Welcome to the Family, Little Red Caboose!

 For years, I've wanted a camping trailer. I grew up with a pop up Steury camper:

That's my fabulous late aunt. This picture was probably around 1980. My parents bought this trailer around 1976. It's totally a statement to the 70s decor principals. Green and white striped canvas, the big orange tarp... (this photo is a picture I took during a slide show...you know like the old days...)

Yellow-orange curtains, yellow panel on the fridge, cushions in a matching green with giant flowers. This picture was the summer of 1988 (I'm pretty sure, because I had cut my long hair short for our band trip to Florida that May).  

That trailer was a fortified tank. We took it off roading, and camped on Crown Land (land that is owned by the government of Canada and is just wilderness....accessed often through hydro line access roads...hydro is what we call electricty in Canada). 

This was at the far end of the hunt club my Dad belonged to. This would have been around 1987-1988. My Dad (the man closest to the truck, the other one pulling the winch cable was my boyfriend) and tried to turn around by driving in the shallow water, and the truck got stuck on a submerged log. That's an International Scout II, 1974? It used to be all yellow with wood vinyl sticker panels. What a beast. The woman on the log is my Mom. After they killed the truck battery using the winch, my Mom and Dad took the canoe across the lake (they had a small motor) to get to the hunt camp and find help. My boyfriend and myself (17?) were left to look after my 3 year old brother.  Yup. It was as crazy as it sounds. My parents didn't get back until after dark (and I think they ran out of gas for the motor). I honestly don't remember what happened after that. Keep in mind too, that my Dad had had a quadruple heart bypass the year or so before this!

In 1989 they bought a second hand Coleman trailer that would be easier for my Dad to manage. We took it on a 3-4 week road trip to Newfoundland and PEI. It was nice to be modern finally but it had it's own issues.

Like getting flat tires frequently. When I went off to university in the fall of 1990, I got to take the fridge from the Steury. It was great! 

When Rob and I started dating, we bought a tent. I had tent camped on canoe trips, but I missed having a trailer! My parents bought a Hi-Lo which we borrowed in the fall of 1999 for a road trip, and while it was great, it wasn't perfect either (Rob is too tall to sleep widthwise in trailers!). 

When our kids were little, his parents passed their tent trailer on to us. It was an ingenious little trailer. 

They had used it all the time when the kids were going up, in the 70s. This is the back of the actual trailer, it opens up to be the kitchen, and hence, the front of the camper.  The roof tips open to one side and became the floor.

This is the tongue, or the front end. There is a zip on room covering the kitchen area at the back, and to the right is where the roof opens, laying on the ground and providing a second bed. 

This was during set up. You can see the hard floor, which is actually the roof. I don't remember exactly how the bunk worked on that side. I believe the other bunk slide out, as seen in the picture above. 

It was a cool tent, but there were issues with the zippers--it was 30-40 years old when we were using it. We considered getting new canvas made, but our kids were not the happiest campers when they were little, and we passed the trailer on to an eco-retreat/farm. 

When the kids were a bit older, we bought a second, larger tent (our first was very small, 2 person). That lasted for awhile, considering we didn't camp that often. Years later, 10 years ago, we bought another large tent, and went on a 10 day road trip to Quebec with the kids. We used a box trailer that Rob had, and he built a shelf at one end to use as a kitchen, complete with a bracket for our patio umbrella, and a cord to plug in a fluorescent light fixture. Yes, like from the garage. He rigged it up in the patio umbrella. However, we found out they don't like bright lights in Quebec "national" parks! 

For years, I tried to get him to invest in another trailer. The pod or teardrop style became popular, but there was always the issues of where to store it, and how would he fit in it anyhow. We went to the RV show and camping show a couple times. I loved the Safari Condo by Alto. Expensive. Rooftop tents became popular but I flat out refused to sleep on top of the FJ Cruiser. Rob saw a few off road trailers, but they were so expensive. It felt like we were going to be tenters forever. 

I still kept my eye on Facebook Marketplace, to see if anything interesting would come up. A little red trailer showed up last summer, but I didn't pay attention. Rob saw it though. He felt it was more than he wanted to spend.  It was still available this winter, and the price dropped a little. We decided it was time. It was unique, rugged, off-road capable. We drove the 1.5 hours to go see it. 

