Happy Adventure Club

Camping

Trip Report – Week 4 of 4 – Boysen, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s Hideout, and The Badlands. Then home.

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Continued fro Trip report Week 3.5 of 4: here

The 3 B’s – Boysen State Park, Boondocking at Butch Cassidy’s hideout, and then bring on The Badlands...please.

We found a great campground at Boysen State Park that was right next to the great fishing in Wind River Canyon. We were there just a couple of nights since the fishing license there is kind of expensive. We needed to plan the perfect fishing day. We had to do some bouldering to get to the river in all spots, but it was worth it. The canyon was gorgeous. So were the fish.

Fishing in Wind River Canyon – Boysen State Park

On the hillside across the river, there was a train track ledge going through the canyon. In the evening a train came through with lights on. Kind of creepy and neat to watch. I felt like I was in a wild, wild west movie!

Speaking of the Wild, Wild West, we decided to drive to Kaycee, Wyoming to drive into the Willow Creek Ranch 30 miles to get to the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid’s hideout. There was a campground but it was too hard to get to it with the trailer in tow. So we boondocked just outside their hideout. It was secluded with beautiful 360º views. We were tired that day and decided to open the back trailer doors and take a little nap. The sun was warm and the breeze was cool. So relaxing.

The next day we left and headed to the Badlands. We found a great boondocking site and parked right on the edge. We set up our chairs and set up the stove to cook dinner. We couldn’t have a fire there. All of a sudden we looked to our right and a herd of Big Horned Sheep were make their way from the grasslands to the cliffs of the Badlands for protection that night. We sat and watched what they did closely. It was neat. They had a procedure for this trek. There was a frontman that was a lookout and stood at the cliff entrance as a guide. For the other large sheep and their lambs. There was also a large male sheep coming in from the back as extra security. The frontman was getting mad because the herd wasn’t hurrying fast enough to go down the cliffs. It just sat down and waited an hour for them to finish grazing.

The next day was a big drive to Minnesota. We stayed at Kilen Woods State Park. The campgrounds were really clean and the grass was so think at the capsite it was like a green carpet. Great showers too! We had a huge fire, since we had to use up all the firewood before leaving the next day for home.

The trek home was sad but, we wanted to see our cats. We dropped the trailer off at our storage spot and it felt weird to separate from our trailer since it was basically part of us for the past month.

We are planning a new trip for 2021 September – October right now and made some new updagrades to the trailer in the past few weeks. Look for the trailer work post next and MORE ADVENTURES!

  • Boysen State Park
  • Boysen State Park
  • Mayfly hatch.
  • We climbed down this
    to fish.
  • Derek got a fish!
  • Close up of that fish. Beauty ehh!
  • Boysen State Park
  • Boysen State Park
  • Just out side Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s Hideout.
  • We took a nap in the sun.
  • King of the world.
  • Our trailer from far away.
  • Sunset to total darkness.
  • The Badlands
  • More Badlands
  • Badlands Boondocking
  • Big horned sheep walking to the cliffs for protection for the night.
  • The grass at this campsite was like a fine carpet. So comfortable!
  • This is what burning the rest of your firewood looks like.
  • Our camp in Minnesota.
  • Back in Illinois. Dropping off the trailer for storage. We were so sad.

Trip Report – Heading Out West – Week 1 of 4

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Making our way out west. Getting organized first in Wisconsin.

When planning the trip, we thought it would be good to camp somewhere nearby to test everything out. We stopped in Viola, Wisconsin at a county park. Our plan was to try everything out in our trailer at a campsite just to make sure we were ready for the extended trip and had everything we needed.

The Viola campsite was nice. It is the first place I ever fly-fished. Derek couldn’t help himself and fished for a couple of hours when we got there. I set up camp and relaxed and took a nap with the back doors of the trailer open. The sun was going down and the warm sun was beautiful through the trees. We made dinner on the campfire and knew the second-day drive would be 14 hours. Our glamourous destination? A Cabela’s parking lot in Rapid City, SD. We had to pace ourselves too with a max of around 65mph while towing. Jeep Wranglers are NOT the best tow vehicle…

We left Viola after a nice breakfast of eggs and bacon. We’ve done this drive tons of times, and were kind of dreading it, but it was not as bad as we thought it would be. When you start getting into the western half of South Dakota, (coming from the East), you see a difference in the plant life and land. Fewer trees and more plains and then rolling hills. You also start seeing the billboards for Wall Drug.

