To be completely honest, if our budget was not an issue, we would be in Dacono Colorado picking up a brand new Earthroamer. If these expedition vehicles hadn’t doubled in price in recent years, it would be our first choice. Today there are more than 10 used Earthroamers on the company’s website, but the least expensive 2011 model is listed at $350,000. We are all too familiar with Bill Swail’s Earthroamer enterprise after owning model’s ER #2 and ER #125. While living out west, as newbies, we started out with a brand new Lance truck camper. Our Lance had a slide out dinette and was our very first camper. It was a wonderful camper and served it’s purpose in the warmer climates. However, we did not love the bouncy movements while turning corners, driving on dirt roads, etc. One day, while driving back from Santa Fe in high winds, we felt as if the entire rig was going to flip on it’s side! On another trip to Joshua Tree, the slide had popped out while we were driving down the freeway! Those are some of the moments I can’t shake. Our neighbors in Laguna Beach had a bronze colored Earthroamer with mountain logos sitting out in front of their house. It caught our eye everytime we passed by. Lucky for us, the dealer in Colorado had an older used ER #2 model available for purchase at a reasonable price. Our new used Earthroamer was more of an expedition vehicle than an RV or truck camper. The cabover was molded right onto the ford truck, so we could enter to camper while driving. This was one of our favourite features. With the Lance, we had to pull off the road and enter from the rear if we wanted to use the bathroom or grab a cold drink. In 2012, I drove the ER from California to CT with our dog Henry who has since passed. The trip was amazing however I was forced to hold the steering wheel with two hands as the truck had a mind of it’s own. The kinks were not yet worked out with the first few models, so we strategized, obsessed and dreamed of our perfect ER. Of course, there is no such thing as companies are constantly making changes and improving their products. Earthroamer was no exception and we watched the improvements with each truck. Eventually, we bit the bullet and bought ER #125, a copper/gold beauty with gigantic tires! Our ER was lightly used and checked all the boxes, including a full bathroom vs the common wet bath. (It also wiped out our savings account!) The later models started adding the popular dinette feature, but this was a year or two after our purchase. Our expedition vehicle dream was realized and when we were not off exploring, the ER was parked in front of our pink house just a few blocks away from the pacific ocean. Paradise in every sense of the word.

Life has a way of happening and a few years later, the job in Newport Beach was not working out and my husband had an itch to leave and start something new back in NYC. So, we packed up the house, jumped into the ER and took an amazing 5-6 week trip back east. In order to start a new business, we had no choice but to sell the ER to fund the business. The resale as always was strong and we said good bye a few months later. That was in 2014, and in 2017 after yearning to get back out on the road, we purchased a used 25 ft Airstream Eddie Bauer. This was like having a condo on wheels and we took several east coast trips together. The space and comforts were amazing, but there was one huge problem. I couldn’t handle the rig alone. It was a more complicated two person ordeal. The airstream sat in our driveway much of the time. To be fair, we were also busy running a start up company in the city which as we all know does not allow for much free travel time. It was not the type of business that allowed for remote working. Again, because we bought a lightly used model, we put an ad online and and watched it pull away in the snow from our CT driveway a few weeks later.

Fast forward to 2019. The company was acquired and my husband was now busy working for the firm that purchased us in NYC. I was able to retire and found some new found freedom. We knew our camping time together was going to be limited until we were both retired. An expensive expedition vehicle was out of the question now, so we came up with the “tiny house” idea of truck camping and started researching, attended the overland expo in VA and finally flew out to Colorado once more to visit our first choice – Hallmark Mfg. We already had the Ford 350 from our Airstream days, so most of the truck campers fit our budget nicely. Our experience with the Lance kept pushing us away from anything roomy with slides. Also, we wanted to be warm in case we stumbled upon cold weather in Canada, Maine or or the northwest. The new Cirrus truck campers caught our attention, but once again, we remembered how the high profile camper felt unstable on the roads in certain weather conditions, especially high winds. It was tough not to fall in love with the modern interior and dinette configuration in the Cirrus. But we moved on and continued to compromise on features until we finally ended up with our final choice – a small, self contained, low profile pop up truck camper. After spending a full day with the folks at Hallmark, we spec’d out our camper and placed the order in October 2019. Specifically, we choose the Hallmark Ute model because we insisted on a bathroom vs a porta potty and Hallmark offered a cassette toilet ,which was one of the most important items we would not compromise on. (Our ER’s had the cassette toilets, so we were spoiled by never having to go to a dump station.) Some of the features we added included solar panels, inverter, lithium batteries and extended north south king size bed. Because Hallmark is a custom shop, our rig would take aprox 5-6 months, bringing us to March 2020! Waiting, planning and dreaming……