The cabinet in front of Rob opens downwards, and it's the kitchen. There's a two burner stove that slides out, and the back of the door has a cutting board. There's also storage. There's a large water tank with faucet beside the cute little propane tank.   The awning is also really good quality.

We have called this cavity, The Crypt. It will be where our fridge goes, on a slide out.

I've been against getting a roof top tent for on the truck, but this one isn't nearly as high. It is small though.  That cabinet is the same as the one on the other side, but no stove or cutting board. 

They moved very slightly on the price, and we went for lunch to discuss it. Of course we were going to get it!! We've named it the Little Red Caboose.  We went back last week to pick it up, from Mobilife RV in Kitchener. 

They cleaned it up SOOOOO nice. I thought the cutting board would be trash, but it's spotless. The stove had been a little disgusting, but it's like new. A new battery. And, the previous owner dropped off a brand new side cabinet!! No hardware for it, but we can get that. Rob was trying to figure if there's a way to mount it as a 3rd cabinet, but he might just keep it in the garage for storage until we need it.

This company, AT Overland made this model up to a few years ago but this one is from 2006.. This is the Horizon. They have another model without the side cabinets, but they do mainly truck conversions now.

First purchase was a hitch thingy so it would tow level.

The next upgrade was a new rooftop tent. I suggested we try this one out first, but Rob wasn't interested. It's considered 2 person, but yeah, it would be tight. We went to the Sportsman Show so we could see a variety of tents in person, and decided on a Amber Adventure tent, a ginormous one. The bed will be bigger than we have at home I think!

In other news, I've started a YouTube Channel, to chronicle our adventures, and to go along with our Instagram. I'll let you know once I start to post. 

Returning from Jamaica, October 2025

 The last morning. We opted to bring our own bags to the lobby, which totally confused the staff that was trying to set up what time the porter should come pick up our bags. We only had a carry on suitcase each. 

I popped into Crema for one last latte. 

Breakfast was for the birds LOL

We really hated this, but no one seemed all that bothered. You could tell the staff was annoyed but it was routine.

Finding out about our transportation was confusing. We were never told what kind of transportation we'd have. We didn't know if it was a private van again, or what. There were a lot of people in the lobby, including the couple from Toronto. At some point they told everyone the bus was here and we went out. It was still confusing. Apparently we were on a small bus type vehicle with about 20 people.

The drive was okay. The driver played Bob Marley music and I was really wondering if Marley and Shaggy were the only famous Jamaican musicians. Sometimes the driver would turn the music down and tell us some history or  a fact, but he didn't have a mic so it was impossible to hear him.

Some day I'll get to visit my bank while we're away on vacation somewhere!

We had been told on one of cruise ship excursions in Jamaica that KFC actually stood for "Keep from cooking" (as in, going there keeps Momma from having to cook).

We got dropped off at the front of the airport. It's not huge, but we had no clue where to go. Except the bathroom, LOL. There didn't seem to be any signs. There were check in counters by the doors, but not our airline. We walked down the hall and found a Club Mobay booth by the security. I watched videos, but things change. One video even said they take you through immigration when you leave. You do not go through immigration when you leave. There is also more than one lounge. 

There is a priority line for Club Mobay visitors for going through security. That's nice, but it wasn't particularly fast when you get stuck behind someone that is getting their bag searched. I couldn't believe all the things that were on the confiscated table behind the agent. I commented and she laughed and said she's always amazed at what people have with them. 

After going through security, we walked down the hall and saw a booth/sign that indicated which lounge to go to based on what gate your flight is departing from. We went to the one it said to, and were taken downstairs first.

We opted for lounge seats, though perhaps not the best choice for me LOL.  I needed a child's chair!

I got a rum and Diet Coke and it was the strongest drink I'd had all week. We checked out the buffet, but I wasn't terribly hungry yet, it was only about 10:45am.  Rob found stuff to eat. Then he went into a different lounge downstairs  to explore their buffet, and said it was better, so we moved. It was rather warm in the lounges and we decided to see what upstairs was like. It was really busy, but there were our friends from Toronto again. 

