ALASKA WEEK PART 2: Art Davidson's Photographic Journey |
| Angela White | Wednesday, 22 July, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Art Davidson has been truck camping for twenty-five years. He’s traveled coast-to-coast and up to Alaska. Here's his photographic journey.  Art first got our attention when he submitted five jaw dropping photos for the 2009 Truck Camper Magazine Calendar Contest. He went on to win the month of May and shared a brief account of his story for the calendar announcement. Naturally, Art’s five photos and short story left us wanting more. As part of Alaska Week, Art tells us about his twenty-five years of truck camping and shows us some incredible photos of his trip to The Last Frontier.
Art Davidson's Photographic Journey Mabel and I have been married for forty-nine years, since 1960. During our first year of marriage, we tried tent camping. Then I built a fold-up tent camper, which we used for several years. When our children came along, we bought a travel trailer, two mini-motorhomes, and then, in 1983, our first truck camper, a new Real Lite truck camper. Our second camper was a Lance and now we have a Bigfoot. Truck campers have given us the opportunity to see much of the United States and Canada. I owned my own outdoor power equipment business for many years, but have been retired for about five years. Now I enjoy the opportunity to travel, go boating, go fishing, and take photographs. I’ve been into photography since I was a kid. I have a photo in the 2009 Truck Camper Magazine calendar, for the month of May, and one in the 2009 Alaska’s Parks Highway Magazine. Throughout all of our travels I have kept a log of our fuel, camping trips, and maintenance. Our three truck campers have made it possible to save money on fuel, meals, and lodging. First of all, the fuel costs on a truck camper are a lot less than a motorhome or trailer. When you are camping, you are not generally eating out in restaurants and paying for hotels. You can boondock in various places, which saves camping fees. Truck campers also have an amazing resale value.
Real Lite The Real Lite was a full-size, eleven-foot camper. It had a good size wet bath and the camper had a great layout. When you came in the back door, the bathroom was on the left, the table was on the right, and there was an L shaped kitchen. It had lighter laminated wall construction and pebbly aluminum siding that was laminated to the paneling on the inside. Truck campers here in the Northeast were almost non-existent when we bought our Real Lite, which we special ordered with custom work. I also ordered a new Ford F150 pick-up to put the camper on, a Ford F150 HD. The Ford dealer couldn’t get us the F150 HD, so he sold us a Ford F350 he had in stock for a good price. This was fortunate for us because the F150 HD would not have handled the weight of the camper. Dealers back then really didn’t know what it took to carry a truck camper. We had the Real Lite camper until about 1999. We used to do a lot of weekend camping. Over the years, I have kept a log in our truck with all the trips we took. In the Real Lite, we traveled throughout the Northeast United States and Canada and attended our National Campers and Hikers Association campouts and conventions. I served as a Director for Eastern New York State. Our three kids grew up camping and were able to make many friends and see much of the United States. We purchased that camper $8,500 and wound up selling it for $4,000. That’s not a bad deal considering we enjoyed it for sixteen years.
Lance 945 In May of 1999, we bought a Lance 945 from Bill Penney at East End Campers in New York. Four years later, a tree branch fell on the camper and it caused a small hole in the roof. During a West Coast trip, we went out to the Lance factory in California and they put on a new roof. Unfortunately, that didn’t solve the leak problem in the sidewall. After an over cab strut pulled out, I took the camper to Outdoor Express, a Lance Dealer in West Virginia, who did a great job rebuilding the side of the overhang and fixing the leak problem. Through the whole experience, Lance backed their product. With that camper, we went to Augusta, Maine and Bar Harbor National Park. We also took the ferry across onto Campabello Island, FDR’s summer home, and went to Fundy National Park. We toured all around Nova Scotia, Vermont, and New Hampshire. There is so much to see in New England. We really enjoyed going to the Indian River Inlet in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. Our truck camper was nice because we would park up front near the water. The best part is that the front area is available only for those who don’t require hook-ups. Those who require hook-ups are situated at the rear of the campground.
Bigfoot 3000 Series In June of 2004, we purchased our 2003 Bigfoot 30C10.11 slide-out camper. We currently have a 2007 Chevrolet LT 3500 Crew Cab Dually. We also bought oversized 19.5” Rickson wheels and tires. We have Super Duty Air Lifts, Torklift tie-downs, extended SuperHitch, AFE air intake, Magnaflow exhaust, and PPE performance tuner. The truck gets up to fourteen miles per gallon with the camper on. We wanted a dry bath because we were planning on going out for longer periods of time. We visit family from Oklahoma to Florida. We park in their driveways and hardly ever use a private campground. With our truck camper, we can park anywhere. In fact, we never used any private campgrounds on our trip to Alaska and back. We either boondocked or used federal or provincial parks. We participate in a camp for inner city children who live in New York City. It’s for kids who don’t get out of the city. Four hundred kids per season attend camp in the Catskills. Ninety-nine percent of them can’t afford to pay. The camp provides Christian training, playing, swimming, and archery. It’s great for the kids who live in New York City. We volunteer and do some maintenance work. We take the camper along with a small cargo trailer for tools when we help out. We also travel with our cat, Suzie, who is only a year old. In our truck we have a set-up behind the seat with her litter box and play area. Unfortunately, our truck and camper windows don’t line up, so we have another litter box in the camper. Mabel walks her on a leash sometimes and Suzie also loves to lie out on the dashboard.
Alaska We went up to Alaska with our Bigfoot about a year ago, which was a 12,300 mile trip in nine weeks. Up in Alaska, I’d say that every fifth vehicle was a truck camper. Even the renters were offering truck campers. We drove through the Canadian Rockies, to the Top of the World highway, took a ferry, and drove sixty-miles of dirt and gravel road to Chicken, Alaska. You can pan for gold in Chicken, Alaska. We purchased fuel, and camped overnight for free. It surprised us, but the condition of the dirt road was really pretty decent. The border crossing was only open from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM every day. The United States border agent lives in a house on the border. While talking to him, we found out that he was originally from Brooklyn, New York. We spent a lot of time visiting with friendly people on our travels. We went all through Alaska to Fairbanks, Anchorage, Denali, and the Kenai Peninsula. One day, at church, we talked with a well known local artist, Norman Lowell, who invited us visit his gallery. We took a long winding driveway through the woods to his gallery. It looked like a Fifth Avenue gallery that was probably about 10,000 square feet with a player piano. His paintings of Alaska’s landscape are awesome. Check out his web site normanlowellgallery.net. Nearby, we met another local artist who carves moose antlers, wood, and ice. We took the Cassiar Highway near the West Coast to Hyder, Alaska to view the grizzly bears up close near the Tongass National Forest. Afterwards, we drove through British Columbia, stopping at the Bigfoot factory, and back into the States. We went through the Rockies via Glacier National Park and then to the RV Hall of Fame. When we realized there wasn’t a new truck camper in the Go RVing Hall, we let the people know how we felt.
For more information about the truck camper manufacturers and gear companies, please visit our Buyers Guide. If you liked this article, check out: ALASKA WEEK PART 1: Dave Casal's First Trip to the Last Frontier Dave Casal's lifelong dream of going to Alaska almost became a nightmare. Meet Dave and realize why we're rooting for him to go back. Go Dave! ALASKA WEEK PART 3: Barb Landis's Alaska Plan Pays Off For our third and final installment of Alaska Week, Barb Landis shows us how truck camping the Last Frontier will exceed your expectations. Plan on it. |
