Sitting around outside and drinking beer

My wife and I were sitting around outside on our deck drinking beer and listening to music when the idea for getting a pop-up was born. This activity is actually our hobby and we are quite good at it. In fact, we bought the house we are now living in primarily because it had a large covered back deck. When the weather is bearable, which here TN is 9-10 months out of the year, you can usually find us sitting on our back deck most Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

In the course of years of engaging in our hobby, we started to realize that, while quite relaxing, sitting around, smoking cigars, and drinking beer *might* not be the most healthy activity. Additionally, our daughter, already 8, has not yet realized the symbiotic harmony that sitting around outside and drinking beer can offer. We agreed, after several beers, that getting off our fat butts and taking some weekend camping trips would be a wonderful idea! Our daughter would hopefully have lasting memories and we, as a family, would be forced to spend more time together.

We excitedly talked about all the places within a short 2 hr drive from our house that were interesting but we had never been to. There was Shiloh, the civil war battlefield, Natchez Trace State Park, the original site of our tent camping hell, Montgomery Bell State Park, and a many others within 100 mile radius.

But what TYPE of camper should we get?

Well, I pretty much ruled out drivable RV's since I didn't want another vehicle to repair, pay insurance on, pay to have the oil changed, new tires, etc. We have a Sature Vue, a 6 cylinder, surely it could pull something? It just needs one of those balls at the back. Surely someone can put one of those on it? No problem. With that issue essentially solved, we pressed on.

What FEATURES do we need in this camper?

Number 1, at the top of the list, the most important and sacred of features for ANY vehicle is Air Conditioning. Man, it's gotta have air! I could sleep on a bed of nails, live on spam for two weeks, watch an entire season of soap operas, or even get a root canal as long as I was in an air conditioned room. This one was a hands down, no ifs, ands, or butts, MUST HAVE!

Don't get me wrong, we love to sit outside and do so nearly year round. Only the winter months drive us inside. Remember though, that we don't live on our deck, we don't sleep there, we generally don't sit down and eat there. All of these *other* things, that don't involve drinking beer, smoking cigars, and listening to music should be done under the cool breeze of an air conditioner. It is man's greatest invention.

A bathroom would be nice, though. We briefly entertained small travel trailers but always ran into one of the following problems:

* Those with a bathroom/shower typically only sleep 2
* New ones are too expensive. We tried though and our credit check apparantly reports us back as at "Overextended Deadbeat" status
* Used ones are still expensive
* The cheap ones for sale are either condemned shacks on wheels or get purchased within seconds of the seller pressing the enter key to post the listing online.

The discussion came back around to pop-ups. Some pop-ups have bathrooms. I've read about them. I've even seen pictures. I knew they existed! A pop-up was our first thought when all this came up originally on our deck sitting around and drinking beer. It seemed like there was plenty of pop-ups available for a decent (read: cheap) price that was in our price range (read: very low).

Problem solved!

We'll get lawn chairs, an awning, coolers, an outside speaker for MP3 players, a portable johnny-on-the-spot sitting within a short walk. The idea was starting to gel into perfection!

The discussion progressed and we got more and more excited about the idea and more committed to seeing it through. As we were smugly congratulating ourselves for taking such a decisive step towards strengthening our family and embarking on a healthier lifestyle, the fact that we were basically setting things up so that we can spend time sitting around outside AT A CAMPSITE, smoking cigars, listening to music, and drinking beer didn't really seem all that relavant.

Coming up:

Purchasing Frostbite

It doesn't have a bathroom . . . no AC, either