Linda Hylton: Take the Camper. Keep the Fifth.

One truck.  One camper.  One fifth wheel?  In a complete turn around for Truck Camper Magazine, we embrace the fifth wheel as an excellent truck camper accessory.













We’re tough on fifth wheels.  In 2009, we even had a "Ditch the Fifth" week including, "Ken Harris: Kissing the Fifth Goodbye" and, "Don Schwanke: Fifth to Camper in Ten".  As far as we’re concerned, a fifth wheel is just a big drag.  I mean, we like big toes, but only on our feet.  And did you hear the one about the fifth wheel that could go anywhere, camp anywhere, or tow anything?  No?  Neither have we.  Like we said, we’re tough on fifth wheels.  That is until now.

Today we meet Linda Hylton and learn that a fifth wheel can make for an excellent truck camper accessory.  It turns out that a truck that can handle a truck camper can also handle a fifth wheel.  Who knew?  Best of all, you can leave a fifth wheel somewhere and use it as a seasonal base camp.  Take the camper and keep the fifth?  Interesting concept.

Their Fleetwood Caribou

Their Alpenlite truck camper

Earl and Linda Hylton

TCM: How did you get into RVing?

Linda: Earl and I retired in 1995.  At the time, we were living in the Chicago area.  Then we moved to Arizona where I was raised.  We got our first truck camper about a year later and spent two years traveling the country including a trip to Alaska. 

TCM: That sounds amazing.  But before we talk about your adventures, tell us about that first truck camper.

Linda: It was a Fleetwood Caribou.  Unfortunately, it got stolen. 

TCM: That’s terrible!  How did it get stolen?

Linda: It was in a storage yard.  We got a call one Monday morning from the owner asking if we’d picked up the camper over the weekend.  No, we hadn’t.  Someone had come in sometime between Friday evening and Monday morning and taken it. 

Since we had removed the batteries, the thieves had come prepared to take our camper.  Either they had replacement batteries with them or they had the equipment to load it onto a flat bed truck.  This most likely means that the thieves had been scoping out the storage yard and knew exactly what they wanted to take. 

TCM: I'm very sorry to hear that.  We've heard of a handful of truck campers being stolen, but it's very, very rare.  What did you replace that camper with?

Linda: We bought an Alpenlite truck camper and this time, we found a much more secure storage yard to keep it in!  Then, in 1998, Earl and I decided to go full-timing, bought a fifth wheel, and sold the Alpenlite.

TCM: So how did you go from full-timing in a fifth wheel to owning a truck camper again?

Linda: We like to get into the mountains and stay at forest service campgrounds.  It’s nearly impossible to get to these campgrounds in our fifth wheel.  Even if the campgrounds have a space big enough for a fifth wheel, there are sometimes sharp turns, low trees, and narrow spaces.  We bought our new Eagle Cap truck camper in the summer of 2009.  Now we can go places where we’d never consider taking a large fifth wheel.
 

TCM: What did you do with your fifth wheel after you bought your camper?

Linda: We put it into storage and spent four months traveling in our truck camper.  Then we came back and winterized our truck camper in Oregon and picked up the fifth wheel. 

The experience of putting our fifth wheel into storage, winterizing the camper, and getting the fifth wheel out of storage was a big hassle.  As a solution, we found a place  in Arizona to park the fifth wheel on an annual basis.  We didn’t want to be in Arizona during the summer and we knew we couldn’t spend eight months in the camper, so we ended up buying a house in Washington State.

Right now we have two places to live, the fifth wheel in Arizona and our home in Washington.  We use our truck camper for all of our travels now, both for traveling between Washington and Arizona and for other trips when we’ve reached our summer or winter home.  We really love traveling in our truck camper.  As long as we’re on the go and exploring, it’s great.  We want to go to Alaska for a third time and the Eagle Cap will be perfect for that.

TCM: Do you use the same truck for the truck camper and the fifth wheel?

Linda: Yes, but we keep the camper on the truck all the time.  Whenever we want to go somewhere, we just drive the whole rig where we need to go, even to the grocery store. 

TCM: Does your fifth wheel hitch get in the way?

Linda: No.  We had a B&W Turnover Ball Hitch installed on our truck and use their Companion Fifth Wheel Hitch.  When we take it out and remove the ball, it leaves a clean bed.  We chose that hitch purposely because we knew at some point in time we were going to get a truck camper.

TCM: Most of the people we’ve met are either fifth wheel owners or truck camper owners.  Have you ever met others who use both a truck camper and a fifth wheel?

