Just Purchased the New-To-Us Camper

After searching for nearly two months we finally found a camper that we could agree on and that was in our price range. We wanted to find something to get out of the tent camping scene so we decided to find a pop-up camper to try for the season. We didn't want to spend a lot in case we decide this is just not for us. The bad thing finding something that wasn't in too poor of condition, useable and available proved to be pretty difficult. My goal price was under $800. If we did find something in this price range it was usually in pretty rough condition or already gone - these things go fast! While I was looking at this one the party selling it received four phone calls! Which brings me to the camper we finally purchased.

We found in a 1974 Bethany Citation 88 in Sycamore, IL. The alert came up through my craigslist iPhone app and I called right away on it. I had never heard of a Bethany Camper but for 37 years old it looked pretty decent in the pictures and was priced within our budget!  A bit of information about the Bethany campers can be found here: http://www.popupcamperhistory.com/bethany.php.

We made the hour drive and was able to see it with about twenty minutes of daylight left. The outside looked decent - and the canvas (real canvas) looked pretty good too - just a couple of very small tears which I felt I could repair. What I didn't really see was the actual condition of a few of the screens. The side screens on the wings ended up looking pretty bad as did the road side screen. The others seemed OK. The interesting thing about this was the fact that it did not have a cable and telescoping lift system - this camper uses a weighted pop up lift system - so easy that one person can lift the top solo.  The condition seemed OK, my wife liked it enough, it didn't smell so we we snagged it up. We made it home on old tires right before the rain came - phew!

Below are some pictures I took of the camper the next day after we got it home. It's going to be a project - but I hope a fun one! The whole album can be found: