How Did You Get Introduced to FG Campers?

[CindyL]

Ebay! I inherited some money from my grandmother. We volunteered to work on Pine Ridge for the first time. Their website (the non-profit at Pine Ridge) had little information, and as time drew nearer to stay there, I got more nervous about living arrangements. So I began looking at popups on ebay and stumbled on our first FB, a Burro for sale just up the road from us. Hubby and I looked at it through the fence and took a chance and bid on it. By ignoring his recommendation for maximum bid and bidding more, I beat out those last minute bidders who did not expect my bid to jump that much.

So we had it and now what to do with it? It was then that I found this forum...


CindyL

[RogerDat]

Have camped since I was a kid, parents had all kinds of tent/pop up campers over the years. I tent camped once I started my own family. I bought a church bus and converted to a motor home and used that or tents for many years. It was a blessing while traveling to be able to tell the kids "you and you to your bunks. It's nap time if your going to act like that". Plus having the room to let them bring friends.

Once it got down to DW and myself kind of hard to justify the gas cost to break out the beast. So we looked at small, lite stickies. Could not get past the price of new, and at the time the "lite" thing was not old enough to have a good used market.

That is when I first recalled the Scamps I had seen before, did some looking online, found out about Scamp, Burro, EggCamper and such but new was a bit much and not much in the used to be found. Still had plenty of our tenting gears so we just sort of muddled along. But the trap had been set.

When the chance came up to buy a used Scamp from a co-worker we jumped in with both feet. I emailed pictures of scamp to wife, her reply mentioned "cute" several times.

I found this site while doing some research on prices in the 36 hrs between hearing it was available and hooking it to our car. Cute carries a lot of weight in this houshold.

[theresa p]

having grown up in toronto and dennis in markham (sptting distance north of toronto), where trilliums were born, we both had remembered seeing them in our youth. were we smart enough to look for one in our younger years when we got the wanderlust bug and sold our house and car and bought a VW camper van? no. then we settled down and had kids and went back to camping in tents firstly and then tent trailers (pop-ups) secondly. we loved being up off of the ground, but hated the set up and take down, especially in the rain. OMG how we hated that! once the boys were grown and it was back to just the 2 of us to go camping, we decided to get ourselves something that was no setup, could be accessed from the side of the road for lunch and immediately dennis said--"hey, what about those little trilliums that we used to see when we were kids?"
after a quick check on the internet, not finding any listed on kijiji, i noticed a link to this website when i googled trillium trailers. we connected with another member who answered my request for info on where i might find one in the maritimes. we bought our OSOKOZY and are now best friends with that member and his wife---who just happened to live mere blocks from us..and whom we may never have met had we not looked for a trillium on this website.

[WildBirder]

Growing up in Saskatchewan with biennial family trips to BC I saw the occasional Boler on the road, driveway or farm. They always caught my eye and since I can remember I've always thought that someday I'd like one of those. I thought it would happen when I was older, to old to tent camp. I'm not to old to tent but camp (yet!) but if I I'm going to camp by my car why not be dry and comfortable.

[Alf S.]

Hi: All... It's all my brothers fault. He's had at least 4 Bolers and was on his way to get another one when we found our first. Our tug only had a 1250# tow cap so that meant small very light weight and the boler fit. Two years later...lots of trips, and one look at the Escape 5.0 and we were hooked. The chance to buy the Escape we viewed was like having your cake and eating it too!!!
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[CompactJR-Sailor]

We first had a Scamp in 1980 and we only had one child. We then went bigger and bigger owning two stickies and 4 motor homes. Then the kids got older and we just did not use the last stick built trailer so it sat and was deteriorating so I sold it. Kids gone so we thought it would be good to get a very light trailer so we bought a tent in a box called Memory Maker that only weighted about 400 lbs, but the set up was a pain and luckily in the three years we owned it we never had rain while setting it up or down. We went to the Annapolis sailboat show and two friends went with us, it would sleep 4 people. On the way back they asked me to find a trailer for them. So I googled fiberglass trailers. That brought me to this site, and I spent many hours going over all of the different brands. Even though I have always been in camping I did not know all of those brands. The one that caught my eye is the Compact Jr. I told my wife I had to have one of those and the search began. I found one close to Macon GA and we live in Ohio. I talked to the lady that owned it for an hour and I have never bought anything sight unseen, but I had to do it because of the demand for these trailers. We sent a check and she kept it until we traveled down on our way to Florida in two months. This is the best camper we have ever owned. We redid it and it has been back and forth from Florida to Ohio twice and it can go into a garage. Plus it has the largest bed of any camper we have ever owned. When we camp we are always the conversation piece in the campground. We name our camper "Tweety" and I really credit this web site for our happiness in camping.

[Evan Friesen]

When I was a kid, I played with my cousins in their Boler. It was our fort! Never camped in it, but it was always a good memory. It's still sitting where it did 15 years ago...
Now I'm married, and with our 2 kids we wanted something a bit easier and more 'homey' to camp in than a tent. We don't like BIG things and neither does our car, so a Boler fit the bill!
Also, we hope our kids will be able to use their imaginations to use it as a fort and playhouse when we're not camping in it!

[Tom Trostel]

We had tent camped for several years but grew weary of the setup, tear down and sleeping on the ground. The local Air Force base had 16' Casitas for rent and we used several for vacation and enjoyed the experience. Then Carswell AFB went on the closure list and was converted to Naval Air Station Ft. Worth and the Casitas were replaced by 20' stick builts. Too big for us to tow. The search began for a small fiberglass trailer and we found our Compact Jr. Now 6 grandkids later we need more room so we added the Bigfoot.

[Pam Garlow]

I remember that we used to visit some relatives in Canada and they had an adorable little camper that I now realize was a Trillium !

[Mike Magee]

Originally Posted by Roger C H

(signature line Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.

Perhaps we all could borrow a bit of Latin for ourselves:
Quem deus vult beatus, prius fiberglassus

[Raz]

While traveling to and from work we would pass a farm with a Boler siting in the machinery shed. What's a Boler we wondered? We never stopped in to ask or we would have gotten here a lot sooner. Years later, while camping we got to visit with a Scamp 13 owner and then a Casita owner. So when it was time to replace our Chalet A frame, like everyone else, we came to this site looking for fiberglass trailer info, caught the bug, and here we are. Raz

[MinnesotaJill]

I started looking for a small camper several months ago. At first, I was convinced that I needed a Trailmanor ..... Until I saw one at a campground and got inside. Then I thought I wanted an Aliner or Chalet, until I kept reading owner forums about some of the issues. Then I looked at a Casita and liked the overall approach, but just wasn't convinced yet. Then I stumbled onto this forum, and began reading. I did become a quick fan of fiberglass, but just needed to narrow down what I wanted. I knew I didn't want a fixer-upper, because I know nothing about campers. So when you narrow it down to newer-used eggs, the choice became simple as there are not a lot of newer-used out there. When a 2010 egg came up, we bought it!
Jill

[Byron Kinnaman]

I got an early start in camping, before anybody heard of fiberglass trailers, I think. The very first camping trip I remember I was 5 or 6 years old. It's possible that I did a bit of camping before that.
As the years progressed lot of camping, first no tent, just sleeping on the ground with a couple blankets. Somewhere in the early teens a sleeping bag was acquired. Later teens a pup tent was added. In my 20s with wife and child a cabin tent and coleman stove improved camping. Somewhere around my late 30s or early 40s backpacking was discovered. The cabin tent ditched, the coleman stove retired, and new light weight equipment of the day was acquired. In my late 50s early 60s things changed a bit. Some of our camping was being done at events where people were camped close together. Getting dressed while laying on our backs became something we were getting tired of. An RV of some sort was destined to be in our future. After 3 or 4 years of research and thinking about different kinds of RVs we stumbled upon a Burro at a local campground where we were looking for a geocache. A few months later I got a chance to look inside one. I was hooked and started looking for a used one. After about a year of looking for a used one, we decided that the best thing to do was go ahead a get a new one. Then a couple months looking and evaluating all the options we ordered the one we have now. It was delivered on December 15, 2005.

The backpacks are still here and useable, with expectations that we might get out sometime for a couple days in remote location, but mostly we use the Scamp. Most of our camping days are done in the winter away from the cold and rain of the Pacific Northwest.