We heard our flight being called, so we went to the gate and they were rushing everyone through. They weren't boarding by zone, they said they wanted to get the plane loaded quickly. In fact, I was a bit ahead of Rob and a male flight attendant grabbed my carry on, asked me what row, and rushed my bag up and into the overhead bin! Usually they don't want to help lifting the bags! We knew that extremely bad weather was coming to Toronto, so we think they were trying to get going as soon as possible.

It was an average flight back. I don't like not having seat back screens though.

Apparently there's a new highway being built to bypass most of Montego Bay.  It would be nice if there was a more direct route to Negril/south coast, but I imagine traffic is important to the small towns between Montego Bay and Negril. 

South shore of Cuba

Rainbows in the sky! (Well, where else would they be?! You know what I mean LOL). This was over Cuba.

I love these little sandbars that grow into small islands. My dream is to one day sail around the Bahamas.

I instantly recognized Nassau and the cruise port.

You can see the new Royal Caribbean beach club right across from the cruise piers.  They were still working on it in October. It looks so bare, I can't imagine there's much vegetation growth before it opened.

And look! Some cruise ships!

Remember the bag of Doritos I grabbed from the catamaran trip? Finally decided to eat them! Why did they do this? When I went to Thunder Bay, Porter served HardBite potato chips and they didn't expand like this. 

We landed in Toronto, a much better landing than when we arrived in Montego Bay. It took awhile to get to our gate and get off. There didn't seem to be a storm though. 

Near the end of our week in Negril, Rob realized he missed a call from our transportation service. The message indicated they'd be picking us up at like, 10am (whatever time our flight out was). So he had been in a panic to get through to them before we left. We knew the owner was away, and hoped things got sorted out. Our ride was there promptly. We asked, and he said he doesn't work full time for this company but sometimes they contract him when they get busy.  He got us back, through a torrential rain (why does this seem to happen on every trip?), and that was it. Vacation over!

Sandals Negril Jamaica, Day 7, 2025

 Ahhh. Saturday. The last day.  Somewhat sad, very reflective.

It was a very rainy morning.  One thing we had liked about this resort, and this building, when trying to decide where to go, was the "tropical" setting and room styling. However, so many people complained that the dark wood was outdated and heavy looking. So they were updating all the rooms by painting the furniture. It's now a kind of bleached oak look. A little sad but it does make the room bright. However, they did a crappy job of painting everything! The furniture is streaky, and they didn't even take the TV mount off the wall when painting. They also laid a new floor, and you can tell this when you open the sliding door. One nice thing that was done was there was a roof added over the top floor balconies. 

Every day that our roomed got cleaned (which was not every day!), they left the shower tap like this. Like, who is so lazy and unbothered by this?

When it cleared up, we headed to the water sports and got the pontoon bikes. We weren't allowed to wear our water shoes on the bikes. I thought that was odd. He said they wouldn't work with the pedals, but I don't see why not. 

That's the catamaran we took to Rick's Cafe.

On the left is the Paradise building, then the Bamboo Grove (hard to believe it is 2 years old and has such issues! See yesterday's post). Then on the right is the Sundowner building. It's really quaint, but it's looking pretty run down up close.

I was a little scared we'd get toppled by the wake, but it was fine.

Bamboo Grove

Rob had an issue with his pontoon bike. The chain was slipping and came off. Not the bike to give an engineer. He let them know it needed to be fixed. We hung around a bit, and saw them just send out another couple with it.

At the end of the Paradise building on the right, is a one story building--that's Perla. Then moving left is Bayside and the main building. The main pool area is to the left.

The thatched roof on the right is the main pool bar, and DJ. This bar was so loud. We always had trouble getting served. Though one time at Perla I was flat out ignored by the bar staff. The one story building in the middle is Brava, which used to be (and can still be seen on Google Maps) Cocina Romana (actually, today, I can't get that to show).

This is looking towards the Hedonism II resort, a clothing optional resort.

These are the private cabanas at the far end of the resort. I'm not sure if they're available to rent for all levels, or just Butler. There's also massages available. It's not a great area if you want to just dive in. You can walk behind them to the point, and there's a bench to sit on. We seemed to only go at night.

The main pool. You can see how small it is. At the back, you can see the garden wall we had to set our stuff on all the time. The hedge behind that is blocking the entrance to the resort. From that wall to the street is about 15m/45ft. It's a very compact resort from beach to street.

I went around the resort to get more photos. This is Ashara, at Crema. Daily, she joyously made me a fantastic latte in my travel mug. Rumour has it that Sandals isn't serving 100% Blue Mountain Coffee anymore, but I don't know about when we were there. It was delicious. Rob said the cookies were delicious, and the ice creams were wonderful, though they were often out of whatever flavour it was I wanted.

This is called the shrimp plant/flower. They're everywhere, like we'd have petunias or impatiens. They come in different colours.

One tree I didn't get a picture of is the night jasmine. It's not much to look at, but if you're there, you can smell it in the evening near Brava and Sundowner.

This is the main floor corridor of the Paradise building. I read someone called it a college dorm. I loved the calmness. The skinny window next to the door is the shower.

This is the second or third floor. The cleaning staff would actually drop laundry from the top 2 floors through the openings to the main floor. I was walking by and I thought the roof had collapsed LOL. These rooms have sort of a bridge to their door.

Looking out to the back, the garden views. This side of the resort is so quiet, as far as people go. It seemed to be mainly staff, except for people using the smoking gazebo. However, the road is just on the other side.

Looking towards the Bamboo Grove building, the back side of it.

I'm not sure where I took these photos (the above one, and the next few) from. According to the files, it was while I was walking around. My zoom is good, but, not that good. These next few pictures are of the Hedonism II resort.

This is the corridor by our room. We were at the pizza/Bayside end of the building, so it was pretty convenient. However, going up three floors got old quick. 

Along our outside corridor, there were these rooms that seemed to connect with the second floor, but were between our building and the road. They had balconies, but absolutely no view. I couldn't find any info on the resort map. They had room numbers. We thought maybe they were for visiting entertainment staff, though I saw one guy for a couple days.

The view while inside Barefoot by the beach.

Rob wanted a basic hamburger. I'm pretty sure this was at lunch. They don't have a lunch menu but were serving the Sundowner menu. 

One of the staff at Barefoot during our meal. He was great. Most staff were pretty awesome. It was just weird how sometimes, they weren't. I got totally ignored at the bar at Perla one day. There was one staff at Perla, that seemed to be in charge, and she was quite short and brusque with everyone. At the pool bar, they were not friendly (and it was too damn loud). 

At the back by Crema, then walking towards Kimono's. 

These beautiful periwinkle coloured flowers were at the back of the Sundowner, between Crema and the spa.

This is Rob the Engineer, trying to see if he can see the AC filter.

There was a TORRENTIAL rain storm in the afternoon. 

But after the rain, the sun always shines again. Beautiful sunsets.

I mused about why we consider sunsets beautiful and worthy. There used to be a TV show called "The Last Alaskans" about the last people that are allowed to live in a wilderness wildlife refuge in the absolute far north of Alaska. One of them, an elderly man, was watching the sun return for the first time in the spring. He talked about the significance of seeing this again and if a person was lucky, they'd see this 80 times in their life and each one was valuable. Sunrises are also beautiful and significant too.  It's the promise of another day, I guess. I also think the clouds moving in before an August thunderstorm is beautiful. 

Dinner was at Sundowner again. 

This doesn't match anything on the Sundowner menu. I don't remember what it was! It could be the Pan Seared Crab Cake, because that comes with a slaw.  But it's breaded. 

This does not match the salad on the menu. 

This is probably Rob's Beef Tenderloin. 

Most likely the coconut truffle cake.

We took a walk through Bamboo Grove again. This time I took some pictures.

This bench was by the elevators. It was dirty and unfinished wood. 

Looking down on the main pool from the Club Lounge

I was really excited for the evening entertainment. The Silverbirds Steel Orchestra has been around since 2007. I assume this is just a small portion of the orchestra as Google mentions outreach groups.

Audience members were brought up and shown an ostinato and had fun. I love steel drums. It was really cool to see a large group live. As a music teacher, I struggled to be able to tell which sounds were coming from which players, which is so odd for me!

And that was basically our stay at Sandals Negril. All that was left was going back to the airport. Even that wasn't as smooth as we thought it should be.