apache pop up — camp1899

home on wheels tour….

August 31st, 2011 0

welcome kayla & her husband michael! kayla is a blog reader who sent me photos of her apache that I am head-over-heels in love with and now totally want one for myself! i had never seen or heard of the vintage apache’s and wonder why oh why they aren’t still made.. how much better than canvas. i immediately emailed with tons of questions and requests for more photos please! we ended up with a really fun post for all of you in blog land.. anyone else reading have an apache? if so, send in your photos, we’d love to see them… thanks so much kayla for taking time to answer some questions….

1. What made you decide on a pop-up versus another type of trailer?
We really didn’t want a truck, we’re just not truck people. We had kind of already decided what kind of car we wanted and it has a tow max of 5000lbs, but it’s really not recommended that we tow over 3500lbs. That put us into pop-up territory mainly.

2. For those who have never seen an Apache Hard Side, what can you tell us about them?
They are super neat! I had never seen one before we bought, but I liked what I saw, googled it and fell in love. Set-up starts out like a regular pop-up but the door is attached to the side walls, not the ceiling. The beds slide out, but the bed ends fold up like a puzzle and hook onto the celing inside. The kitchen folds up just the same. They also still manufacture parts for them-that is a huge plus!

3. What are the benefits (and negatives.. if there are any) to a hard side over a soft side?
There is no canvas whatsoever, so we can fold ‘er up right after the rain without a chance of mildew. We camped through a thunderstorm and still slept peacefully during the night, so we feel safe and secure in the camper. The windows are plexiglass so we have beautiful views without letting the a/c out during the summer, or heat out during the winter, but we still have screens for letting the breeze in. Hard sides do hold heat/ac better than a soft side.

4. What do you love about a pop-up and what’s not so great?
It’s very easy to haul and can be stored in my garage at home. I wouldn’t want to travel full-time in a pop-up because of the set-up and tear down but because we are occasional campers, it doesn’t bother me enough to think about giving her up.

5. What amenities do you have in the camper?
We have two pull out beds, one full size on each end. The dinette table also turns into a small twin/full bed. It came with a propane stove and hand pump sink but we took both of those out for more counter space. We bought a hot plate for cooking-we also use an electric griddle or the microwave we added. It came with an ice-box that we removed and replaced it with a mini-fridge.

6. What do you pull your Apache with and how heavy is it?
We bought a 2009 Acura MDX because we knew one day we’d have a camper, our camper weighs 1390lbs according to the manual.

7. For someone looking into a pop-up what would you consider must know advice?
This is our very first camper so we were newbies-pretty much I googled “rv park courtesy” and “things first time rv-er’s should know”. We made plans to go with friends our first time out, that helped us when we couldn’t figure something out- like how to get the trailer tongue off the hitch!

8. Where have you been so far and what are your future travel plans?
We’ve camped in Dahlonega, Ga at The R-Ranch in the Mountains Resort (it is members only and our friends have a membership), we’ve also camped closer to home on Lake Lanier at Shoal Creek Campground and Old Federal Park. We are helping organize the Southeastern Apache Meetup at Lake Hartwell this fall. And we planned our first week-long camping vacation in our Apache at Grayton Beach State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida this September. This park is unique in that on one side is a rare coastal dune lake and on another side is the ocean, only 300 yards of sand separate the bodies of water- talk about gorgeous views!