Tracking the Teardrop Trailer Trajectory

One of Gregg's big dreams has been to build his own teardrop camp trailer.  This year, after much researching, reading, sketching, planning, drawing, measuring, and adjusting, he is doing it!  It's been fun to watch him to be so excited about something and then to really see it come to shape just has he had imagined.  It's also been so fun to watch the kids get so excited about it whole process.  Gregg is so patient with their help and they have really adopted the whole project as their own, too.  I've posted some of these process photos elsewhere (mostly in May photo round up, but I'm going to compile them here now, and continue to add new photos of the process as they come.  We hope to be camping in this thing by the end of summer!

4 May 2019: Trailer hitch install day!  It took longer than expected due to a pesky muffler and heat shield.  But it's on!  And it works!

We got creative with holding the hitch in place while being bolted.

Ta-da!

18 May 2019: The trailer kit was purchased yesterday at Harbor Freight, and today is the day for assembly!  The kids were helpful in sorting and passing bolts and nuts and washers to Gregg as he needed them.

20 May 2019: Axle attachment!

24 May 2019: Wired up!  And wheels!

31 May 2019: Home Depot trip to buy the wood for the teardrop box!  Gregg got the walls cut, too!

Yes, they're so excited!

So you can see the shape.

My fingers make a cameo in these shots.  haha

1 June 2019: Today the walls were put together.  This was definitely a fun and full day of framing and drilling and screwing and gluing.  And of course testing it out!

 9 June 2019: The roof is attached!  (At least, most of the way.)

17 June 2019: Roof = done!  We also threw in an old camping foam pad and a pillow to test it out.

22 June 2019: Door on!  The trailer takes its maiden voyage around the neighborhood - and it didn't rattle off!

25 June 2019: A little late night painting sesh ended in the end of these basketball shorts for Gregg.

26 June 2019: Paint = done!  Doesn't it look snazzy?!

13 July 2019: Poly pretty much dry (and cured (finally! that wait took forEVER and was SO stinky!)), temporary stripe painted on (the white paint didn't stick to the poly very well, so we'll have to redo that), and windows complete!  This thing is ready for another spin around the block!

18 July 2019: Testing out the beds!  Gregg cut the foam pads we bought at Smith and Edwards to size and we threw in some blankets and pillows to see how it all felt!  We're so close!  (Just need a couple vents and a few last finishing touches!)

5 August 2019: At last!!  Our first ever night spent in our Tearanosaurus Rex!  We threw some blankets and pillows and hot dogs in the trailer and hitched it up to the Subaru after Gregg finished with work.  We drove up the road out of Huntsville up South Fork Canyon (is that what it is called?) to Dry Bread Pond camping area.  It's just disbursed campsites, but we found a good one in a little grove of aspens, cooked up our hot dogs, and enjoyed the sounds of nature (ie a sheep herd grazing through our spot).  The fan Gregg bought to circulate the air kept us comfortable during the night.  The kids slept great (minus a couple wake-ups in the middle of the night with bad dreams).  Gregg and I slept okay, but that is normal for camping.  Haha.  We discovered a few more tweaks we needed to add (like hooks/pockets for storing our keys/phones/shoes), but all in all we were so pleased with how well it worked out!  We were home by 8:30 the next morning so Gregg could work!  It is a total game changer to just hook up the trailer and pull away instead of have to pack up sleeping bags and mats and the tent.  Bring on the weekday camping!

29 August 2019: My friend Marcy asked for pics of our finished trailer, inside and outside, and I realized that I hadn't really taken any "good" ones of the inside to post here.  Not that these are good, either, because it's just hard to take pics inside such a small space.  But here's an idea of what the interior looks like with our bedding inside.  Also, I snapped another pic of the outside, because it shows the most recent addition: the rain "gutter" that Gregg added before our Monte Cristo campout (and which came in really handy for keeping the rain out while we were there).

2 May 2020: After a temporary test run sleepover in the garage with the kids on April 30th, Gregg went to town on our teardrop remodel - he cut out the shelf that the kids slept on last year, leaving enough for some storage for us but leg room for us to turn over in the night and then he installed a bunk bed at the front for the kids!