 Okay, I know last week was kind of a cliffhanger, but today I'm going to show you guys the new rig that I got so I could be zippier and go more places in my new solo travels. Again, meet Kermit, my new 2008 1191 Lance Truck Camper. Now I never thought that I would have a truck camper. I just didn't see myself in one, but when I decided I wanted to go a little bit smaller, I was looking at vans, and they're super expensive. I mean like 80, 100 grand, 120 grand, and I already have the fifth wheel that I spent all that money on. So I started to think about things I could have with my truck, which is a 2019 F350, which I love. His name is Phil, if you don't know. I didn't really want to pull anything, so I started looking at truck campers. I wanted something small, like an 850, you know, something really zippy. But because I have a duly, those campers wouldn't fit on my rig. Last year, you know, the RV market got crazy. Even if I wanted a new one, and I could afford it, the waiting list was forever, and there just wasn't a lot of you stuff on the market. And I was getting really discouraged and thought maybe this wasn't going to work. And then I looked at RV Trader again for the hundredth time, and I saw this baby for sale in my town. So you better believe I jumped all over that. It was the only one that I even saw for sale in five states around me. So I went to go look at it, and it had everything that I wanted. I'm going to give you a tour today, but stay tuned for next week if anybody else wants to get a truck camper. Because I'm going to show you what it took to set this thing up. Now, I was super naive about truck campers. I thought, you know, you just slapped the camper on the top and tied it down and you were good to go. It was more involved than that and took more of an investment than I was thinking that it did. And then I also put in solar. So next week I'm going to show you all of my solutions to fit a 2008 camper on a 2019 truck, which they don't like to work well together. Also got some airbags, a DC to DC charger and solar, and I'll show you all of that next week. So if you're not already subscribed, please do and hit that little bell so you can get notified when that video comes out. Now, let me show you guys why I love this camper and why I decided to buy it. Let's start on the outside. Now, as you guys can see here, the camper is not on the truck because I wanted to show you the setup for the camper. Okay, the first thing I want to point out is this thing is a massive, it is a beast. It actually goes three feet beyond the back of my truck and my truck is 22 feet. So all in all, this is about 25 feet and it's heavy back here. But because of that, I was able to get a side entrance door so I could still have a bike in the back. And it also gave me more storage and I didn't have to have a slide in the back where I couldn't get in the door when I wanted to stop. This is the back of my rig and see that big door right there? It looks like it holds something huge like an outdoor kitchen or something. Well, I'll tell you what it does hold, concussions. Now, because the camper is off, it's a lot lower. But normally this thing is a couple of feet higher than it is right now. And that door when you open it just has a very shallow pegboard system where you can hold things, which is great. But I could barely reach the latch to open it, you know, when it's up on the truck. So I was in Arizona, it was really windy and I had to go outside to get something out of here. And of course, the rope that hangs down was flapping around in the wind and I was up on a step stool and couldn't reach it. And I was reaching up to get it and a gust of wind came and blew it down right on the back of my nog. And I've hit my head lots of times living in an RV. We all have. But I've never in my life had a concussion and right away I got nauseous. I started seeing stars and had to lay in the dark for about a day. But luckily I was with friends, you know, and they checked in on me. This compartment is no joke. The door is huge and it's heavy. And it's not that easy to get to when you're a little bit short like me. Also in the back here, you'll see on the ground that I have my e-bike. Now I really wanted to take my e-bike on the road with me. But because the end of this truck camper goes so far beyond the end of my truck, I had to get like a four foot hitch extension, which was expensive and it's heavy. And that's what the bike goes on. So when I take the camper off, I actually have to get down under there and undo this hitch and it's really heavy. So luckily my neighbor helped me with that and helped me get this hitch off and the bike off, which is a hassle. I'm on the other side of the rig now and you can see it has a slide, which I'm going to show you in just a minute. I actually didn't even want a slide because I thought, you know, more stuff, more hassle. But the good thing about this slide is that when it goes in, I can still get to everything in the house, the refrigerator, the bed, the bathroom, everything. And so that is a winner. But, you know, it's a truck camper. So the storage out here is not fantastic. I've got some little compartments, but I can't store obviously the same kind of stuff that I did in the fifth wheel. So I really had to figure out what I really, really needed. And you guys look, I hit it. I just misjudged and there was a metal pole and I clipped it. Now there's one thing I really hate about this camper and it's in the bin right behind me. See that long bin? That's where the propane tanks are. Now when this thing is up on the truck, the bottom of that bin is about its shoulder height for me and it's got two really heavy tanks. I have to get up on a step stool just to switch the tanks or turn them on or off. Forget about lifting them when they're that heavy and getting it all back together. To make it worse, they have this weird apparatus in the center that you have to disconnect to get them filled. The guy that sold this to me, who was kind of a fibber, told me that it was no problem because I don't have to take them down