Loving this Pup

I have a PUP and a TT. Both have their advantages.

The DW and I liked the full bathroom, pantry, closets and getting out of bed on your own side with the TT.

With the grandkids it is the PUP; more bed space, easier to tow, and when they were smaller, the cushions made great forts.

Own both and would not part with either.

I hated the bag awning. I tried to manually rip it off the side of our new 625D. I had my dumb soon to ex-wife open the door and rip it, dog bend the legs sideways, and many other gripes. Radius door, manual awning, and sleeping for 6 are the main reasons to stick with a 21ft bunkhouse hybrid :>)))))

If you don't have to use the heater, 1 propane tank will last several days. If you do, then simply buy another tank. You should be able to find a place to store it inside the trailer without much of a problem.
Pad it so it doesn't roll around.

I kept my PUP for two reasons.
1. There are times I do not want or need a 25 foot TT.
2. There is more sleeping room in my PUP.
I also believe that you give up the feel of camping with a TT.

But it is undeniable that for shear convenience you cannot beat a TT.
1. Crawling out of your own side of the bed at night.
2. A full sized bathroom.
3. A pantry and closet.

I our world, each has its purpose; so does our canoe and tent.

Sounds like you're getting the kinks all worked out. It's going to be a refining process for a while.

As I was reading about the awning, I'm thinking to myself that you don't need to stow the awning while the PUP is deployed. Just put it away after you lower the PUP when taking it all down. Then I realized you mean while you're still camping.

This has been a problem for me as well. We were camping in RMNP a couple of years ago and came back one afternoon to find the awning up on top of the PUP. Two legs were bent but I was able to get them back to usable condition. Since then, I have made straps that tie into stakes that I drive into the ground. I decided to have the straps and stakes come right down next to the legs instead of out at an angle like you see the guy wires on tents. That way, no one is tripping over them. It is not optimal for stability but I haven't encountered a situation that it hasn't worked for yet.

I will say that I would not leave the awning up in a severe wind storm. So now we're still back to the problem of how to put the awning away when the weather is too bad to keep it deployed.

Mine is particularly a pain as it is a highwall model that has a taller roof height than standard PUPs plus I did an over/under axle modification that added 5.5 additional inches of height overall.

I have to stand on a few points of the PUP and hang onto other parts to try to reach the top. I even have a step stool that I bring along because the retractable door step is too high off of the ground. None of that really helps.

What I've ended up doing is rolling the horizontal support bars that have the rubber cane tips on them that are against the roof side wall. This produces the action of rolling it forward until enough tension has been released and I can pull the pole down. Repeat for the other three tension poles until the awning can drop to the ground.

Well great but I still have to get in and out of the door that's now covered up.

A while back, I added velcro strips inside the bag as this one did not come with any. I can roll the awning up, stand on the door threshold and just reach up enough to secure the middle velcro straps around the rolled up awning. I can then get one or two more straps secured. Thus far, that has been enough to get the job done until the weather passes. Since the awning is rolled up into a heavy dense roll, it hasn't flapped around.

Everyone's situation is different but there just isn't a perfect solution as currently designed. I've toyed around with the idea of using ropes looped around the awning to roll it up sort of like pulleys but haven't done anything with it as it is so infrequently a problem.

Definitely get the Popup Gizmos and look at adding Reflectix in the windows that face the afternoon sun. I ended up with a less than perfect but very cheap solution of using the shiny aluminum car windshield shades stuffed between the clear vinyl windows and the outside mesh.

I'm glad you're enjoying it and keep sharing the discoveries.

Resurrecting this thread again :-)

Found I didn't reply to some of the last comments!

We just finished trip 2 with the Awesome POP-UP and it just keeps getting better for our family. I installed a Pro Series WD hitch and bolt on chain hangers and the already pretty good handling of the rig is now even better.

Getting everything situated and organized has been an adventure in itself but I think we have it about down pat now. I had to work late on Friday night and my DW and DS-1 set up the camper by themselves before I got off work.

Now, if my crew can set up a PUP I think anyone can!

We used 7-gallon Aquatainers to collect the gray water and the Cassette wet bath did great.

Beds are comfy and the AC "froze us out" at night. During the day though it worked pretty hard to take the edge off the heat of the day with the bunk end curtains pulled back. It was 94° Saturday. I found that if I closed the curtains to the bunk ends during the day it was much more comfortable.

Needless to say... Pop-Up Gizmo's will be purchased before the next trip.

