I am really excited about my upcoming land cruise to Garner State Park. It has been over a month since I returned the Colby T to its storage place at Pack Rats. That is way too long between trips. Sometimes, though, there is nothing I can do about it. Life just gets in the way!

I bought my first camper, a pop up, in April of 2011. I had been lusting after a different one for the longest time, only to find out when I was finally ready to purchase it, that the dealer I wanted to buy from no longer carried it. I was devastated because my little car wasn't going to be able to pull anything else. The one I wanted was made of aluminum and weighed next to nothing. Anything else on the market would be too heavy.

I went home dejected. Rachel, knowing how long I had waited for the camper told me to go buy a vehicle that pull other campers. Our son would soon need a vehicle anyway, and I could give him my Malibu. I went straight to the internet and found a Chevy Colorado on sale for cheap at the Chevy dealer next to the RV dealer.

I spent the next Saturday going back and forth between the two dealers signing papers and getting everything ready for me to drive away in a new truck with a pop up camper in tow. The next weekend, I returned in my truck and spent a night at the RV dealership getting acquainted with the pop up. The following morning, my friend Jack and I towed it to his house, where I would store it until I had a chance to make room for it in my garage.

When I brought it to the house, I learned that it was bigger than I thought it was. It fit in the garage, but didn't fit very well. It was going to be too tight for Rachel's car to be parked inside with it, so I went to Pack Rats and rented a space for it to be stored. However, before I ever had a chance to get it there because of using it a lot during the summer, the storage place flooded. I actually got a registered letter telling me to go check my camper. I called them up and they offered me a new site in a new storage area they had just built closer to my house. That is where the popup, nicknamed Casa Jim, stayed when not in use.

Now, I loved that popup. I took eleven trips in it during the ten months I owned it. On one of those trips, there was a problem with the AC. It would run for about an hour, then a pencil thick stream of water would pour out of it. I tried everything I could find on the internet to fix it myself, but just couldn't figure it out. I didn't need it during the winter trips, but knowing summer was on its way, I made an appointment at the dealership to get it fixed right after my trip to Austin for the TCEA conference the first week of February.

While they were working on the AC, I wandered around the dealership looking at all the huge RVs. It was all just for fun, as I was not interested in the least in buying one. Then I saw some tiny little 15 foot travel trailers. I went in one of them and it blew me away. It looked like a tiny little apartment on wheels. A dealer came to talk to me, thinking I was looking to buy. I told him why I was there, and asked him purely out of curiosity how much it was selling for. I was flabbergasted to learn that it was only two thousand more than I had paid for the popup. I told the salesman that I would have bought one of them instead of the popup, if they had had them then. He told me I could always do a trade-in, and planted a seed in my brain that just kept on growing.

That December, I had already upgraded my truck to a Chevy Silverado. I had put my name on some master information list online when I was looking for the truck to pull my popup. Out of the blue, I got a call about a Silverado that was selling at a ridiculously low price. I decided to trade in my Malibu for it, and give the Colorado to my son.

There was no reason I couldn't consider trading in the popup for the travel trailer. I had the money at the time, and the Silverado could pull pretty much anything. I took the popup back to the dealership and had them give me a trade in value. They offered me close to what I had paid for it. I knew I had to do it.

I really loved the popup. But, there were some instant advantages to upgrading. I will just list them here:

-The pop up took me about 30 minutes to set up when camping by myself. The Trailer only needed to be parked and plugged in.

-The pop up was really just a tent on wheels. It had AC and running water, but the trailer had a bathroom, a TV antenna, and a microwave oven.

-You could not set up or take down the pop up in the rain. If it was a wet trip, I had to open it up again back at the house and let it dry before taking it to storage.

-I had to carry all my stuff in the truck. There was very little storage. With the trailer, everything is in it ready to go. All I have to carry is food, water, and clean clothes.

So to make a long story shorter, I traded in the Casa Jim and bought a new 15 foot travel trailer in February of 2012. I drove N2S and his friend Storm over to the storage place to see it. They had both been camping with me in the pop up. Storm said something like, "You are really moving up." It made me think of the theme song from the Jeffersons. That's how the trailer got its name, The Colby Texas. The Jefferson's lived in The Colby East. Over time, we started calling it the Colby T.

To date, I have taken 30 trips in the Colby T. Some have been with N1S and Storm, one was with my wife, and twenty-three have been by myself. I have taken it to the border for a band contest in Laredo, on a whirlwind trip to the Grand Canyon, and on many trips to state parks around the area. At this time in my life, it is my favorite thing to do.

That brings me to now. I have already started packing my clothes. I have purchased my wine, water bottles, and some of my food. Soon, the day will come and I will go straight from work to Pack Rats where I will hitch up and hit the road. It will be an adventure. Although, I have been to Garner State Park, it has been over a decade, and that last time was in a tent.

You will be able to read about my Garner trip on my other blog site, More Hot Air (http://knownasjim.postach.io).