For many years, we tent-camped, many times in very small backpacking tents. As we got older – and softer and lazier – it started to get old. All that sleeping on mats on the cold, hard ground. We wanted something a little cushier.
We got some camping cots, and those were very nice, even though they were a real bitch to pitch. Cot, mat on cot, sleeping bag on top of the mat made for a very comfortable situation. At that time, we also bought a medium-large tent that had big vestibules in both front and back. We put a little camping potty in the rear vestibule, so no more leaving the tent for a midnight pee. That was nice.
Then, we started thinking, “This is nice. How about nicer?” We got a tiny model of ALiner, the Sport. In it, we had two beds, a stove, microwave, sink, and refrigerator. The bed situation was more comfortable than the cot/mat/sleeping bag, but we were back to trekking out to the restroom in the middle of the night. Not so wonderful, and it seemed worse every year.
Then the damn dam scare hit Oroville! Evacuate immediately, because the emergency spillway that had been allowed to become active after the main spillway flew apart was going to collapse and send a 30 foot tall wave of water our way.
The dam didn’t collapse, no 30 foot tall wave of water came our way, but when we returned home we knew we needed to buy an RV that we could actually live in if the dam went South again.
The photos below are of the little ALiner, pre-dam scare and pre-Winnebago.
