I believe that would be Jack Matthews' rig.

Jack just bought it. He showed me the interior and it looks very nice.

And taking it out this weekend for a real test drive (wifey along, so she'll definitely point out all the flaws). 🙄

Definitely bring along a notepad to keep track of the ideas on your first outing. I know when we first got our popup, we made a huge list of 1) things we should have brought along, 2) things we didn't need/didn't use, and 3)ideas for making things work better, especially organization. With a small camper, you gradually get more efficient in your packing. We're not there yet after 6 1/2 years with this popup. We're often close to 3000lbs for our minivan to tow!8O

Have a fun trip.
-Ken

I've been doing the car camping and multi-day river running thing for over 20 years now and have things down to a science. Checklists, adaptable for the particular river or destination and length of trip, are utterly essential. Given that most of the time we're doing multi-day river trips and everything has to fit on our boat (smaller than your camper, I can assure you) and has to be waterproof for running rapids, we've got things pared down to a fare-the-well and at the same time we travel in luxury - this ain't backpacking you know. We frequently have steak, live lobster and just about any type of gourmet food you could want, a kitchen that handles 8 readily including all prep equipment and can be expanded to 16 people in a pinch by adding a box containing the necessary additional utensils, dishes, pots and pans, etc.

As someone said, EVERY TIME you go, take a notebook and write down what you need but didn't bring and what you brought that you didn't need. Keep refining that checklist.

We did the same thing for our river trips, so that we could expand from a dozen people up to our biggest 2 day trip ever with Space City Ski Club on the Guadalupe in New Braunfels serving 250 people. We had eight kitchens set up to serve them all. We start with a basic module and duplicate. Turned it into a science and got to know serving sizes real well. Biggest 7 day trips were 28 people on the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho. We ate so good we would gain weight. 8)

I have ALWAYS eaten better on the river than at home and always seem to come home at least a few pounds heavier. Like I said, I've been practicing this since the late 80's when I started running river trips and I thought I knew a thing or two. My wife however, she has me in awe. Her and her best friend catered a camping event for 1500 people for 7 days. 8 large gas grills and I'm still stunned at the amount of institutional stainless steel pots and pans they were able to borrow.

The best thing about having YOUR system down and essentially pre-packed is that you can start throwing things in the car an hour or two before you leave, hit the grocery store on the way to load the coolers and NOT have to think much about it. Your list and pre-packed gear makes it simple.

To bring this back to rocketry, when I come to a launch, all I have to do is grab a sleeping bag and Paco Pad and the mini-kitchen box from my river gear, add the EZ-Up and roll-a-table and a cooler and toss the few bits of rocketry gear into the Jeep and I'm good to go - elapsed time no more than 20 minutes. AND, when I'm there I KNOW I won't be missing what I need - particularly the toilet paper.

I would agree with what you are saying with an exception. When I am going to fly rockets and camp, especially at MHM or Oktoberfest, I end up taking more gear than I need because I do not know if I am going to have snowstorms, ice storms, rainstorms, or windstorms or a combination of all of those and so I am having to prepare for all. I am now looking at a 5th wheel rig. I think I found a good deal that comes with the truck about 20% below book and the private owner is considering taking payments.

Haven't done much of the 'big party' camping, sounds like y'all have had some fun out there. But we've come full circle on this,,, or should I say 2 full circles at my age. Started with 'backpacking' in our young and fearless college days (early 70's),,, but without any lists or good sense. So it wasn't as much backpacking as reckless wandering. Luckily survived long enough to have kids, lost the 'fearless' part, bought a Coleman pop-up, started making those lists, and had our own version of the 'Warren method' - a couple of hours to get the food bought and packed and we were gone. With the kids grown, we sold the Coleman and started backpacking again about 10 years ago - the right way this time, good equipment, packable rain gear, titanium cookware. As y'all point out,, those lists get edited and streamlined pretty fast, especially when you have to carry it all on your back.

Now that we've lost the 'young' part as well, we'd like to enjoy a bottle of wine or cold beer with our outdoor adventures. Think the little trailer will be an improvement over the 2-man Big Agnes. I keep all my lists in Excel - as Warren noted, a different list for each situation, week-end backpack, week-long car camp, day trip,,, all with seasonal variations. Trailer's already packed with the essentials (backpacking gear minus the tent and Therm-a-rest),, and shopping for groceries tonight. But it will take some getting used to -- all that room 😀

But we digress again,, as this is a rocketry forum,, and I've been wanting to ask Warren about this 'V-bag' thing I've seen discussed. What is that? I'm still relatively green at this (1 year into my L1) and thinking about glassing a phenolic airframe for my L2 (next winter). I've glassed fins and other flat surfaces, but glassing something in 3 dimensions seems daunting (I'm the kid who ate the glue in Kindergarten and stapled my thumb in Shop class). Is the V-bag an alternative to glassing?

Vacuum bag is what they mean. You glass something and while the glue is still wet you put it in a big platic bag and suck the air out. This queezes the adhesive and helps make sure it saturates the glass fiber. It is a bit more than what I have described but those are the basics. I believe Ken Reilly and Larry Haynes have taught classes on this topic for club members. I do not have their experience as I only helped do it on helicopter interiors for air ambulances/medevac. My teacher does it for Great Lakes Airlines now. Warrren certainly knows how to do it and I have been told he is an expert.

😳 Bear... you're embarrassing me.

There are several reasons for v-bagging - one, to ensure that the fabric is thoroughly tight to the underlying substrate. Two - to ensure that the fabric is thoroughly saturated with resin (not really a function of v-bagging, but v-bagging helps) and most importantly the third reason - to makes sure that you don't have TOO much resin. The ideal weight ratio is about 45% resin and 55% fabric - roughly speaking. There are variations on this based upon the resin and fabric used, but the ideal ratio is that there is just enough resin to immobilize the fibers in the fabric relative to one another so that the strength of the individual fibers is maximized.