The Small Trailer Enthusiast

I’m posting this on behalf of a friend who had his 2007 Casita Spirit Deluxe stolen in the Topeka, Kansas area on Sunday, December 7. VIN is 1C9TB171171213243 with Kansas license plate # 108EIM

If you spot it, call local authorities immediately. There are no identifying marks on it, with the exception that it did not have a spare tire cover. Please share and help Bob get his Casita back home!

Let me start off by saying I’m grateful for the RV industry. After all, if it weren’t for RVs, most of us would not be able to experience the happiness that camping brings. I’m also grateful that the RV industry is there for me to have things to write about on this blog. It’s a way for me to channel a love I have for writing on topics I enjoy writing about. And that in turn fuels a competitive spirit I have when I look at my stats every day to see how many people click on a page on this web site you’re reading. It always gives me a little boost when the site has a good day of hits. And, the $$ I get from a certain search engine whose  ads appear on this site makes me quite grateful to those readers that take the time to click on them.

With that said, this post is dedicated to a pet peeve I have with RV designers. If you are one and happen to be reading this, please don’t take it personally. But, I’m asking you to stop this. Now. What is it, you ask? This:

At first glance, you may not assume there’s a problem here. From the left you have two bunks, a dinette, and a front bed. This photo was taken in panorama mode to get the full view. And for the record, I’m not going to tell you the manufacturer of this trailer, as many are guilty. But when you look at this next photo that was taken without the panoramic setting, this is what we see:

This photo was taken from the bed looking at the dinette and bunks. Anyone know my beef yet? We have sleeping for, depending on the size of your bunk dwellers, up to five when you include the dinette. However, this dinette seats TWO. That is, unless mom & dad are letting their toddler and his buddies borrow it for the weekend. Here are the dimensions of the particulars of this unit:

Dinette: 30″ x 70″

Bed: 56″ x 80″

Bunks: 28″ x 74″

So our dinette is 30″ wide? That’s just about perfect for two normal sized adults, or an adult on one side and two toddlers on the other side. Anytime I see a layout like this, it’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. It makes me wonder if RV floorplan designers are bad at math, have never camped. or likely both. However, I know the counter argument will be “Well, most people eat outside anyway”. If that’s the argument, then don’t bother with a dinette at all. I’m sure that’ll go over with the buying public just as well.

Rant over. 🙂

This afternoon I was roaming the aisles of Menards in Avon, Indiana looking for a few items to finish off our Christmas tree with my grandson. I like checking out the specialty ornaments, the ones that are a miniature diecast of something. This time we were in for a treat that ended up in our shopping cart. These two camper ornaments don’t really scream of Christmas, but they’re a must have for any small trailer enthusiast’s tree this Christmas season. Made of a resin, the 3.75″ ornaments are from Kurt S. Adler, Inc. Although not available through Menards online, you may be able to find them through Amazon:

However, for those of you located in the midwest where Menards stores are typically found,  you’d do better price-wise by buying from them, as Amazon is a bit higher: http://www.menards.com/main/p-2406622-c-12298.htm

And from all of us here at The Small Trailer Enthusiast….and my grandson Jameson…..Merry Christmas and have a GREAT holiday season!

A friend passed this along to me, so I thought you’d all like it as well. Research shows this Disney short film dates back to 1938. When you think about it, this trailer was ahead of its time. It’s a tiny house, it’s a toy hauler, and you’ll see it’s got a rather stout superstructure. Enjoy!

Periodically I’ll get requests from readers of The Small Trailer Enthusiast asking about the identity of a particular vintage trailer. I readily admit I’m not the best historian when it comes to vintage trailers, as my forte is more on current offerings. I typically direct those inquiries to various forums or Facebook pages that cater to vintage campers, such as Tin Can Tourists where the vast membership base will likely yield positive results for the person inquiring facts about their unit.

Recently I got a similar inquiry from a reader that I chose to do this post on due to the uniqueness of his trailer. The reader’s name is John and his trailer he owns is a fiberglass gooseneck called a Cabana. The best John knows is that it dates back to around 1976 and was built by the same Oregon company that built motorhomes during the some general time period.

While Cabana motorhomes aren’t easy to come by, a Cabana trailer is apparently impossible to come by. Says John, “I’ve been unable to find another Cabana.  It could be the last of its kind.    I had acquired it with hopes of restoring it or at least making it more usable but it is in Oregon and I don’t have the time and money to travel there to keep working on it.” John resides in Canada.