My biggest gripe with the pup is the bag awning. Ours works very well but stowing a bag awning with the top up is about impossible. Thankfully I didn't have to try. I did bring a cheap Pop up canopy (Ozark Trail) slant leg 10x10. I think that this is going to be my awning and the bag awning will stay in the bag. I securely tied it down and it was rock solid.

I did have my awning out this weekend and did not have an incident. I just can't figure out what I would do if a sudden storm came up while it was out. Probably lower down to its lowest position and try to ride it out I suppose. My inlaws have a Coleman Niagra and we were side by side, their awning flipped on top of their camper and our awning stayed secure. Ours does have a rafter system similar to a TT awning, but, after losing an awning on our old TT I am nervous about it being out.

For cooking we used a Coleman Deluxe high stand and a two burner propane stove. We bought some cheap pans to cook in. For grilling we used the Celino grill that attaches to the camper. It did a good job of cooking burgers and hot dogs. I am sure it would do good with chicken and pork chops too.

Food Prep and Clean up is handled on a 6 ft plastic folding table outside. I use my Coleman outdoor washing station for dish washing. I bought it on a whim last year and it has proven very useful!

The little fridge in the camper has two shelves, we took one of them out...now we can actually put taller stuff in the fridge. Lol (Milk, etc)

We have, so far, got three Rubbermaid totes... One for the wet stuff (hoses etc), one for the pots, pans, and cooking stuff, and one for the other misc items that don't really fit anywhere else. Fortunately one tote fits inside the camper when closed, two others fit easy in the back of the Minivan with the cooler and the bag chairs.

Overall, we are still loving this pup life.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Welcome to the enlightened side! ;)

Pups are great. So easy to tow we went all over the place without thinking twice. We hauled it to the red woods, Banff, Jasper, Waterton, Glacier, Yellowstone, etc. Easy to tow, setup and teardown are not bad at all.

A few comments about wet weather and keeping it dry...
Based out of Portland Oregon it rains a lot. We put it away wet more often than not when we were camping on the Oregon coast in late spring or early summer. But not a problem. Would get home within a few hours and have it opened up as far as I could in the garage or in the yard and let it get completely dry. With a good wipe down inside to keep things clean and wiping down the top, then airing our really well it was always fully dry when put away. When we would open it up again for the next use it was always great. Never a mold / mildew problem in 8 years or so of use. When in use in damp weather an electric space heater kept us warm and kept the humidity down too.

I would store it under cover so it did not get rained on 9 months of the year. I also crawled under the rig and sealed up along any joints and sprayed it with a good undercoat to help seal up the bottom better than factory.

Mostly just wanted to say congratulations and hoping you and the family have a blast.

Stu

p.s. These days my wife and have a larger rig. We do not travel as far afield these last couple of years, mostly tow to the coast, setup and enjoy at one of our favorite spots. Will probably get back on the road more in the next few years.

Welcome to the fold (pun intended).

Various folks like to make a big deal about taking down in the rain and having to set it back up at home. It has happened to me a few times and thus far, hasn't been a big deal. I'll either raise it up as far as I can in the garage and pull out all of the tenting or actually set it fully up in the driveway. Either way, a couple of days later and it is dry. If you do this inside the garage, realize that folds of the tenting can trap water so you need to move things around a big to expose all surfaces so they can dry properly. My preferred method is to set it up in the driveway, weather permitting.

Enjoy the process of thinning out the stuff you bring and prioritizing. When I switched PUPs, I made an exercise of evaluating everything from the old PUP before just stuffing it into the new one. I ended up with a pile in the corner of the garage of stuff that should have been useful or neat but ended up never being used. A couple of years later, that stuff is still in the corner of the garage. I guess I need to send it on its way.

We enjoy cooking and eating outside so we make use of the indoor/outdoor table, the attachable grill and awning (if I've paid attention to the forecast and deployed it during set up). We do always bring along an EZup for over the picnic table but often just gets stored under the PUP when camping until needed.

With reducing what we bring and having a PUP with too much storage (strange to say but true), we no longer have to shuffle duffle bags around inside much and certainly do not make any trips to and from the TV while camping. This was a HUGE difference between our first PUP and this one. In the first one, we were always, constantly and frustratingly having to move bags around inside and make runs to/from the TV. Getting the right set up makes all the difference in enjoyment.

Most important to enjoyment are your attitude and preparations. Prepare things in advance and decide to enjoy the experience even when it goes sour is a great way to ensure a good time. Happy camping and let us know how your first camping in the PUP turns out.

Congrats on your purchase and getting it all tip-top! Let the fun begin! Definitely on the pop up gizmos. Myself, I can't stop doing mods to my pup ??