Chuck and Chris Woods: Point the Truck and Go

What do you do after you’ve lived a couple winters on a boat in Sitka, Alaska?  You buy a truck camper and hit the road, of course! 













Chuck and Chris Woods bought their 2008 Northern Lite 10-2 CD Special Edition sight unseen from 1,500 miles away.  At the time, they had been living year-round on a boat in Sitka, Alaska and were ready for a change. 

After living on a boat, the transition to a Northern Lite truck camper was a natural one.  Now they enjoy exploring the desert and national parks of the southwest from their California home base.  As they explain it, they like to point the truck and go.  No schedule.  No worries.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Sonoita, Arizona

Chuck and Chris Woods

Camping at their son's house

TCM: How did you get into truck camping?

Chris: After our first couple of years of living in Sitka, Alaska on our forty-two foot powerboat, the new wore off.  It’s absolutely beautiful when it snows, but when it rains, it isn't so pretty.  One day in October of 2008, we decided that staying in Alaska during another winter was not something we looked forward to. 

TCM: You lived on a boat in Alaska.  Wasn’t that cold?

Chuck: The southern panhandle of Alaska isn’t bad temperature wise.  It actually felt colder when we wintered in Washington state.

Chris: In Sitka, the days were shorter in January, meaning that the sun was going down around 3:30 in the afternoon and wasn’t up and bright until 9:30 in the morning.  That only really happens for about a month.  The hardest part for us was the rain.  The lowest temperature was maybe sixteen to eighteen degrees, but that was very infrequent.

TCM: That still sounds cold for living on a boat.  How did you go from living on a boat in Alaska to getting a truck camper?

Chuck: We saw all of southern Alaska by boat, but we had not seen the interior of Alaska and Chris wanted to see it.  At first we were going to rent a motorhome for a month.  Then we put together the numbers and renting was too expensive.  I also knew that this wasn’t going to be a one shot deal.  Chris was going to love it and would want to do it more.  That’s when we decided to get a truck camper.

Antelope State Park, Salt Lake City, Utah

Willow Flat Campground, Canyonlands National Park

Zion National Park

TCM: How did you find out about Northern Lite truck campers?

Chuck: I was doing searches on the internet with different keywords.  Prineville Auto and RV in Oregon had an ad for Northern Lite truck campers and I emailed them.  I negotiated a price and bought our Northern Lite.  

We had already bought a truck and stored it at our son’s house in California.  At the time, Chris was in California visiting her mother.  From Sitka, I flew down to California, picked up the truck, picked up Chris in San Francisco, and drove up to Oregon to pick up our new camper.  

TCM: Why did you choose a Northern Lite?

Chris: We decided on the Northern Lite because it is made of fiberglass, much like boats.  Northern Lite campers are also fully insulated with rigid foam and the two-piece fiberglass shell only has one seam.  Another important factor was the length of the bed.  Most campers are not made for people over six feet tall.  This bed is a perfect size and is a standard queen size so it is easy to fit with standard sheets and blankets.

Chuck: The grey gel coat was one of the things that appealed to me about the Northern Lite.  I knew there weren’t too many of them out there.  It also was nice to get a camper that matched my truck.  We get a lot of comments.

TCM: What is the year, make, and model of your truck and camper?

Chuck: We have a 2001 Dodge 3500 Cummins diesel dually and a 2008 Northern Lite 10-2 CD Special Edition.

Benji and Chuck

Benji in his bed

Canyonlands National Park

TCM: What did you do after you picked up your camper in Oregon?

Chuck: We hit the state and national parks and southern desert for three months and 11,000 miles.  We didn’t get back to Sitka until early February.  There are only twelve miles of road in Sitka so we parked the truck and camper for the rest of the winter.

In the summer, we decided to sell the boat and move to California for family reasons.  We had reached the point where it was time for change, and we had done the boat thing for a number of years.  

We brought the boat down to Bellingham, Washington, flew back to Sitka, picked up the truck and camper, got on a ferry, and went to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.  From there we drove through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and then down to California.  When we arrived at our son’s house, we started looking for a house.  We lived in our camper until Christmas day when our new house was done being remodeled.

TCM: Did you mind living in your camper during that time?

Chuck: We’re very comfortable in our camper.  We do well there.  It’s really no different than living on a boat.

Chris: Our boat was forty-two feet long.  People would ask us, “How can you live on that boat year round, twenty-four seven?”  You have to like one another and enjoy each other’s company.  You also have to have your own interests.  

There’s a lot of down time when you are camping.  When we’re out in our camper, we read, go for hikes, and take photographs.  I also make jewelry, so I’ll play with beads and do my own thing.  We enjoy each other’s company, but we also like to do our own thing.

