What was your 1st rv

[Just Lou]

Like most here, I started with tent camping.  Spent many a night sleeping in the rear of a cargo van on fishing trips also.  Owned a 16' Coachman TT years ago and eventually bought a used coleman pop-up.  I still own (and camp) in the pop-up 'cuz my grandkids love it.  I now travel (can't call it camping) in a Class A.  lou

 

[riverotter]

It seems like everyone else here We started out as tenter's back when Me & Moses were just kids (LOL). We bought or first Popup Camper in 1976 a Coleman / Brandywine & enjoyed every minute of camping in it!!!

 

[BernieD]

Almost 40 years ago, another couple and we rented a pair of pop-up campers for a trip with our kids-Chicago to the Smokey Mountains and back. This was back before Dollyworld. Lusted for a camper ever since. Finally bought our first coach, a Damon diesel pusher, in 1998.

 

[KodiakRV]

Started with a used tent around 1980.  Somewhere around 1983 we bought a Starcraft popup camper of mid-70's vintage...

 

[slumbert55]

our first was a 16 ft lark no bathroom, 2nd was a viking popup, 3rd was a 95 wilderness 5er had a bathroom, in heaven with the bathroom. then we bought the 29 ft class c . oh, i forgot the wilderness 33 ft tt we had for a brief time. i now have a 40 ft parkmodel and a parktrailer, and the class c, at this point everthing i own has wheels and thats the way i like it, one in portage lake mi. one in quartzsite and the class c to travel in.

 

[Jeff]

After growing up tenting in Northern Maine Sue and I started out with a 1972 22' Starcraft Class A in 1975 that we kept until three kids meant we ran out of beds. : The down side was a 440 Dodge that got 51/2MPG until I tied the rear two barrels of the carb closed.

In 1981 we sold that and switched to a 1971 Glastron that had a couch our son used as a bed for several years. The Glastron was really over powered with a 318 cid Dodge that climbed hills at one speed, 18MPH. The mileage went up to 10MPG.

 

[teachers pet]

We tented also, with birth of our daughter we bought a 1971, 19' Terry travel trailer that we pulled with our 1973 GTO, 400 c.i.d.  4 speed. Never had a problem moving that trailer at all.  ;D

 

[motojavaphil]

I have always tented, be it by motorcycle or by car.  Still enjoy going to the top of a mountain or near a remote lake with my dirtbike and putting up a tent and looking over God's creation.  I also enjoy going across country with a roadbike and camping in campgrounds along the way.  DW is not a fan of such primitive accomodations.  My first  camper was a rusted out 1965 Ford Econoline that I got when I came back from Vietnam.  I could get the motorcycle in it and had three twelve inch speakers to listen to the eight track.  Even had hair in those days.  Camped in it and got 200,000 miles on that 6 cyclinder.  Moved to a VW Camper and led the life of luxuary with a stove and water hook up.  The top popped up and I got a cool 25 mpg.  It was slow, too slow for me bur could be used to commute to work.  It was doomed as it would not haul the motorcycle.  Swore off RV's and decided to be a motel person with my tenting fetish on the side.  Decided RV's had no place on the road with their slow, large profile being driven by folks who had no clue what real camping was about.  Then my sister and her husband bought a Cardinal and truck.  They came by the house and we fell in love with the idea of what they were doing.  We bought a 26' Jayco 5r and loved it.  We upgraded to our 36' Idletime Toybox and I'd still be in that if I had my way.  As we entered into F/T we purchased an Excel 35 MKO.  It was big, heavy and comfortable.  It also took a big truck to pull it.  As chance would have it our current rig came available and the temptation was too much.  The Beaver is a 40' very comfortable motorhome, our first.  What goes around comes around and we now tow an 07 Ford Econoline behind it to put the motorcycles and bicycles in.  Now if I could just grow hair again!
Phil       

 

[krobbins]

Hey! Let's leave hair out of this.  I resemble that remark!  :
This thread is getting  more fun all the time. I thank all of you that have been reminiscing, it is fun to remember where we have been and where we are going.
'On the road again, I can't wait to be on the road again, sharin' stories with my friends , I can't wait to be on the road again.'
Everyone has a story, keep sharin'
See 'ya on top
Keith

 

[utmtman]

Had tents since I was old enough to walk.  Bought my first camper, an 8 foot cab over in 80.  My first tt in 97.  My first motor home in 2002.

