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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Yellowstone National Park in our Skamper Pop Up, 2000 mile Trip

Most people would like to take a test trip in their newly renovated pop up camper, somewhere close so that if anything goes wrong then you can get it fixed quickly and cheaply. We ran out of time on our renovation so we loaded up our Skamper and then drove 1,000+ miles to Yellowstone National Park for a nine day trip! We had a wonderful trip with only a few problems that surfaced from our camper.

  • 22 year old roof vent leaked a little - We had planned to replace this but we ran out of time. Fortunately the leak was minimal and was mitigated with a pot.
  • A crappy weld from the previous owner on the back bumper broke - The upper part of the weld broke which was fixed with some Walmart small corner brackets and self drilling screws. I have a new found love of self drilling screws. 
Everything else went great! Our new canvas performed wonderfully during its first rain and also during the 35 degree nights in Wyoming. We did make sure that we purchased new tires for our trip and also replaced the seals, bearings, and grease on the trailer axles. I also knocked out the old bearing races and pressed in the new bearing races as well. This was key for a worry-free pulling camper. At every gas up I got out to check the tire and hub temperatures with the back of my hand and they were barely warm even in the 100 degree heat. Check out the cool picture of our Skamper in Yellowstone!


Our Skamper Pop Up in Yellowstone
Skamper in Yellowstone

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the hot tip on Bear Creek! My family just returned yesterday from our first camp-out of the season in Indian River, MI. My husband & I decided we would have to figure out how to patch the canvas of our '86 Coleman pop-up. Then this morning, my lovely sister-in-law (& your sister, B) told me about your project & referred me to your blog. Perfect timing!
    Thanks, again

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  2. Sorry about the late reply and I am glad you found out about them. How did your pop up turn out?

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  3. So happy too that I found your Blog.....we have a 1985 Skamper Pop up....sounds like it's in a bit better shape than yours was when you got it. We've been using it for about 9 years now.....it has served us well. I've recently been wanting to "Glam Up" our camper....looking to paint the exterior, recoat the exterior top, maybe remove the stove top and ice box, as we do not use them, replace the counter top, and recover the cushions. We cannot /do not want to sink money into the replacement canvas, as yet anyway. Wondering if you replaced your bedding and cushion foam? If so, can you refer a site to look at? Enjoyed looking at your pics! Give me a great deal of encouragement! Thanks!

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    1. Hi,

      I just wrote a new post about what we did for our cushions. Here is the page. http://frugal-travels.blogspot.com/2012/07/great-affordable-idea-for-new-popup.html. Thanks for reading.

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