The Cabana is a fiberglass shell with a rear door entry, shower/toilet combo, refrigerator, furnace, and table. Since John owned it, he started cleaning it out. “I’ve removed all the moldy 1970s carpeting on the walls and ceiling and have patched a few holes that were in the ceiling to hold various items.   I replaced the skylight since it was broken and brittle. I also repainted the roof just this month.”

John’s decided to sell it as is instead of continuing with the project. For anyone with some good restoration skills, this could be a pretty fun project to take on, considering the rare quality of the Cabana. John’s looking at about a $2,000 price tag for anyone interested. He can be contacted via e-mail at john_layman@hotmail.com

John has done some extensive research on the Cabana company and its parent company Forest Grove Industries from Forest Grove, Oregon. After my own sleuthing, it’s apparent to me that John has likely turned over every rock on the Cabana planet there is. This has moved my opinion to one where the Cabana trailer very well could’ve been a prototype that never made it to the production stage. I’ve never seen one during my online travels and if there were multiples built, one would think there’d be pictures out there somewhere, but that’s not the case. Which is why I came up with “The Lonely Cabana” for the name of this post, since this might just be the only one you’ll ever see.

And as a side note, this Cabana is not to be confused with the Cabana that Keystone RV made from the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s. If any of you who read this have a Cabana or have seen this before, feel free to send me some pics at pat@smalltrailerenthusiast.com or leave a comment below.

Unless you live in warmer climates, this is the time of year when most RVers turn to that somber task of unloading a season’s worth of camping gear, winterizing their RV, and storing it for the winter.

However, for those of you who can stand a little chill, the arrival of the autumnal equinox doesn’t mean an end to the fun camping can bring. In fact, if old man winter is reasonable, camping can be a year round activity. My first winter camping escapade was back in January 2010. The Tear Jerkers chapter of Indiana has an annual camping weekend every January at an Indiana state park and call the event “Shiveree”. This is a brave group of campers who pull their tear drops and other tiny trailers in the Indiana winter regardless of temps. Although they’ve had the event in sub-zero weather, the weekend in 2010 was moderate with temps in the 30’s.   It was this weekend that started my love for winter camping. For some like me and my wife, it has many advantages to camping during the summer, including cooler….much cooler….temperatures for hiking, cheaper camping rates, and, in most cases, a campground all to yourself. Now you’re probably asking how to make this all work if your camper is already winterized. We’ve come up with a really good routine that lets us survive the weekend unscathed. To start, we’re not really big fans of running the furnace in our Scotty. I do fire it up once a year just to make sure it works, but generally we’re not fans of running the furnace, especially at night when we’re asleep. First it’s rather loud, and when you’re in a 15′ camper, a loud furnace is a lot noiser than in a 30′ camper. But the biggest reason is running a furnace powered by propane leaves us a little unsettled. So we use a simple electric space heater. Yes, we need electric! But we always camp where there is electric, so it’s never an issue. Since we’re in a space that’s only about 100 square feet, we don’t need a big space heater, so we purchased this Honeywell 1500 watt mini tower  for about $30.00. It keeps us nice & toasty throughout the night with no issues. Next question: What about water? That’s pretty simple. When it comes to not being able to use the sink, we use paper plates and plasticware, so there’s little to clean up, in case it’s a crock pot or spatula we periodically may use. We generally use the microwave when winter camping to decrease the amount of pots & pans to clean up, which some may not consider “camping”, but it works for us. A roaring campfire and a couple of hot dog sticks or pie irons also work well. We’ll bring along a couple of jugs of water for coffee and drinking. We recently purchased a Keurig Mini K-Cup coffeemaker for our coffee and hot cider for this time of year. Now for the big one: the bathroom. As someone who’s used a pit toilet when it’s in the 20’s outside, I can tell you it’s no fun. We took advantage of a suggestion from a camping friend of ours. You may have seen some camping toilets that are nothing more than a seat and four legs that uses a bag to line the seat. Those bags are called “Double Doodie” bags, made by Reliance Products.

Using the Double Doodie bag is pretty simple. It consists of a black, garbage bag type bag that is housed within a thicker, silver zip-lock style bag. We line one in our toilet in our Scotty and dispose as needed. It eliminates the need for water to flush the toilet and does pretty well. Due to the cost of them, they’re not a single-use bag for us. Use your own judgement when it’s time to change one out, but generally a couple can get through a weekend of camping with using only one or two.

So there you have it. These are a few tips you too can use to escape those winter blues and get out there to camp. Even if it’s too cold to hike, we like to just get out and just hang out in our Scotty for a weekend. It’s cozy, quiet and it’s still camping.

Do you have some other ideas of your own for winter camping? Let’s hear them! Leave your comments below…we’d love to hear from you.