The Cordrays Leave Van Life: Camp Cordray Evolves, Part Two

Check out how we will roll!

We Cordrays are people of sensible practicality, although we will not deny that we are always up for an adventure. Putting the cart before the horse and buying a pull-behind travel trailer without something to pull it with has been an adventure. Add in the fact that said travel trailer cannot be parked at our current apartment abode. Welcome to the world of seat-of-your-pants-nomadic life, because our nomadic status is something that has not changed.

I have owned 4 pickup trucks in my lifetime, and Dan has owned one. I have always been a fan of a pickup man, not that van-man Dan was ever lacking in any area of attraction, believe me. The way we live, mostly outdoors and way out yonder, just begs for a better way to get a little closer to places like the peaks of Saddle Mountain. We have birthed a new mode of travel for we Cordrays.

Looking at vans in Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas during our short little weekend hops but not finding any tall enough to house my tree of a husband gave us some knowledge of what was out there and who was worth dealing with. A bevy of trucks were test-driven in the sparse amount of time Dan has off work, but none meet our particular needs. On the day-before-the night-before-Christmas, we found the truck of our dreams, and on Christmas Eve, our amazing salesman Drill (a former drill sergeant) at Sunrise Buick GMC at Wolfchase brought it to us. What an amazing experience we had at this dealership, and with this professional and personable gentleman. It couldn’t have gone more smoothly, and we are eternally grateful for Drill and for everyone at Sunrise who worked together to make it happen for us before Christmas.

Yaaaay! And, finally. We can release the rental car and we are prepared to skate should Dan’s contract not renew in February. This one owner 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT 4 wheel drive truck (babied, 86,000 miles) will pull our rolling home, no doubt about that. It has a crew cab backseat for doggies, although I doubt Miss Liberty will agree to ride back there but we will see. We love our new (to us) truck!

So here are the details of our new home sweet home, a 2024 Venture Stratus Sport. We literally fell in love with the first model we looked at. We stepped inside and knew it was “the one”. Other than not being able to hold the contents of a barn, it had everything we wanted and needed. No pop-outs, a much larger fridge, a bed that we can walk around on three sides, a proper shower, a stove plus oven, a microwave, and an awning that can be rolled out and illuminated at the touch of a button. It is pre-wired for solar power, has an outdoor shower, an outdoor fridge that will be removed to store grill and other outdoor cooking gear, and as they say, much, much more.

Dan snapped a few photos while I continued to explore all of the nooks and crannies and mentally preplanned the storage of the leaner amount of belongings we will have on board. We both felt that it was doable, so we took the leap.

Dan initiated the money transfer for purchase the day after Thanksgiving. Because the bank was actually closed (this we found out later) nothing happened on Friday. The the beginning of the week brought clerical errors and a backload of transfers that the bank was working through. To further complicate things, before we found out there were issues and it didn't fly, Dan changed his state of residency to Tennessee to make things easier with the titling and tagging. As we are living in contract housing we have no lease in our name, nor utilities, as it is all provided, therefore no way to prove that we live in Memphis, Tennessee.

Just about every nomadic person has stories of debacles related to not having an address or having an address in the “wrong” state for whatever you are trying to do. It requires plenty of research and patience, but it's just part of what it takes to live on the fly and be safe and legal as you roll down the road. We may be new to RV life, but we have learned much about how to zip glide along the ruts in the path left by those who had traveled before us.

In our very first picture together and many, many others I am the one with my eyes closed. I am light sensitive because of lupus so I have about three seconds before my eyes slam shut in full sunlight.

In this our first fuzzy picture with our new home, Dan is the one with eyes slammed shut. When someone else takes a picture for us, I am quick to say I am sure it turned out and never go look until we are somewhere else, so we can't retake that one. I think it is kind of fitting that we each look like the dorks that we are in these historic shots.

At our walk-through, we learned about the travel trailer’s various systems and how they work. I whipped out my purse-sized tape measure and took note of the dimensions of every cabinet and measured for curtains to go over honeycomb blinds and all that nesting kind of stuff. What a joy and pleasure it will be to customize our cozy rolling cabin!

Now that we have both the truck and the pull-behind, we are chomping at the bit to get back out there and go, but there are mysteries yet to solve, and a timeline that has not been revealed. As we launch into 2025 and at least one more month of another great in-between stretch until sometime in January, we wave a warm hello to my new followers and thank all of you for riding shotgun with us as I have shared our ever-evolving road story. Blessings to all, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us at Camp Cordray!

Oh, the sights we shall see when we once again roll free! Yipppeeeeeee!!!

Blessings and bliss, and can you believe all of this?

Best wishes,

Brenda Cordray

The Desert Rose