Yesterday I relocated the Caravel out to the open desert, just beyond the boundaries of town. No more full hookup for me on this trip. The Caravel’s systems all worked beautifully while I was in the state park campground for two nights, and so the next step is to test everything in boondock mode (without hookups).
I’m very pleased with the way the trailer is finally working out, after years of tweaking it. There are still things I’d like to improve, and I suppose there always will be, but it is eminently usable right now. I’d like to get the main door to open and close more easily, and it needs a 12v power outlet somewhere, and perhaps a couple of USB power outlets by the dinette. Stabilizer jacks would be nice, as would a vintage-style awning. Oh, and while I’m at it, a discrete rooftop antenna for cellular Internet, an easier way to convert the gaucho to a bed, a lighter dinette table, and I’m sure I can think of many other things too …
Somehow I doubt I’m going to get to all of those projects, at least not until I start using this trailer on a more routine basis. The Caravel is a fun trailer for one person, but not highly practical. You can do only one thing at a time in it. You can cook, eat, sleep, shower, or work—pick any one, and put everything away before switching to the next. There just isn’t room to leave anything out.
When Eleanor and spent our first night in this trailer, back in August 2003, we were traveling without Emma and found the Caravel to be delightful. It rained that first night, and I remember feeling wonderfully encompassed in the tiny aluminum shell while the rain pattered on the roof. Later when we traveled with Emma (age 3) it never seemed too small, probably because our point of comparison was a tent. Today I think I would describe it as “romantic” for two if you like cozy surroundings. (I mean “cozy” in the real estate sense: small.) The three of us no longer fit in it, at least not at the same time.
The real point of a vintage trailer like this, if we’re going to be brutally honest here, is that it attracts lots of admirers because it’s just so darned cute. Everyone comes over and admires it. I give a lot of tours, so I feel obliged to try to clean it up every morning just to be ready for the possibility of someone wanting to peek inside. Being so small, it doesn’t take long to see it all, in fact you can see it all just by leaning in the front door.
Being out here in the desert is much quieter than the state park campground. By unspoken agreement, the RVs parked out here are scattered very widely unless they are deliberately camping together, so my nearest neighbors are Brian & Leigh about 100 feet away. Stevyn & Troy are probably 200 feet away, and other than that I am mostly surrounded by open space and dry creosote bushes. I prefer it, these days, to a campground, even though the Caravel isn’t optimized for boondocking.
It’s not bad even with only one battery, because the trailer doesn’t need much power. I converted all the lights to LED and so the only significant long-term power draws are the circuit board in the refrigerator (even on gas it will use 6-10 amp-hours per day) and the laptop. To make up for that, Brian has lent me his portable solar panel, which generates 120 watts peak, and that’s more than enough to recharge my daily needs, in about an hour.
There’s no furnace in this trailer either, just a catalytic heater which uses no electricity. The past two nights have been balmy, which is pretty rare right now since the eastern half of the country is in the deep-freeze. I hadn’t even needed to turn on the heater until last night when the overnight temperature dropped to 35 degrees F. Around 5 a.m. I finally couldn’t stand it and fired up the catalytic heater, and then of course I couldn’t get back to sleep so I ended up at dawn taking pictures. That wasn’t really so bad, especially later when I found a photo in my email from my friend Charlie showing his home in Indiana covered by 10 inches of snow and temperatures dipping to -14 degrees F.
Today’s plan is to roam around the park with Alex, rather aimlessly. We plan to buy a Julian apple pie, otherwise it’s a solid plan of do-nothingness. Last night a few of us went to Font’s Point to see the badlands at sunset, when they are just stunning, and I think that set the tone for the next few days. We’re just going to take in the beauty of this place and not worry about agendas. Or anything else.