[Farren and Heather]

I was born camping! Ok not really, Mom waited til summer as I was born in December I am a third generation hard core camper. Had my new born babies sleeping in a tent and I am sure I have created campers out of them! The egg came to be for a number of reasons. First Farren injured his back and tenting was getting difficult. When I was young we camped in tents, popups and stickys but my heart always stayed with a neighbor's Boler. I it! When we were shopping for a trailer a Trill popped up on Kijiji and it was just what I wanted. That and the fact that the egg is only 5 years younger than me but in much better shape

[rabbit]

My wife and I were tent-camping at Big Meadow on the Skyline Drive and set up near two ladies in what my wife took to be a very small Airstream trailer. This was in the late 70s. I remember the trailer being painted green and having that riveted, gored metal, radiused look but I'll bet it was an (under 15') version from another marque. In 2010, she decided she wanted to "look into" a used Airstream. A preliminary look on eBay convinced me that wasn't going to happen. Saw some Scamps and Casitas there and I started lobbying her to look at molded fiberglass. So in early 2011 we looked at a 2000 Casita in south Jersey and next a '98 Burro in southern Delaware. Bought the Burro and towed home same day. Could have been a disaster but has turned out well with a little sweat equity. I have never seen a second 17' Widebody up close and personal but feel like I have due to gawking at classified ads. We think it is purrrrrrfect for us altho as soon as the Year of Living Modificationally was concluded, I began to get 2footitus and a roving eye that fastened on Bigfoot 5ers and recently the Bigfoot 28' Silver Cloud on eBay. A guy can dream but really I don't need the hassle of a bigger lashup than we already have.

jack

[steve dunham]

My Wife! We retired and talked about traveling . I liked to camp , she liked motels. One day we saw a Scamp while driving , she thought it was "cute" We drove to Backus Minnesota and looked at Scamps, she still thought they were "cute"
Two months later we bought a 16 ft Scamp . In the 16 months of owning our Scamp we have done more traveling than in the first 41 years of our marriage. The 'cute factor worked for us.

[Islandr]

It was an evolution of lifestyle that got me into the fiberglass trailers. I went from a single renter to a married with dogs homeowner. But wait there is more, my younger brother and I at the same time had started going tent camping each summer as a way for him, his son(my nephew) and I to do some male bonding.

When we returned with tales of fun the wimmen folk wanted in on the action and my brother last year had a small stick trailer and I was still in the tent. There was no way I was going to let my younger brother up me in the accomodation dept so when I returned home I casually started looking for a trailer. The pickup I purchased for yard maintenance is a Nissan Frontier and that necessitated small light weight trailer. I found the Escape website by accident, then an ad for an Escape trailer here, in my city and destiny was complete.

It happened fast, my wife comes camping now and everyone is having fun

[Cyndi B.]

When the "slaves" thought it was too weird to go camping with their parents to pop up went and we started looking for a small trailer easy to pull. We looked at used Scamps but they were too far away or too much work so we ordered our first 13'. Graduated to the 5ver which became our home away from home a couple of times. I have found you can live without a lot of things for quite awhile.

[BCDave]

About a zillion years ago I had a summer job (University years) working for a railway, loading boxcars etc. Periodically we would get Boler 13's to load into a freightcar. Push 'em in, tie them down REAL well, and fill the spaces around 'em with boxes of Old Dutch Chips (Yes, this was in Winnipeg, in 1970!)

Later, in my post-grad years, I had to do field research, which involved a lot of canoeing around with tents & sleeping bags etc. (This quickly developed into my life-long loathing for and hatred of camping and all things related to camping, including tents, sleeping bags, and stuff like that)

A later experiment when we lived in the NWT, involving a pick-up mounted camper confirmed the "We'd MUCH rather stay home than ever go camping" attitude.

Flash forward to the years of recorded history (post Noah's Ark) and we found that many of our friends were taking their hotrods to weekend-long events and were towing trailers. We were missing out on the parties & socializing.

So we bought a trailer - a sticky. It paid off instantly when (first year using it) we won a blueprinted engine as a door prize!

4 years later the sticky fell apart, but a fellow hotrodder had a Boler 17 for sale, so we bought it. That was about 15 years ago.

Now we have a 21 foot Bigfoot, but I keep thinking that our perfect trailer would be a 30 to 34 foot sticky, covered all over with a one-piece glass outer layer to prevent leaks & rot & etc. There just ain't any eggs BIG enough to be comfortable for us for more than a weekend!!

[BCDave]

Originally Posted by rabbit

the Bigfoot 28' Silver Cloud on eBay. A guy can dream but really I don't need the hassle of a bigger lashup than we already have.

jack

I'm going to look at that Silver Cloud in the next day or 2. Is there anything you'd like me check out specifically for you?