 

[blueblood]

Since you asked specifically about RV, it would have been a brand new 1972 Winnebago Indian (cost $12,000) which slept 8 and that worked just fine for 6 children and the two of us. I took off a month of work from Cummins and we traveled US but focus was on taking kids back to Ft. Huachuca, AZ where two of them were born to see their birth place in an Army Hospital (wood shack  ;D) and shooting the rapids down the Grand Canyon from Lake Powell to Lake Meade for 10 days leaving the motor home near Lk Powell and then flying in two planes back up through the Grand Canyon to pick up the motor home before proceeding home by way of Salt Lake City.

 

[Gasser]

Our first RV is my current Newmar Kountry star DP.  I have always wanted one of these.  Perfect for my small family and also for the race track... ;D  We just love it and it was the best purchase for my family I have ever made.

Jeff

 

[Marsha/CA]

This is fun.  Our oldest son was in boy scouts and was going on his first camping trip.  I had never been camping before; but, Tim ,husband had.  So as the son went out the door with the boy scouts, Tim took me to a camping store and we bought all the necessary stuff.  As we were putting things in the basket to check out, I mentioned to Tim that wherever we camped I needed flush toliets and showers.  So, where did he take me for that first adventure......Joshua Tree National Park in So. Cal.  No...flush toilets....no showers.....not even a picnic table  The first night the dog's water dish froze solid.  That was my introduction to camping. 

For years we tent camped with the kids in one of those big ole cabin tents on an aluminum frame that weighted a ton.  Then we tent camped with the horses all over the Southern Sierras.  One morning I climber out of the tent at a horse campground and watched as a man opened the door of his slide in camper all clean shaven, with a cup of fresh coffee in his hand.  That did it.....The next week, I started shopping for a truck camper.  We used that for nearly 10 years and Tim (6'2") decided the potty was much too small and we needed something bigger.  Out we went and bought the coach we have now....35' diesel pusher.  Sometimes I envy the old days where we could get into anyplace and the simplicity of that truck camper.  But I love having a home away from home that has a flush toliet and a shower.

Marsha~

 

[Bob Maxwell]

  You've unleashed memories. . .

After scouting in the mountains of Colorado, Juneau AK and Elkhart IN, I finished an undergraduate AB in 7 years of working and then my Master degree. After my first year back working, vacation time came in ?70 and remembering my Elkhart experiences announcing the local RV show with the Explorer Post and the South Bend RV Show, I almost bought a new Winnebago. Instead, we bought a Palomino tent camper. After several weekend trips with the church youth group, we pulled it from Deerfield IL to the top of the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia via Ontario, Quebec and Canada?s Maritime?s and back via Bar Harbor, Cape Cod, the NY Quickway and Letchworth.

Unfortunately, it wasn?t a lemon, it was a grove. We sold it after finally getting home 31 days after we headed out.

After serving a very small parish in Bristol IN, I created and managed the intercompany purchasing department for Starcraft in  Topeka IN buy 80%+ of the bill of materials for the KS, CN and PA plants and shipping via our on trucks. I also created the inventory system for the Starcraft class A. The day before Starcraft closed 6 of 7 assembly lines, I resigned for the Marketing Manager position of Coachmen?s Viking Tent Camper division and ran the first of Coachman?s own labeled tent campers. In Feb of 74 I bought a new ?74 Leprechaun on the Dodge chassis and headed for St. Paul?s, Winslow, and St. George?s, Holbrook AZ. After full timing alone for 6 months, the family joined me in the newly available vicarage. In that C and the new ?76 on the Econoline chassis with the 1st 460 engine, we put over 100k before the summer of ?81.From Seattle to Lemmon Grove, or El Paso to the Natchez Trace and Elkhart to Yellowstone and ending in Oak Creek Canyon a Slide Rock, just 2 of our 1 month vacations, we drove those C?s everywhere!

I lived in the 2nd Leprechaun for 9 months full time dung my divorce including the winter of 80-81 in Omaha.

A new life later in ?95, Bev and I bought our first home together, a ?90, 37? Gulfstream Friendship on the Oshkosh chassis with a Ford 460. My 2nd 1st RV. Two years ago we sold it but still have the rv site available next to the house as well as space out front for framily. Ask for my Google 3 D map location of it with the GPS coordinates. ;D

Some year soon we hope to have a Class C to experience some new places and old friends. . .