Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos
Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road...
Forum Discussion
Howdy!
I often have people ask me why I have gone to so much trouble to renovate a decades old truck camper instead of just buying a new rig. "Why in the long run, it would be much cheaper!"
I have tried to justifiy all the time and expense logically. I must say I never even convince myself as I am still talking. Then in a contemplative moment I think "I" understood. It may not be y'all's story, but it's mine. I grew up in the sixties. The space race was on. I was never so proud, nor have I been than when the first American set foot on the Moon. It was magical. Those shiny Airstream trailers were a part of the space program. Who could forget the quarantine campers to save us from "space bugs"! Then Avion came to town with the new truck camper. It was a tiny Airstream in a pickup. This was the spaceage in a compact package. Even those magnet doors that popped to the ceiling seemed other worldly. The write ups in Popular Mechanics showed how you go anywhere and see anything with the latest comforts at your fingertips. Oh! how I wanted one. I begged, plotted and dreamed. But it was not to be. Time marched on and other concerns took frontburner. Hell, I even forgot as years past.
Somehow though, I retained this strange attraction to those shiny aluminum campers. I was looking for the ultimate rig to take my kids to see the world. I did my homework, and nothing new had everything I wanted. I wanted something that would last. I had been around the revolving RV mill
and wanted off for good. Googling truck campers, I came across this blog. There were those shiny aluminum campers again. I read it all. Gary, Tiki, D, and the rest, made look easy (too easy, but that's another story). Get an old camper for cheap, and in a couple of weekends I'd have something that would last generations. One problem, I could not find an Avion truck camper anywhere that I could reasonably or even unreasonably get to. I scoured SearchTempest daily for 2 years, until, there it was. It could be had for a song if only I drove 14 hours and could haul it back. I jumped on it. Glad I did, the owner had phone calls begging to pay more. Trees had grown up around her, and it and it took a Herculean effort to extact her. 14 hours and 2 years later, our maiden voyage, "Where no man had gone before!". Then amazingly my elderly mother reminded me of the Avion truck camper I had longed for so long ago and the memories all came flooding back. Oh! the joys of satisfying the inner child!
I often have people ask me why I have gone to so much trouble to renovate a decades old truck camper instead of just buying a new rig. "Why in the long run, it would be much cheaper!"
I have tried to justifiy all the time and expense logically. I must say I never even convince myself as I am still talking. Then in a contemplative moment I think "I" understood. It may not be y'all's story, but it's mine. I grew up in the sixties. The space race was on. I was never so proud, nor have I been than when the first American set foot on the Moon. It was magical. Those shiny Airstream trailers were a part of the space program. Who could forget the quarantine campers to save us from "space bugs"! Then Avion came to town with the new truck camper. It was a tiny Airstream in a pickup. This was the spaceage in a compact package. Even those magnet doors that popped to the ceiling seemed other worldly. The write ups in Popular Mechanics showed how you go anywhere and see anything with the latest comforts at your fingertips. Oh! how I wanted one. I begged, plotted and dreamed. But it was not to be. Time marched on and other concerns took frontburner. Hell, I even forgot as years past.
Somehow though, I retained this strange attraction to those shiny aluminum campers. I was looking for the ultimate rig to take my kids to see the world. I did my homework, and nothing new had everything I wanted. I wanted something that would last. I had been around the revolving RV mill
and wanted off for good. Googling truck campers, I came across this blog. There were those shiny aluminum campers again. I read it all. Gary, Tiki, D, and the rest, made look easy (too easy, but that's another story). Get an old camper for cheap, and in a couple of weekends I'd have something that would last generations. One problem, I could not find an Avion truck camper anywhere that I could reasonably or even unreasonably get to. I scoured SearchTempest daily for 2 years, until, there it was. It could be had for a song if only I drove 14 hours and could haul it back. I jumped on it. Glad I did, the owner had phone calls begging to pay more. Trees had grown up around her, and it and it took a Herculean effort to extact her. 14 hours and 2 years later, our maiden voyage, "Where no man had gone before!". Then amazingly my elderly mother reminded me of the Avion truck camper I had longed for so long ago and the memories all came flooding back. Oh! the joys of satisfying the inner child!
