Our second teardrop rental experience had us more prepared, expectations higher and much more volatile weather to deal with.
Choosing the trailer…
Continuing our exploration of teardrop trailers for a quick and easy way to camp with a baby we decided to go with outdoorsy.com since they had a ton more teardrops listed nearby. We decided to rent the Mini-Sota Custom Teardrop Camper from Craig based on its awesome galley and stargazer window.
Lining up the trip
We landed on visiting Willow River State Park in Wisconsin with the following criteria:
- Availability of camping site
- Ability for drop-off delivery of trailer
- Proximity to home
- Good hiking nearby
Willow River hit all four of these with a handful camping sites open, ability for us to negotiate a fee for delivery of the trailer, a 40min drive from home and fantastic hiking to a waterfall.
With campsites filling up fast and the teardrop camper only available Thursday-Saturday we had to jump on it. This meant we had to scramble to figure out care for our dog, Jayda, for the weekend because sadly, although understandably, most rentals don’t allow pets. Luckily we have family nearby that agreed to take Jayda for the weekend, saving us some stress.
With Friday’s in Minnesota being pretty slow at both our work we were able to take the day off with minimal fuss. THE TRIP WAS ON!
Prepping to go
Disaster strikes! Six days before we are supposed to head out on our trip Amelia takes a fever. By Tuesday morning, two days before our trip, we end up having a video call with a pediatrician who tells us we can either take Amelia into a respiratory clinic to get her ears checked, wait it out or try antibiotics. With us being 99.99% sure Amelia has an ear infection we went with option 3, the antibiotics. Luckily the antibiotics did their work and by Wednesday morning Amelia was 90% back to normal. The trip is still a go!
The day before we leave I fill up our cooler with ice to cool the cooler itself down and get all our groceries. For this trip we wanted to try something clever and fun. We bought several meal kits from Lunds and Byerlys That way:
- We had something interesting to cook
- We had all the ingredients we needed
In addition to the meal kits, I bought stuff to make overnight oats for the first time, assuming they’d be the perfect low effort, baby friendly breakfast food. I rounded out the food with trail mix, bananas and yogurt. Lastly, it’s not camping if you don’t make s’mores! I made sure to pick up enough components to keep us happy.
I wrapped up Wednesday night by rounding up all the camping widgets and gizmos that are specific to camping, headlamps, camp chairs, water jugs, bug spray, s’more sticks, etc.
But wait! Disaster strikes again! Thursday morning, the day of us leaving Amelia has a rash all over her. A quick video call with another pediatrician tells us that Amelia is likely allergic to Amoxicillin, something that effects 5% of kids (lucky her). Talking with the doctor, he affirms that it will still be safe to travel and to stop administering the meds.
By 4:45pm we were on our way to camp! Clearly, our Forester isn’t going to cut it if we want to bring Jayda or if Amelia ever gets a sibling!
Campsite arrival
We arrive at our campsite, something I always take pride in picking out. My key constraints: outer ring so we aren’t back to back with other campers, close but not too close to the stinky bathrooms and as private as possible.
After unpacking the car a bit, Craig arrives with the trailer and shows us the in’s and out’s of his custom made trailer. This teardrop was a steal for everything we got included in it. Full set of dishes, cooler with ice packs, bottle of wine and coffee for the french press! Amazing! Since the trailer is custom built we could see a ton of detail went into making it perfect, from hooks and shelves to bins for your shoes and a pass-through to the galley!
Knowing that we’d be on the road during dinner time, we picked up some Aloha Poke bowls to go and a teriyaki bowl for Amelia. Yum!
That night there was rain in the forecast, so we battened down the hatches and called it a night pretty early… Or so we thought! With the stargazer window we were wowed with the night sky above our heads and Amelia was giddy with the prospect of another night in a family sized crib! It took us a while to get Amelia to settle down. All was smooth sailing until 3am when a thunderstorm hit us. We quickly closed the windows and top fan hatch not realizing the fan was holding several mosquitos against the screen with suction. A hour of lost sleep to buzzing skeeters later and we were back to dream land.
Day 2
We were lucky that Amelia was still recovering from being ill and she slept in a bit, giving us time to catch up on missed sleep from the previous night. I ventured out, made some coffee and mixed some Nutella and bananas into our experimental overnight oats to find out they are a huge success with the whole family!
We decide to quickly head out for our main hike from campsite 200 to see the falls before the weekend visitors start to arrive.
While the woods are a bit overwhelmed with invasive buckthorn the falls are amazing!
We headed back to camp to make lunch; Adobo Pork Street Tacos using the spacious galley, while Amelia jingles around with bells on her legs, watching us cook.
With the afternoon sunny, we setup the rest of camp including our newest camping gear… A rug for Amelia to play on! This allows us a nice dry place to put Amelia’s toys, a spot for us lay down with her to play and its easy to clean if it gets muddy, just hose it off since its polypropylene.
After a well deserved nap, Amelia’s auntie arrived in time for Luau Pork dinner. But as we were sitting down to eat, all was not well. Auntie, wanting to know if she should put a her rain fly on her tent asked if it would rain that night so I dutifully checked the weather. YES! It will rain tonight, in fact, right now! A popcorn shower about 10mi in diameter had sprung up. We scrambled to throw the rainfly on, move our food under the teardrops’ galley hood as the screams from others campers and hikers could be heard. It POURED, but only for 10 minutes, enough that our guac we left on the table was ruined. RIP Guac.
With all the excitement of the rain, Amelia was wiped and quickly fell asleep in the trailer while we coaxed a fire going to make s’mores and drink a bottle of wine together. Unfortunately, since it rained, once we all got to bed we were in for a very cold and clammy night. I’m not sure what we could have done to make sleeping more pleasant but Amelia waking up and trying to kick off the blankets and getting frustrated was not ideal.
Day 3 and pack up!
Our morning started off pretty slow since it had cooled off to mid fifties overnight, making it hard to leave the cosy teardrop to make breakfast. We finally got going and took everyone for a long hike along Willow River which was beautiful if not a little crowded due to all the weekend day visitors. We came back for a late lunch where we made Chicken Verde Tacos and started to pack up. Craig arrived on time to pick up the trailer and we were on our way home. Another Rogue Hogue camping trip in the bag!
Rogue Hogues 