When I bought the truck and camper it was a few years before it was known as the White Turtle I. One of my son’s said that it was like a turtle that it carried its house on it’s back and it was white.
So started the White Turtle line. I also never planned it to be the first of a series of campers. When I bought it I actually thought it would be the last camper I bought. It had everything that I wanted and honestly a lot more than I needed. It was a GREAT truck with four wheel drive to get me to the places that I needed to get to. An amazing camper that had everything a person could ask for including the kitchen sink and after a lot of small updates and additions it was perfect.
Some of the benefits of the set-up was that it was easy to drive. Could go just about any place. Had all the luxuries of home and office. Was great in the heat and amazing in the insane cold. -20C without power and it was comfortable all night. -30 and -40 with power and it was toasty warm like home.
Changes were a coming
But like so many other things in life our needs and abilities change. My perfect unit had one flaw that effected me more than others and that was going from the front to the back each morning and night. With my health issues it proved to be a huge issue to move all the photography gear up and down those stairs.
After a long time of considering what to do I made the difficult decision to sell White Turtle I. I decided to move on to a unit that I could go from the front to the back. It was a REALLY hard decision but one that I was set to do for my health as much as anything.
The units
2002 GMC 2500HD
1992 Nothern Lite truck camper
The list of mods was long, many to tweak a otherwise great design. A few of the bigger ones were:
- New Lino
- Carpet
- New drapes
- Storm windows
- Vent inserts
- New and an extra battery
- Revised storage
- Gear trailer
- Battery monitor
- New power center
- back-up camera
- Driving lights
White Turtle I Gear Trailer
When I head out shooting I never know how much or what stuff I am going to need. As much as I love smaller RV’s like the truck camper carrying gear even with one person is tight. So I bought an old trailer that I converted with the help of my boys to a cargo carrier. It was GREAT!! Small and light so I could move it by hand and it carried a lot of gear. We built a side shelf that clipped on the side of the trailer that allowed us to cook and to repair things on. On the front of the trailer over the tongue we made a platform for my boots and shoes so they could stay outside and dry.