Rapid City, South Dakota – Cabela’s Parking lot.

We finally got to Cabela’s lot and found a spot with a little privacy. You can’t really spend time outside your trailer there. It’s just for getting a quick night’s sleep and to get on the road the next morning.

  • Cabela’s parking lot in Rapid City, SD

Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming

The drive to the Big Horns from Rapid City was fairly uneventful, if beautiful. We stopped in Sheridan, WY for some supplies and hit our first climb up the switchbacks heading to Burgess Junction.

We stayed at Tongue Creek campground for three nights four days. Our campsite had a pretty creek flowing through it. This campground had a water pump and the cleanest pit toilet I have ever seen.

The fishing was really fun up here. We caught cutthroat and rainbow trout. The Bear Lodge Resort at Burgess Junction had showers for campers like us. They are behind the tavern for $2 per person. It was our first shower of the trip. I like showers.

  • Fireside Old-Fashioneds
  • The stream through our campsite.
  • Back door open.

Leaving the Big Horn Mountains.

We had a real scare driving down the west side of the Big Horns toward Cody. This descent starts at a bit under 10k feet and drops to 4500 in about 8 miles. About halfway down our brakes felt squishy and we pulled over. All four brakes were actually smoking! We thought we had been taking it easy on the brakes and using gearing to slow our descent but we drastically underestimated how much we needed to use the engine for that. Luckily this was just a learning experience and no damage done.

  • Heading down from the Big Horns
  • Smoking brakes

As we drove toward Bozeman, a flashing engine light came on and then turned off totally freaking us out. We stopped and checked everything and it seemed ok so we kept on driving. While on I-90 just outside of Bozeman, we had it on cruise control and the transmission shifted down and spiked the rpm – causing the flashing light again.

We were just outside of Bozeman at this point, so we got off the freeway and crept toward town. Derek stopped at a gas station to get error codes but the car had none. Pretty weird to not have any codes after a couple flashing engine lights.

We stopped for lunch and a drink (needed to calm some nerves!) at Montana Ale Works while Derek called the local Jeep dealership. Unfortunately they were super rude and didn’t have any time to look at the car for nearly two months. When Derek explained that we were travelling and if they had any local recommendations of someone else he could call, the woman he spoke with at the dealership literally laughed at him and ended the conversation with: “Good luck with that. You wont find anyone to help here – EVERYONE is too busy.” I’d not recommend the Bozeman Jeep dealer for any reason after seeing that go down.

Derek looked at some reviews online of local repair shops and called Deeter Auto Repair. They were super helpful and understanding of the situation. Unfortunately they couldn’t really do much since there were no error codes. The tech talked at length with Derek and we decide to proceed while taking it easy. He suspected the issues were just due to heat from the towing stress and using the automatic transmission. Turns out he was right. With our setup you really need to shift manually if you’re either climbing or descending. Again, lesson learned.

  • At Montana Ale Works
  • Ennis had bad weather when we arrived.

Our goal was to get to Ennis, MT that night. As it turned out, it was not difficult to take it easy due to the 40-65 mph winds in the wide open country there. It was a crazy wind storm and we couldn’t drive faster than about 40mph due to the wind. Yay, another stressful drive!

We made it to Ennis in a couple hours and the wind/rain continued throughout the evening. Ended up cooking a quick dinner between rainstorms and getting to bed early. Honestly, it was a pretty stressful day. On a positive note, we learned how to actually drive our Jeep while towing a trailer!

Better than a tent.

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We love tent camping… for the first 2-3 nights. I guess we’re old(ish) now and the lack of good sleep started wearing on us. Excuses, excuses, I know – but the idea of a minimal camper – a hard shell tent with a real bed – started really appealing to us. Last year we went to the Chicago RV and Camping trade show and honestly just didn’t like many of the options. We don’t really want a kitchen, plumbing, complicated electrical system and all of that. We’re not trying to make a “home away from home” really – we just want to sleep better for extended periods of time.

trailer prototype sketchup

The Plan

The first thought was buying or building our own teardrop camper. I still do like that idea but we had a month from when we decided to take an upcoming trip from when we started looking for options. Finding a trailer base and then building it out was going to take a longer time than that. We did find some teardrops out there that fit our needs well but they all had extended lead times that wouldn’t work for us. One we particularly liked was https://www.hikertrailers.com/ – great product and great prices but a 9 month lead time right now.

