clikrf8
Senior Member
I want to thank the admins for offering a new forum for us "others". We were quite happy with our Four Wheel Camper "Eagle" but needed more room for photography equipment and dog. Also, love my tacoma but it was too under-powered with its 4 cylinder engine. Several of you pointed out that braking would be a problem and it was: coming out of a tunnel on Washington's Hwy 20, we almost lost it around a corner hubby took too fast and brakes weren't up to cutting speed fast enough. A scare that had us rethinking our options plus Tacoma was just too uncomfortable for his back (T6 vertebra crushed a few years ago).
We explored our financial options (retired and still reeling from mistrust of financial advisors/bankers), took a deep breath and decided to go for it. Life is short and too many things to see and do in a shorter and shorter time. First was the truck: we researched our choices, hubby being the truck expert wanted certain features: diesel, 4x4, off road package, long bed, extra cab, Super Duty Ford. I checked daily on Auto Trader and found us a beauty: 2008 Ford F250 with low miles (33k) with everything on our list plus installed Air Bags/inside pump, Lo Jack, Sirius, towing package. We took a bigger deeper breath and took out a loan (we always paid cash, rarely relying on loans) to pay it off in 8 years.
Next, we found a buyer for our FWC, a nice Canadian who knew exactly what he wanted and paid close to our asking price. I am glad it is going to a new home sitting on his 2012 Nissan equivalent to our Tacoma.
We looked for several months for a camper, knowing that finding a used one was difficult at best as most Hallmarks and Outfitters were in Colorado. Another deep breath to buy a 2013 Hallmark Ute for our long box Ford. Yes, it is heavier but it is bigger and has more items standard. Hubby wanted a full bath (funny as I didn't and would have been happy with porta potti/outside shower). It still has room for us to both sit comfortably at the shortened dinette and look out the BIG windows. The soft top is insulated, there is a molded kitchen counter with a double sink, kitchen window with SS mini blinds, SS backsplash, Gorgeous SW motif upholstery, Solar system with 2 AGM batteries and 2000 watt inverter, rack/ladder/cage, locking shovel/ax set, audio center, and extended bed. $$$$ but life is short.
We picked it up from the factory in Colorado and headed off to circle around the US Southwest for photo ops. Snow chased us out of Colorado so we hung around Southern Utah for 3 weeks. I am busy editing images and will give a recap of our experiences later. For the most part, we really like our camper. The Ward family at Hallmark were wonderful to deal with and will fix a few issues we encountered. It is a spacious, well thought out, homey camper. The little details are thoughtful and innovative. They love building campers.
So, back to editing images. I have attached a small image of our truck/camper from our campsite at Walker Lake in Nevada.
We explored our financial options (retired and still reeling from mistrust of financial advisors/bankers), took a deep breath and decided to go for it. Life is short and too many things to see and do in a shorter and shorter time. First was the truck: we researched our choices, hubby being the truck expert wanted certain features: diesel, 4x4, off road package, long bed, extra cab, Super Duty Ford. I checked daily on Auto Trader and found us a beauty: 2008 Ford F250 with low miles (33k) with everything on our list plus installed Air Bags/inside pump, Lo Jack, Sirius, towing package. We took a bigger deeper breath and took out a loan (we always paid cash, rarely relying on loans) to pay it off in 8 years.
Next, we found a buyer for our FWC, a nice Canadian who knew exactly what he wanted and paid close to our asking price. I am glad it is going to a new home sitting on his 2012 Nissan equivalent to our Tacoma.
We looked for several months for a camper, knowing that finding a used one was difficult at best as most Hallmarks and Outfitters were in Colorado. Another deep breath to buy a 2013 Hallmark Ute for our long box Ford. Yes, it is heavier but it is bigger and has more items standard. Hubby wanted a full bath (funny as I didn't and would have been happy with porta potti/outside shower). It still has room for us to both sit comfortably at the shortened dinette and look out the BIG windows. The soft top is insulated, there is a molded kitchen counter with a double sink, kitchen window with SS mini blinds, SS backsplash, Gorgeous SW motif upholstery, Solar system with 2 AGM batteries and 2000 watt inverter, rack/ladder/cage, locking shovel/ax set, audio center, and extended bed. $$$$ but life is short.
We picked it up from the factory in Colorado and headed off to circle around the US Southwest for photo ops. Snow chased us out of Colorado so we hung around Southern Utah for 3 weeks. I am busy editing images and will give a recap of our experiences later. For the most part, we really like our camper. The Ward family at Hallmark were wonderful to deal with and will fix a few issues we encountered. It is a spacious, well thought out, homey camper. The little details are thoughtful and innovative. They love building campers.
So, back to editing images. I have attached a small image of our truck/camper from our campsite at Walker Lake in Nevada.