“The Bones are Good . . .” (A Pop-Up Update)

My dog was peeing on a rose bush when I first saw the “For Sale” sign. After months of it being parked somewhere in their backyard, our neighbors’ 1993 Coleman Cape Cod pop-up camper now appeared in their driveway for passerby to consider purchasing. “Scruffy, check that out!” I exclaimed. “It’s a pop-up camper! I’ve always wanted one of those!” Scruffy, our adorable but not especially intelligent shih-tzu, said nothing in return before following me across the street to check out the vehicle.

The camper had seen better days, the majority of which probably took place during the Clinton administration. Although the weather sealing was intact, the paint was scuffed and faded after one too many afternoons in the California sun. The tires were old, the hitch seemed slightly out of joint, and overall the contraption resembled some kind of cruel “tenement-in-a-box” Transformer toy.

Naturally, I hurried home and told my wife how amazing it was.

If We Build it . . .

JoAnna and I have talked about getting some kind of camper for years. She wanted a pop-up, and I wanted to build something from scratch. This opportunity helped us meet in the middle: the camper for sale needed some TLC, but not much else.

I have always wanted to build a cabin or camper of my own . . . something that would give me a little piece of the woods to call my own, a shelter from the cold and the wind that would nonetheless allow me to look up every now and then from my research and writing and see tall, evergreen trees. As I finished my work on the Grandpa’s Letters book, I took a couple of “writing retreats” to the northern coast—first to Fort Ross a couple of years ago, and then most recently to Shelter Cove. I mostly read and wrote during those trips, but I also took a bit of time to walk along the coastal bluffs and watch the waves as they crashed down upon the rocky shore. These trips were both productive and memorable . . . and expensive. A pop-up camper would give me the flexibility to do this more often, while staying closer to home and having my own space to occupy.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the other daydream I have with this camper: exploring the West with my family and friends. Clementine is now fond of camping, but she is less fond of tents and bugs. I cannot say that I blame her on either score . . . tents can be miserable, and flying insects have a tendency to want to become best friends with my eyeballs. But a pop-up will give us some protection from these and other elements of the vast, unforgiving wilderness, while also giving us a few creature comforts of home: heating, potentially even air conditioning during the summer; electric lights and phone chargers; and a dining table without any bird crap on it. We can wear the woods like a jacket: we will put it on and take it off as needed, then we can hang it nearby for our next easy-access adventure.

My overall logic going into this was not unlike Ray Kinsella’s in Field of Dreams: if we build it, we will go. A pop-up camper can be like a small portal for people who want to teleport into the forest every so often. My hope is that we can trade the drudgery and anxiety of packing for a camping trip for a pumpkin that will turn into a pop-up carriage with just a little pixie dust (and a moderate amount of arm strength).

I don’t know for sure if it will help us “go” . . . only time (or maybe the ghost of John Muir showing up outside with a can of paint) will tell. But what I did know was this: I was ready to build it.

Caveat Emptor

That weekend, we walked over to our neighbors’ house with Clementine to take a look. It was more or less kind of what we expected, at least in terms of decor: ugly blue countertops, faded pastel curtains, and a folding table buried beneath large cushions greeted us inside. But while its looks could kill (not in a positive way), the structure itself was in good shape. There was no evidence of mold or mildew on the bed canvas, nor any rust on or underneath the structure. The pop-up mechanism unfurled the top smoothly, like some ancient booby-trap springing to life in an Indiana Jones movie. In the interest of full disclosure, the neighbors mentioned that the queen bed on one end of the camper needed to be repaired and that the refrigerator had not worked in decades. Beyond that, though, it was in pretty good shape. The owners had also made a few upgrades of their own, including new vinyl plank floors and a relatively fresh battery.

“Well, the bones are good,” I remember saying, as if it were a house, or a skeleton, and as if I knew just what in the hell I was talking about. “But we need to go home and think about it.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

We did not need to take much. After careful deliberation and some quadruple-checking of our driveway’s width to ensure that it could squeeze past our brick Tudor home and into our backyard, we called the next day and offered to buy it.

We were soon the proud owners of a pop-up camper.

“Now what?”

Since we bought the camper in late October, we figured it would be a few months before the coming winter subsided enough to allow for a comfortable glamping experience in the Sierras someplace. So, in theory, we would have plenty of time to fix it up.

Our plan of attack was simple in the same way that all such plans seem simple at the outset: we would fix the bed, refresh some of the furnishings, give it a decorative flourish, and take it out within a few weeks for our first trip. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and without new tires I did not think the camper would last long on such a surface. We also discounted a few additional factors at the outset: my raging ADHD, my closely-related fascination with my new 3D printer, an aging and unreliable electrical system, and above all the universe of possibility that cleverly concealed itself within what appeared to be a giant pack of cigarettes. As the project gained momentum, so too did our imaginations of what we could do with it. And by “our,” of course I mostly mean mine. ⚾🧢💣