TCM: What do you do to optimize storage for your longer trips?

Chuck: You downsize.

Chris: When we first started boating, we’d go and buy a million cans of stuff.  We still have cans from years ago.  There’s always a grocery store somewhere nearby, so now we buy food on an as needed basis.  That way, we can use more of the storage areas for clothing.  

We put our clothes in large ziplock bags, which compresses them and keeps them from getting damp.  I like the bags.  That’s what we’re used to from the boat.  

We have one hanging area that Chuck has converted into shoe storage by installing shelves.  There is actually a lot of storage in our camper that we don’t even use.

Moki Dugway View, Utah

Colorado River, Grand Canyon

Bryce Canyon National Park

TCM: How does your dog, Benji, like the camper?

Chuck: He likes it a lot.  In the truck we have the console between the two seats.  We have a pad with a rim on it that Benji plops up on.  He spends all day on it when we have a long day of traveling.  At night in the camper, he’s learned to get under the table out of our way.  Benji’s crate goes on the dinette seat and he goes in his crate at night.  We stop about every hour and a half to two hours for a break.

TCM: You said in your email that you enjoyed the comforts of your Northern Lite camper in nineteen degree weather.  How do you stay warm in the cold?

Chuck: The Northern Lite is a well insulated camper.  It stays toasty in there.

We’ve made some modifications.  For example, even though there’s insulation between the mattress and the under cab, we noticed that we got some condensation under the mattress in cold weather.  Fortunately, we’ve been through this with boats and we knew what to do about it. 

There’s a product called Hypervent.  It’s a synthetic, woven, material with plastic hairs that are three-quarters of an inch thick that gives you a large air gap.  We put down some rigid foam insulation then the Hypervent.  It helped a whole lot because the condensation stopped.  Hypervent is a little expensive, but it’s a one shot deal and it’s over with.  

Chris: We also put the Hypervent on the outside walls of the closet as the clothes that were touching the walls of the camper were getting damp from the condensation.  It works great!

Chuck: Ventilation is the key.  You need air movement.  We’ve also added some solar to our camper roof.  Having solar has made a tremendous difference.  We hardly ever run the generator anymore.

Chris: To stay warm, we’ve also stored blankets on board and I often put a blanket on my lap.  If you’re sitting around doing nothing you’re a lot colder than when you’re doing something.

Gilbert Ray Campground, Arizona

Crooked Creek Campground, near Prineville, Oregon

Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah

 

TCM: Where do you enjoy going in your camper?

Chuck: We enjoyed British Columbia when we came through and we also like the southern desert a lot.  We go to Quartzsite, Arizona and dry camp.  That’s good wintertime cruising.  

The Grand Canyon was great.  I didn’t want to go because it was so touristy, but it was awesome.  On the way there, we went down the Moki Dugway in Utah and then toured the southern rim.  We want to go back and do the other side of the Grand Canyon.

We enjoy the National Parks.  Kodachrome was impressive, Bryce is gorgeous, and so is the Gilbert Ray campground outside of Tucson.  That’s our favorite campground.

Chris: We want to do a lot more off-roading in our Jeep.  I really enjoyed Death Valley.  That was really interesting.  Each campground is different in Death Valley.  It goes from primitive to fancy.  I would like to go to the desert when the cactus is in bloom.

TCM: What’s next?

Chuck: Burrego Springs in southern California.  Death Valley in April is a good time and we’ll probably go there again.  We definitely want to go up north and explore Canada and the interior of Alaska.  That will be an extended trip.  

We tend to take off with no schedule.  We just point the truck and start going in one direction until we want to come back.  

Chris: There are places that we’ve never been before that are close, like Lake Tahoe.  It would be nice to learn to fish in the lakes and the streams.  We ate from the sea when we were up in Sitka.

TCM: Anything else you’d like to share?

Chuck: I can’t tell you how many trips I’ve taken that I’ve come back and said, “Look at all these clothes that I haven’t touched.”  Chris wasn’t kidding that we just finished canned food that we hauled around in boats for years.  Going light is a lot easier.  You don’t have to worry.

Chris: I lived on a sailboat that was much more confined than a powerboat.  I knew that I could live in a confined space with my husband.  Our advice is to rent a truck camper set-up and try it for a couple of weeks.  Do it for at least that long so the new wears off and reality sets in.  Plus, you learn the camper and how it works.  I love our camper!

TCM: Thank you, Chris and Chuck.  We enjoy our camper, too!  We look forward to hearing more about your adventures in your Northern Lite in the future.