Acapulco: Dave and Michelle Doty
13 July 2006: Hello! We are so happy to tell you our camper is complete!! The few things that aren't finished aren't seen and aren't even necessary items! Wow, what an exciting time for us! This last month has been nothing but late nights, long weekends, and anticipation!
We pulled the camper out of the garage on June 30th in the evening. That was an adventure in itself as it was almost too tall to get out. But it made it without having to tear down the garage!! Ha, ha!! Dave is such a smart man as he thought to bring home his work truck, a 1/2" thick plate of steel and some fine steel shot. He jacked up the camper enough with a couple of floor jacks to pull out the 2 x 4's that were keeping it level in the garage, spread some shot on the garage floor, slid the steel plate 1/2 way under the box of the camper, dropped the camper onto it, and used heavy chain to drag it out! I was a little nervous while this was all going on but I kept snapping pictures!
Once it was out we raced to get the rubber roof applied to the top. We're glad we did that in the evening because the next day it was hotter than you know where!! July 1st was the race to get the finish work done on the outside. Gutter, termination trim, and corner pieces were installed and the rubber roofing was complete.
Next came the lift system, Stablelift! And by stable, they mean stable! We would highly recommend investing in this system even if you already have a truck camper! It is awesome! You can check out their web site,
http://www.stablelift.com/index.php
Please let them know if you buy one that we are the ones who recommended them! Sunday was another unbearably hot day but we kept plugging away on the lift system. 4th of July we worked most of the day on different things.
Since that time we've completed a lot of trim work inside, cornices (Michelle made these), installed cellular shades, put the mattress on the bed with sheets and a comfortor!
We applied striping to the outside that we purchased at RV Surplus in Indiana for only $5 for a 150' roll!! Dave and I decided to name our camper "Paradise", since that's how we see our time together, so we ordered custom lettering from Overton's (a boating supply catalog). While we were at our local amusement park last Saturday we found a little shop that had airbrushed license plates. We had them customize one for us to put on the camper. Today we took turns having the camper at our places of employment to show off our handywork since our co-workers have been hearing all about it for months! Everyone was quite impressed and kept remarking how it didn't look like a homemade camper. We are looking forward to our first camping trip and are very proud of our craftsmanship! Thank you very much for your fine plans and encouragement! If anyone is thinking of building a truck camper and you have any ounce of tool knowledge, GO FOR IT!!!
HAPPY CAMPING!!!
DAVE & MICHELLE DOTY