because people will fill them while they're in there. That is not true. So I can get them down by myself, but I have to ask someone else to help me put it back up in there and I hate that. I hate it, but I haven't found the solution yet. So if anybody has one, let me know. If you're wondering why I have a step stool right there, it's because the rig was this height when I bought it and so the stairs that attach were not on it because they weren't necessary and the guy gave them to me just as he drove away after selling it to me and it turns out that the stairs were completely broken and bent up and completely unusable. So I need to get a new step, but until then I just use this little step stool, which again, I have to step up about a foot and a half above that step stool just to get in here, but you know, it's probably good. Give me a workout. Okay, let's go inside. Up above you can see I have a lot of cabinets that have storage and a really great pantry. I definitely had to reduce how much stuff I brought in this rig compared to my fifth wheel, but you know, I don't need that much. Now, up here on the counter you're going to see I have my instant pot, a little 500 watt baby jackery, and some water and that there are bungee cords right here. Eric from Wonderboom put in these great pieces of wood along the edge. These were not here and so he put them in and then I drilled in these little hooks. So now these things just stay up here bungee'd and when I go down the road, I don't have to worry about stowing them. Now, I know somebody's going to ask me, you may see that in Sharpie on my instant pot it says Igor. Well, this is an all-in-one instant pot. You know, in the fifth wheel I had an air fryer and an instant pot and I didn't have room for both. And I found out that there's an all-in-one you can get actually if you have, I think a six-quarter bigger you can just buy a new lid. I did not. I had the five quart. So I had to get a new one, but when you put the air fryer top on it, it's got this big hunched back. And one night I was looking at it and I thought, that looks like Igor. So that's what I named it. And now I go over and I say, hey Igor. And he says, what's for dinner, master? The rink has a really basic dining room table that of course turns into a bed if you've got a kid or something. And I know this shot isn't very wide, but it's so small in here that this is the best I can do. So basically I work on one side and then I put bins on the other side that has all my office supplies and art supplies and stuff like that. And I find that it works pretty well, but you know, it's not the most comfortable seating arrangement. It's definitely not as good as a recliner. And see this window? Thanks to somebody else on YouTube, I found a way to create a pass-through with this piece of foam that I cut. So when the camper is on the truck, there's a piece of foam with a hole in it wedged in between the two. And that way I could keep the litter box in the truck and his food and he could just come and go and I didn't have to take up the room in here to do that. I don't know if you can see this floor, but this is not the floor that came with the camper. These are actually little foam interlocking squares that I got. They're meant to work out on. And the box that I got was about $25 for a ton of these. I've got extras. You can see they do start to peel up. So I just swap it out when I do that. You know, my cat, the boy, has arthritis. He's old. He's got some nerve damage in one foot and the floor would have killed him. He loves it in here. He jumped right in and rolled around like a champ. Here's the kitchen. You can see it has a microwave convection. I never use the convection. I don't get that at all. And then there's a three burner stove up here and a decent sink. Now I put these organizational things in here and you can see the one in the back has fallen off the wall. I was camping somewhere really humid and it just didn't want to stick. So I'll have to fix that. This is not the faucet that came with this rig. I checked everything I could when I bought the rig because it was winterized. But as soon as I got on the road and I ran the water, more than half of it came out down here. So I had to put that in. Here's one of the best parts of this camper. It's the bathroom. Most truck campers come with a wet bath where the shower is actually over the toilet and they can be pretty small. Because I have the extra three feet right here, I actually have a full dry bath. On the inside of the bathroom door, I put some more organizational stuff. I just put them up there with some command strip. You can see here that there's not a lot of storage. There's a medicine cabinet. So I put a little container at the end of the counter there that holds a bunch of my stuff. And there is a little compartment right here, but it basically holds toilet paper. So I found a little trash can that I could command hook to the counter. And then I hang my fruits and vegetables here off of the rod, which is really strong. Up here is the bed. And I love it. The bed is not the most comfortable, so I might switch that out at some point. But it's got windows. It's got this great skylight like I had in my first rig that I love. And you know, it's pretty cozy to go hang out in here. It's got a TV that you can see from the living room and the bedroom. And it's got a little bit of storage. So yeah, it's pretty comfy in here. I like it. I've got a lot of trees above me. And it's very chill to just lay back here. So this is my new house. And I absolutely love it. I've gone to seven states in four months and I've camped in places that I never could have camped in before. Like this spot that I went to with Eric and Robin from Wonderboom and another friend that was above Lake Havasu. We four-wheeled it up to this spot and it was amazing. Like I said, if you want to see my solar setup or how I charge the camper lithium batteries from my truck or the whole truck camper setup, I'll show you that all next week. Until then, I hope you're all doing well out there. Have happy travels and be free.