunk beds for the girls. They have their own space, they have their own space one end of the camper. That's right. And we have a Murphy bed for us and it's a queen size Murphy bed, everything we need. Um, a really nice U shaped dinette that can also sleep people if we needed to.

That's um also involved with the slide out there to extend that space out when we didn't have the slide out with the high level. No. And, and the slide does make a very big difference. I think it's one of the best amenities that we have in this camper because you don't, when you have the slide out, you can walk around each other. You don't have to, you don't have to coordinate communication to be able to actually move.

So it's, it's very nice that way the kitchen got bigger. The bathroom, got, you got an oven. I did an oven, a microwave. You know, those were things that we did not have prior to Entertainment Center now, which is very cool because we have movie nights now, indoors and outdoors we can. Um, and then as we're going outside, um, did I forget anything inside though?

I mean, I think the bathroom is a big upgrade obviously now, which is awesome. Right. It's, it's enough space to, to do what you need to do in there. And that's good stuff. So we have some storage indoors and outdoors that will go over.

But the first thing that's real noticeable is that it's a very long awning. It's a power awning which is something we were unfamiliar with at the time and it was very nice feature and then the amount of storage that wraps around this thing, I think there's what, 1235 different compartments for storing things and now we can leave more in the camper and, you know, not have to constantly take things in and out, in and out. It's a, it's a much more, uh, streamlined process compared to tiny camper living and, and we feel as though we can camp a little bit longer, uh, and, and enjoy our time a little bit more now that we have a little bit more space inside the camper. Imagine that the kids got bigger. It, it does happen, a smaller camper with kids getting bigger.

It was, it was definitely time and we knew it was time and we got a dog also, remember all at the same time. So kids grew, we got a dog. We're all in this little itty bitty baby, you know, pop up camper and I remember the exact camp trip where we were just like, that's it. Love, love, the high, low love. That was a pop up.

It's time to upgrade, you know, and now we have and we're obviously, you know, I'm very happy with the choice. We're looking forward to a lot of great trips in the camper. I mean, we hope to have it all the way until the kids graduate from high school. I think if it can give us that kind of years, that'd be fantastic. We'll probably upgrade the truck sometime before then.

But, you know, you're always thinking of the next thing and that's always a part of this lifestyle, for sure. Yeah, for sure. But very happy with our new purchase.