Category Archives: pop-up camping

Adventure, Family, Places to Shoot, pop-up camping, Travel

Coyote Hawk’s Big Adventure

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April 2nd is one week away. That’s when Coyote Hawk takes us on our epic journey South to Portal, AZ to visit good friends then East on Interstate 10 all the way to New Orleans, visiting friends and family along the way. From there we’ll head North to Cincinnati before jumping on Interstate 80 and heading back home, again, visiting friends and family along the way. Keep on the lookout as I will post on this blog our adventures and discoveries along the way.

Let’s begin with a camper tour:

In the above image, you see the driver’s side of the camper. The bench my feet are on as well as the one I’m sitting on provides us with a lot of storage. This is good as we’ll need to bring clothing for 85 degrees and humidity in south texas as well as potential late spring blizzards along I-80.

The counter has a two-burner stove, a sink, and a small counter space. The drawer on the left holds our utensils and the cabinet below that is for our pots, pans, and dishes. Below that are the batteries and the other cabinet doors are the water pump and fuses.

On this side is the refrigerator with stickers on it. Above that is a shallow space for personal items. To the right of that is our pantry. Below that is a double-door cabinet for ellen’s clothes and below that is a similar cabinet for our shoes. The bed pulls out over the table to make it King-Size. We have to push it back each morning to access the table.

We’ve now spent 12 nights in her. Ellen has been it her 16 nights as she took her camping while I was in Florida on a photo workshop.

We’ve had her off-grid at White Tank Mountain Park, Lake Pleasant Regional Park, and McDowell Mountain Regional Park, all in the Maricopa county park system in the Phoenix area. We fill up the 20-gallon fresh water tank, run the hot water heater that holds six gallons and get our electricity from our solar panels.

We hooked her up to shore power once, at Patagonia Lake State Park in Southern Arizona, over Christmas last year. We also experimented with city water, bypassing the 20-gallon tank. Both systems worked great. Sadly, though, we did not blow out the outdoor shower well enough and ended up with a leak in the brass faucet system. Four-Wheel Camper sent us a replacement and it was just installed.

The other item we recently fixed, with the help of our brilliant friend Rod Horn, was the after-market backup camera. Ours disappeared when we took off the tailgate. Rod machined a bracket that goes over the license plate and he was able to attach the backup camera to it.  Works like a charm.

Coyote Hawk will get her first oil change on March 30th. Other than that, we should be ready to roll on April 2nd. For this trip, we decided to leave behind bikes and paddleboards as we will be spending a lot of time with friends, family and in cities,  visiting museums. We have menus ready to go and will spend the day or two before we leave grocery shopping and packing any last-minute items. We have lists and lists of lists.

Our mail is taken care of, our neighbors are watching the place and watering our plants. We don’t have any pets. I think we’re set!

I’m not sure what this Epic Adventure Blog is going to look like exactly so be patient and let’s see how it turns out together, shall we?

Thanks for reading!

 

Adventure, pop-up camping, Travel

Introducing…Coyote Hawk

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We finally did it! My wife, Ellen, and I took the plunge back in March and ordered a truck and camper. We ordered a Ford F150, 5L Coyote engine, 4×4, extended cab on the same day we ordered a Four Wheel Camper Hawk front dinette model. The new rig has hot water, a furnace, a king-size bed, solar, a fridge, and what seems to be plenty of room for our kitchen and clothing needs. In the cab, we store items not necessarily needed in the camper like binoculars, bike bags, a tire pump, paddleboards, a slackline, guitar, etc. We’ll have a swing-away bike rack on the back.  The truck can hold 2,300 pounds in the bed and the Hawk only weighs 1,300 pounds coming out of the dealer with our add-ons.

We drove to Rancho Cucamonga in southern California on November 29th, spent the night, and got her installed the next day. We drove home immediately afterward and went to sleep. All of this, coming off the heels of a six-day round trip drive to Cinncinati, then thanksgiving with family, then a day of rest before hauling off to California…we were exhausted.

We both had Wednesday off and spent the day getting her ready for our first overnight. In the driveway. With heat. Did I mention it has a furnace? Seriously, a game-changer. As is the ability to get out of the elements and stand up! Or sit at the little table.

Driving with the ability to reduce our profile was important to us. As well as having a small, compact rig that is relatively easy to maneuver in parking lots, gas stations and on forest service roads. Here she is, basking in the palms of Barstow on the way home,  in travel mode.

Our only goal on Wednesday was to get her ready to sleep, then wake up in the morning and be able to have tea and coffee. Ellen filled the two ten-gallon propane tanks, we made the bed and made sure the heat and stove worked, and slept in the driveway. Here’s an interior image of me sitting with the dinette area turned into a couch. The bed slides out over the table to become a king. We plugged into shore power, turned on the heat, went to sleep, and woke up in the morning after a night of neighborhood catfights. Not quite as soothing as coyotes howling in the distance.

We then turned on our hotpot that was plugged into the outlet (only on shore power) and heated our water.

The interior, popped up, has plenty of headroom. So far our tallest friends fit!

So there, you’ve now been introduced to Coyote Hawk. We hope to see you on the road and if not, at least you can follow her adventures, and OURS, in this blog.

Cheers! Happy Trails! and Happy Shooting! No, not guns…cameras!! Lol.