For my 39th birthday on Saturday, Maya gave me a roll of masking tape, four colored markers and an afternoon of her time. By dinner, every bin in the side yard had a label, the labels had a color code, and there was a key to the color code taped inside the camper door. I've been married to a planner for eleven years. Now I'm raising a second one.
The idea: the camper stays half-packed
With the tent, every trip started from zero. Bins came out of the storage room off the carport, went into the Pilot, came home sandy, got unpacked, got washed and got repacked. That ate most of a Thursday night before each trip and most of a Sunday night after. With the pop-up, a lot of that gear can simply live in the camper. Our first trip at Long Pine Key in February showed us what worked and what we forgot, and we've been adjusting since.
The rule we settled on is simple. If it's only used at camp and it won't mind sitting in a closed box in a Miami side yard, it lives in the camper. If we use it at home, or it would get musty, it rides in the Pilot.
What lives in the camper
Four bins ride on the camper floor between the cabinets when it's folded down, plus whatever fits in the cabinets themselves. Here they are, by Maya's colors:
- Blue, kitchen: plates, bowls, cutlery, spatulas, a cutting board, dish soap, a collapsible wash tub, foil, paper towels and trash bags. The four white enamel mugs ride in here wrapped in dish towels so they don't chip.
- Green, setup: leveling blocks, wheel chocks, the water pressure regulator, the drinking water hose, the power adapter, a tire gauge, work gloves and the spare crank handle.
- Yellow, inside stuff: fly swatter, spare fuses and LED bulbs, a small broom and dustpan, headlamp batteries and a roll of canvas repair tape.
- Red, first aid: Dana's kit. She restocks it after every trip and nobody else touches it, which is the system working as designed.
The little wooden slat-top table slides in flat on top of the bins before the roof comes down, and the battery lantern rides in a cabinet. When I open the camper door now, it smells like warm canvas and dish soap instead of the vague garage smell it had when we bought it.
What rides in the Pilot
- The RTIC 45 with food and the old Coleman 70-quart with drinks.
- One duffel per person, plus sleeping bags and pillows.
- The Blackstone griddle in its bag, the Coleman stove and Marisol's cafetera.
- Four camp chairs, the blue hammock, the screen shelter and the Jackery.
- Fans, chargers, the kids' book bag and Maya's nature journal.
Bedding was the one we argued about. Leaving sheets and sleeping bags on the beds would save twenty minutes a trip. But the camper sits closed in the side yard, and a closed box in Miami gets damp fast. We already learned that the hard way when the dome tent came home wet from O'Leno last July and grew spots in the carport. So bedding lives in the hall closet and goes out to the camper the night before we leave.
The list on the door
Dana wrote it, I covered it in clear packing tape, and it's stuck to the inside of the camper door at eye level. The top half is what we check before we pull out, and I read it out loud at the curb like a preflight check:
- Hitch latched and pinned, safety chains crossed under the tongue, wiring plugged in.
- Maya behind the camper calling out brake lights and both blinkers.
- Propane valve closed, roof latches closed, crank handle stowed.
- Stabilizer jacks and tongue jack up, chocks back in the green bin.
- Pressure checked on both camper tires.
The bottom half is the stuff that lives in the house and has burned us before: coffee and the cafetera, phones and chargers, pillows, Nico's spare shoes (he loses one per trip, so that line is in capital letters), a printed reservation for parks with weak cell service, and the house key for Isabela, who feeds Pickles once a day for $15 a visit.
Packing for Long Pine Key took us about three hours. A practice run last Sunday afternoon took 70 minutes, and most of that was bedding and the cooler. Bahia Honda is nine days out. The list gets its first real test on the Seven Mile Bridge, which is not the place I want to find out a roof latch wasn't latched.