initial sketches

Next, we looked into renting a teardrop but the cost was pretty crazy – was going to run somewhere between 2k and 3k for a 3-week trip. Then while poking around in craigslist I saw that someone had taken a 6×10′ cargo trailer and built out the interior a bit. I started looking at trailer prices both new and used and found a great deal at Country Blacksmith Trailers in southern Illinois (https://www.countryblacksmithtrailers.com/) We came home with our econobody 6×10 cargo trailer a few days later.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDAK2i4gq1z/

The biggest challenge we’ve had is that there’s no reasonable place to store the camper in the city. We live in downtown Chicago and street parking is not really a safe option. I called about 40 storage facilities ranging from typical self-storage units to commercial truck storage, to RV specific storage, but it was way too expensive in the city or nearby suburbs. Typically in the $175-$250 per month range. We settled on a place out in the far western suburbs for 33$ per month. It’s about an hour’s drive (sigh). It won’t be an issue once the trailer is built out since we’re not driving there every day, but during the conversion, it posed some challenges.

The entire project cost a little over $4000 including a brand new trailer. We consider this year a prototype build out since we were limited on time. We also didn’t want to spend a ton of energy and money to do a high finish build out without pressure testing the layout.  Our goals with the build were pretty simple for this year: Comfortable sleeping for 2 people, as much flexible storage space as possible, and being able to complete the build in under 7 working days.

Derek in camper

The Build

In order to make it a bit easier to do the main build and also test the trailer a bit, we drove to Cleveland to visit Kristen’s mom. We set it all up in her driveway and got to work. Was really nice to see some family we haven’t seen for a long time due to COVID-19 as well. Side Note: Kristen found a new purpose in life that she somehow missed growing up – setting off fireworks.

Camper mom
Fireworks with family

The build plan was really simple. Step by step it went like this:

  • Install windows (day 1-2) (DON’T BUY CHEAP WINDOWS)
  • Paint the interior (day 3)
  • build a small dining table (day 4)
  • build/install bunks (day 5)
  • install table (day 5)
  • mount spare tire (day 6)
  • install an awning (day 6)
  • decorate/finish everything up (day 7)

We had a few issues with the build but nothing major. The first issue was the cheap RV windows I bought off of ebay. They were half the price of normal RV windows, but if I had to do it again I would spend the extra money. These will work, but they were a pain in the ass to install and required several trips to the hardware store and a lot of frustration. They also just feel kind of cheap compared to the more expensive rv windows.

The next issue was mounting the spare tire. I mounted it on the tongue with a specialized mounting bracket and it mounted just fine but it reduces the already pretty low clearance and also interferes with our Jeep Wrangler’s spare tire, reducing the turn radius in one direction. In the end I tossed it under the bottom bunk, wrapped in plastic so there’s no rubber smell and made a simple little mount to keep it in place. It will work for now, but at some point id like to figure out a exterior mount on the back door.

We decided to splurge a bit and bought a solar generator. So far its working great for our needs which, again, are really simple: charge phones & laptop, run a fan at night, lighting, etc.. We ended up getting a Maxoak AC50 as the generator and a Togopower portable 120w solar panel. https://www.maxoak.net/products/bluetti-ac50-500wh-300w. I’ll spend some time on our upcoming trip putting it to test a bit and report back as well.

That’s it for now. We’re busy packing for our three week trip around Wyoming and Montana. Looking forward to catching some fish and a lot of time outside.

SOON!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmCfIQmguHD/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Color!

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CDZtQ9PpE2Z/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We got out to the RV storage this weekend and painted the interior. Whitewash and a couple coats of water based poly on the sidewalls, painted the orange and the floors as well.

painting the interior

We’re now in the midst of a self imposed quarantine so we can go visit family. The plan is to take the trailer there and finish it out. Will be nice to have a spot to work on it for a few days in a row. A little short on driveways here in the city!

Painting and joking around
trailer warning sign
not sure what this is all about but we’ll take it under advisement.

We formed a club.

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The happy adventurers K and D.

So we’re starting a blog. Kristen is REALLY excited. Expect <sarcasm>riveting</sarcasm> content about our trips and projects really soon!

This summer we’ve been converting an enclosed cargo trailer into a minimal RV. We really just want a hard shell tent with storage on wheels. We’ll have some posts soon on the conversion and our summer trip reports.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDE9sIVAPNl/