Camper news

This is a good news bad news posting.  Our camper suffered damage on the way to Alaska - we spent around $2,000 and five days in White Horse Canada that we didn't plan on spending.  The frost heaves caused by ice forming beneath the surface of soil during freezing conditions in the atmosphere results in huge bumps in the road.  Many of these are marked by orange cones or flags in Canada but some are not (which we joked that the mechanics in the next town removed them to increase their business).  We hit one that raised the truck off the ground and resulted in the broken spring on the trailer which was replaced by the wrong spring which resulted in a blow out that ripped the lower fender off the camper.    Then the front edges of the fifth wheel started to separate at the edges.  Dennis tried to fix it himself but it didn't work so we took it to a camper repair shop.  They discovered much more internal damage than we ever expected and the damage amount is more than the value of the camper.  We were very upset when we heard this as we loved our fifth wheel.  We made changes to it that made it "ours" and in our opinion it was just perfect.  We expected to use this camper until we stopped traveling.  We certainly did not want to have to go camper shopping and spend more money on a camper.  But this is what we are doing and fortunately today the insurance company called and they are being generous with the settlement (thank you State Farm) and fortunately we found a fifth wheel that we really like earlier this week.  This one is a couple of feet longer than our old one but Dennis says it won't matter in towing.  It has a very nice kitchen with an oversize refrigerator and a lot of counter top area which is hard to find in a camper.  It also has a marvelous pull out pantry which will be fabulous.  It has plenty of clothing storage - love the drawers which the other camper didn't have.  Most important to Dennis is it has a lot of outside storage areas which the other one was sadly lacking.  We found out we can take our desk out of the old one and put it in the new one so that makes us very happy too.   So we will probably remove the white chair and put a desk there which is the same thing we did with the old camper.

Hard to see the kitchen but there is a lot of counter and drawer space

The white chair may go - but may stay.  Will decide as we use it

This pantry will be so great!

Clothes closet and drawers next to sink and additional small closet by bed

The bathroom is on the left with the toilet and tub but the sink is on the outside - I really like that.  The bathroom has a large cabinet for towels.   The camper is a 1999 but it looks very good inside.  We need to have an awning put on the slide out and a few minor things repaired plus a different hitch put on.