Demolition

After only 8 hours of demolition, the camper was reduced to nothing but a rotten plywood floor. Tearing it down was incredibly easy. The contruction on this was the worst I have ever seen. I'd have to say the roaches were the only bad part about this job. We learned so much from being able to see exactly how everything went together and came apart. I will be using lots of things that came out of it including tons of hardware.

I Got A Frame

Since my trip to see the Squidget, I have been searching for a frame to build my trailer on. I've been making a daily on-line visit to ebay, craig's list and Ocala4Sale. I found a 1989 Starcraft for sale on Ocala4Sale. The price listed was $100 but while I was on the phone with the owner, she came down on the price to $50 because she really wanted it out of her yard. So my sister and I went to Belleview (40 miles from home) to pick it up. Getting the camper was quite an ordeal. It was sitting in the owner's back yard with a wet dirty tarp partially covering it. The tires were flat and the roof was completely detached from the body and turned upside down and collecting massive amounts of water. The woman had no idea how I should go about getting it out of her yard but she said that her husband would be home soon and he would help. Unfortunately, he was of no more help than she was. He suggested that I make the hour long drive without securing the roof at all. His theory was that "Well, it's really heavy, I think it might be alright." The woman seemed to realize that if she didn't do something about the situation that she was going to be stuck with this thing still in her yard. She got on the phone and started calling neighbors to get some rope. Finally, a neighbor with some common sense showed up with a very thick rope (that the kids had be using as a swing) and secured the roof to the body. He also pumped up the tires and attached it to the hitch on my sister's vehicle. Although terrifying, the trip home was uneventful. Once we got home however, my sister was unable to back the camper into the driveway as she has never had any experience towing anything. I had to ask my neighbor to come over and back it into the gargage. By then it was getting pretty late. We were able to slide the beds out and get a look inside before we called it a night.

Fun Stuff

Here are some things I have collected for my trailer.

Squidget

Today, we drove out to Lake Alfred to see the Squidget. I found the Squidget website when doing a search of travel trailers. Dale Summers designed and built this trailer and now sells the plans on his website. Since he only lives 40 miles from my house, I emailed him and asked him if I could come see his trailer. We stayed at Dale's house about 2 hours asking lots of questions. I decided that I was fairly confident that I wanted to proceed with building a trailer myself so I purchased a set of his plans. His profile and floor plan will not work for me but I'm hoping that his plans will be a helpful building guide.