I'm skipping a bunch of things that would make good blog posts to announce that we now have the Avion on the truck and have been doing some camping! Our first trip out was a long weekend at what should have been the annual Tin Can Tourists Northeast Regional Rally. I say "should have been" because a bunch of things that allow a vintage camper rally to be formal TCT event couldn't happen due to the pandemic. (group dinners, educational lectures, entertainment, etc..) This was the second year that this TCT rally was more of an informal gathering of friends with vintage campers. It's always great to see these folks who share in this affliction and we have gotten to know many of them very well over the years. It's always interesting to see who shows up with what, and this is the first year that we've shown up with something different than our Shasta.
After a two-day process of getting the Avion out of our garage and onto the truck, we were finally on the road! (I'll try to post some details of that process in another post some time.) We did a short grocery store run with the Avion on the truck the night before, then after a bunch of quick last minute morning projects we headed out. We chose to drive on smaller state highways and stay off the Interstate for the initial 130 mile trip to Sampson State Park near Geneva NY. We are super pleased with how the truck drives with the camper in the bed, it's actually a more comfortable ride than the empty truck because the suspension was spec'd expecting a slide in camper to be there. (maybe another blog post about the truck will be good someday!) About halfway there we pulled over at a small farm stand and I when I went back to see how stuff inside the camper was traveling I was shocked to see sky when I opened the door. Everything inside was fine, but I we had lost one of our roof vent lids on the road somewhere and now had a 14" x 14" hole in the roof over the cab-over bed area. Amazingly there was a local store across the road that sells parts for all sorts of trailers, and 20 minutes later we were back on the road with a new cover that I could jury-rig in place once we were at the campground.
This year we arrived the earliest that we ever had at this event, but were surprised at how few sites were still available. Turns out that there was one site that was perfect for us right next to some good friends, then after we pulled in we found that it was site #65- very fitting for our 1965 Avion's first night out camping in who knows how many years! We had a great time and the trip home was uneventful returning with all the parts we left with other than that original vent lid.