Linda: We belong to the Escapees RV Club and we’re members of the Birds of Feather group called the Boomers.  There’s someone in our group with a fifth wheel and a truck camper.  There’s also someone on the Eagle Cap Owners forum who has a both an Eagle Cap truck camper and the same brand of fifth wheel we have.  I know there are others.  In fact, the very first fulltime RVers we ever met way back when had both a fifth wheel and a truck camper. 

Earl on Bull Trout Lake near Lowman, Idaho

With a truck camper, Earl enjoys his hobby of fishing

McFarland Campground near Salmon, Idaho

TCM: What do you like to do when you go truck camping?

Linda: Earl likes to fish.  I’m not much of fisher person myself.  I don’t have the patience.  If I’m out there fishing, I want to catch a fish in the first five minutes. 

We like going to National Parks, Forest Service campgrounds, and the like.  Basically, we like being out in nature rather than being crammed into an RV park like sardines in a can.  We always try to find places where we can camp for the least amount of money, or free.  In the four months we traveled in 2009, we toured around Idaho and drove most of the scenic routes and byways.  We just like traveling around and exploring different areas.  We also like going to ghost towns. 

I enjoy geology so we stopped by the Earthquake Interpretive Center near Mt. Borah, Idaho.  That’s where there was a big earthquake in the early 1980s.  We were living in Spokane at the time and felt the earthquake.

TCM: You’re on the road for many months at a time and living between two residences the rest of the time.  How are you handling your mail?

Linda: We use a mail forwarding service.  When we know where we’re going to be in about five days, we have the forwarding service send our mail General Delivery to a post office in that area.

Castle Rocks State Park in Almo, Idaho

City of Rocks National Reserve in Almo, Idaho

The Birch Creek Charcoal Kilns near Idaho Falls, Idaho

TCM: Do you always know where you’re going to be five days out?

Linda: We actually don’t do much planning.  We rarely make reservations in RV parks.  While we may have a general idea of where we’re going, when we’re going to be there, or the route we’re going to take - who knows?

As I said earlier, we belong to Escapees.  A great resource they have is called the Day’s End Directory.  It lists free and inexpensive places to spend the night.  That’s one of the first places I go to look for a place to stay.

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Clarno, Oregon

Galena Summit Overlook in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho

Shoshone Falls along the Snake River in Twin Falls, Idaho

TCM: That’s a great tip.  A lot of truck campers like the freedom of not planning where they will stay in advance.  How long do you tend to camp in one place?

Linda: We often stay as long as a week in one place.  Sometimes we stay two or three days at a campground.  Sometimes we stay just one night.  It all depends on what there is to do in the surrounding area.

There are so many reasons why we like to keep things open.  For example, we were in Whitehorse, Yukon and heading towards Dawson City.  We were twenty-five miles from Whitehorse when we found Takhini Hot Springs.  We decided to stop to soak in the hot springs and found they had a really nice campground, so we just stayed there for the night.  If we had prior reservations, we wouldn’t have been able to do that.

TCM: I saw in your blog that you had Torklift Glow Steps installed on your Eagle Cap.  How are they working out?

Linda: I like them a lot.  Before we had the Glow Steps, we had a large step stool that we put on the ground to help me climb onto the bumper.  Even then, the step up from the bumper into the camper was really high.  With the Torklift Glow Steps, we no longer need the step stool and I can walk right into the camper with no problem.

TCM: Truck campers with tall basements can be a challenge to get into.  That’s a great idea to add a Torklift Glow Step for anyone having that problem.  Does your dog like truck camping?

Linda: Oh yes.  We have a new puppy, Gracie, who curls up and sleeps while we drive.  She likes getting out and exploring new places and doesn’t seem at all bothered by the traveling.  The camper didn’t seem to phase her at all.  She’s a Brussels Griffon, which is a little dog.  She’s just about eight months old and twelve pounds.

TCM: That is a small dog.  Our truck camping cat weighs more than that.  What are your 2011 truck camping plans?

Linda: This summer we’re considering going into Canada to travel the Deh Cho Trail in the Canadian Rockies.  It starts in Alberta and goes into the Northwest Territories and comes back through British Columbia.  We’ll take a side trip up to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

TCM: Our first truck camping trip took us into the Canadian Rockies, Lake Louise, and the Jasper Ice Fields.  We absolutely loved it.  Please send us some pictures if you go and thank you for sharing our story with us.

Linda: We will.  And you’re welcome.

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