Casper's "I did a bad thing" micro off road camper build

Its helpful but not everything. Ours is enough without being to much at the same time.

 

Skyline Drive is a special place for me. I've got at least a hundred nights camping on and off the drive. I've hiked the entire length on the Appalachian Trail and camped with Scouts at all the campgrounds. You're very lucky to be near it and have it to enjoy. Thanks for sharing.
Zim

 

Good Morning Chris

 

Good morning everyone have a wonderful day!

 

Back at you Chris!

 

I jumped the gun and bought 2 7 gallon jerry cans before the trucks bumper came in and of course they didn't fit the jerry can holder. We went ahead and ordered 2 Scepter 20l jerry cans which fit. These along with our smaller 4 gallon jug with the spout will be our primarys and if we are able to do longer trips we can add the 2 7 gallon cans for a total of 28 gallons. Not ideal but it works I would still like to look a little more into a self contained water tank maybe 25 gallons with a 12v pump.

 

Looks great! What kind of bumper is that?

 

SOS Concepts on the truck

 

Nice is that a high clearance?

 

Nope I had no need for that but it still gives you much more clearance

 

That looks great, really dig it. Thanks for more pics!

 

LOL always happy to post pics

 

Tows well with the hidden hitch also. No issues at all so far

 

Sweet, that's great. You know I tow lol

 

Remote Solar:
We had the solar system installed a couple of years ago to meet our electrical needs along with the 2 group 31 AGM batteries. They have worked great with absolutely no issues but we noticed if we were parked in the shade or at certain angles we got a low charge. You'd think 2 100 watt mounted panels would be morw than enough but better safe than sorry. So, we ordered a 100 watt set of Renogy suitcase panels to carry with us for when lighting was low, also, 20' extension cables.
No problem now we can follow the sun we did a test run and they read batteries full in an hour running in conjunction with the rigid mounted panels.

 

Nice, that will def be a good help.

 

Loft Mountain Shenandoah Natonal Forrest:

Well phase 2 of our goal of hitting every campground on Skylive drive is complete. We have now camped in 3 out of the 4 campsiites on the drive we did Mathews Arm twice a couple of years ago. We are going to do a scouting run of Big Meadow here sometime to make sure we actually want to go there as from what we understand it is exactly what it is named a Big meadow all open and IDK if that is appealing to us so a scouting run will be done before we decide to go. Especially when it's hot I don't care for wide open spaces.
Loft Mtn deffinately did not disappoint. Probably our favorite trip to date with the exception of our trip with @Wild Crow up Flag Pole Knob. We left Thursday after work as soon as we culd and made the trek up into the mtns. Upon entering the park we sawit posted all sites were full we knew we were taking a gamble especially since the parks are only at partial capacity. The lady at the entry gate said call them so we did and the ranger said we could come and try. The gamble continued..... We got there and after much serching and work on his part he said we had a spot, somebody had canceled, Lady Luck or the Lord was smilinng on us. Off we went to find this spot the way he said it we figured it was going to be a bad spot but were pleasantly suprised to find the most private spot we have found at any park yet.
Alot of their places are pull through spots as this was and angled down hill so a bit of finagling had to be done to settle the camper in but I got it. We had our own little cove of peace and relaxation we hardly even saw people walking on the road. The way this campground is arranged it affords a great deal of privacy.
Food was fantastic as usual we eat better camping than at home. Christie even made a chocolate cherry cake in the Dutch which was fantastic!






New remote solar worked spot on:


As we were setting up Thursday night we realized we had forgot to grab our clothes bag and put it in the truck. We usually precook some of our food and have all our clothing organized earlier in the week I just forgot to grab the bag as we left. A quick trip to the store out on the parkway and a couple of new shirts were had. Christie did laundry to wash our other clothes. Shit happens we weren't happy about it but that's part of the adventure and learning to adapt to different circumstances.


We were prepared to keep our bodies clean and used the "Green Elephant" for showers. The new jerry cans worked out great giving us plenty of water. I set one out in the sun to get hot and we used our rechargeable shower pump to take nice warm showers. We found a couple of things we would like to be different so some tweaks will be made to make it work a little smoother but it all functioned wonderfully.



What a wonderful and relaxing three days 10/10 would go there again and recomend to anybody.
Random pics from the drive and camping:





















For those who haven't been to one of these parks. The only amenitie you have is a bathroom. There's no electric, no water at your site, there is water available to refill your jugs but we bring our own from home. You are basically boondocking just not out finding spots on your own. That is soon to come for us as we are both realizing we are ready to take that next step. TBH it kinda scares the crap out of me being out on our own if something happens but we are going to do it.

 

Looks wonderful

 

It was very peaceful. I'm going to have to go back through the lics as IDk if I got one that shows just how private our spot was.