Jeeping, “Glamping” Style

How do you go Jeeping in style?  You tow your Jeep behind your new 32-foot motor home of course!  For those not familiar with the term “Glamping,” it is in the simplest of terms, “Glamorous Camping.”

Glamping – noun – a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping.  “glamping is likely to satisfy any city slicker seeking a little refuge in nature—without foregoing any of life’s luxuries”

New RV fresh off the lot!

Creature comforts of home, but with wheels!

This was not our typical Jeeping trip, as we were trying to get away from the heat of West Texas and spend a week relaxing with each other.  We planned to take off from our home in Odessa and head to Ruidoso, New Mexico for a few days of cooler weather.

Route taken for trip;  a big circle

Jeep setup for towing

To get the Jeep setup for this, I bought a simple tow bar from Smittybilt online.  This tow bar has no high-tech bells and whistles, and I have used one like this before.  Some of the newer tow bars from other companies make connecting a Jeep or any vehicle to your motor home easy.  What do I mean by that?  If your tow vehicle is not perfectly lined up with this tow bar, it can be a pain in the butt to get it connected to the towed vehicle and the RV.

The price point between this one and some of the self-centering ones are hundreds of dollars.  There are many brands of tow bars out there, so make sure if you want to tow your vehicle, it is applicable to your vehicle.  This tow bar is also designed to connect to the d-ring mounts on the front bumper, so no additional mounting plates are required.

Tow bar I picked up.  Don’t mind the missing bolt in the photo.  

Atlas Complications!

Advance Adapters Atlas complicates your ability to tow a Jeep four-down as they say in the RV’ing world.  Advance Adapters highly recommends that you do not flat tow your Jeep for any distance.  So, for us, that meant I had to drop the drive shafts from the differentials for this trip.  Since we did not plan to do any off-highway boulder hopping fun, I left the front driveshaft tied to the frame all week.

When we do plan to go to Jeep events, we will put the Jeep on our trailer for those trips.  I did not want to take the trailer, as I knew one of the campgrounds, we were going to did not have pull through spaces, and space was a premium in the campground to begin with.

The adventure…

We left our house on Friday afternoon and wanted to break up the trip to Ruidoso, so we planned to stop at the Carlsbad KOA.  We have a KOA membership, and get discounted nights when we use this campground.  This was an easy 3 hour run from home to the campground.

On Saturday, we took our time breaking down camp, if you can really call it that.  We had to put a few things away to prep for getting on the road, like putting the coffee pot up so it would not fall off the counter, retract the motor home jacks or levelers, disconnect from shore power, or the power pole and disconnect the water hose and put this stuff away.  The two slides also need to be retracted prior to pulling out of camp.

Our route would take us through Roswell, New Mexico and this would also be a gas stop prior to getting into the mountains.  Traveling in the RV, we were in no real hurry to get there and took our time to enjoy the scenery along the way.  However, there is not much great scenery along the way in this part of New Mexico or Texas though unless you like looking at oil production facilities.

All setup and ready for fun at camp!

We arrived at our campground in Ruidoso New Mexico around 1:30 ish and got checked in.  This place was packed with other campers and parking and maneuvering a 32 foot RV with a Jeep attached was very nerve racking.  I had to disconnect the Jeep from the RV to back into our camp spot, and I had my wife direct me in and watch clearances with the trees and other campers’ vehicles.

We used our hand-held Rugged Radios to talk to each other, so I did not hit anything.  You could say I “nailed it” when backing in, as I got it located on spot the first attempt.  My wife was impressed to say the least.  I told her I just had a good spotter.

I connected the rear driveshaft on the Jeep and we took a little drive into town to check it out.  We had been using the internet to our benefit prior to getting here, and had an idea of what we wanted to check out.  The town was very busy with people and traffic on this holiday weekend.  We did not need anything specific, so we headed back to our RV to open a bottle of wine and sit around chatting.

Relaxing at camp with our dog and wine

On Sunday we stayed around camp to avoid the traffic and all the people in town.  Monday was a fun day watching people head out of the campground.  By mid afternoon, we about had the place to ourselves.  We headed into town to visit a local winery and sample some of their offerings.  We had a good time and bought a few bottles to enjoy with family later this year.

We might have a little wine problem!

We planned to leave Ruidoso on Wednesday and had researched Santa Fe a little bit and decided to head up there for two nights.  After we got everything stowed and the Jeep connected to the RV, I did that final walk-around to make sure all external storage doors where closed, Jeep properly connected, lights connected and working, I noticed the rear drivers outside dual tire was flat.

I found a nail in the tire.  We called our roadside assistance for a tire fix or replace.  The closest shop with a tire in stock was 40 minutes away and took him 4 hours to get to us.  We just chilled in the RV while we waited for this delay.  We made it to Santa Fe later than we had planned.

We stayed at the Santa Fe KOA while in this area, and this was another really nice park with pull through spots.  There office was closed when we arrived, so we did not get escorted to our camp spot like if you arrive during their office hours.  This made for us doing a couple of laps to figure out the correct approach to our spot.

This campground allows camp fires as they have fire rings at each camp spot.  We bought some wood and built a small fire so I could make s’mores for Larisa.

On Thursday, we headed into Santa Fe to check out the town and walk around.  Lots of history and culture here for art and history buffs.  One of Larisa’s favorite artists is Georgia O’Keeffe, and they have a museum dedicated to her in downtown.  We did the tour, and I ended up buying a reproduction of Larisa’s favorite painting by her to hang in our entryway.

Georgia O’Keeffe, Bella Donna

Friday was another travel day and we headed to Amarillo Texas for the day.  We stopped just prior to Amarillo to check out the Cadillac Ranch.  This is a roadside attraction of old Cadillac cars buried nose first into the dirt.

People are allowed to paint what ever they want on them, as there is paint sitting on the ground next to the cars for if you did not bring your own.  This is also along the historic Route 66 that runs through Texas and New Mexico.  We spent the night at the Amarillo KOA.  We topped off our propane tank here prior to leaving on Sat to head for home.  This was again your typical KOA park, nice and clean and a friendly staff.

Cadillac Ranch

Saturday, we headed for home with a stop in Lubbock at the Camping World were we wanted to pick up a few things for the motor home.  We made it home around 3:00 pm and unloaded a few things that we would need in the house.  Overall, this was a 1050 mile trip seeing some great sights of West Texas and mostly New Mexico.  The motor home ran great and the Jeep towed with no problems behind the motor home.

Lessons from the road…

Lessons learned include, make sure you have a spare key stashed someplace so if you lock yourself out, you can get in.  Check tires prior to hitting the road, and thankfully we did.  We have now bought the Tire Minder system that will monitor tire pressures and temperatures.  Keep a note pad for the list of things your forgot and will need in the future in your RV.

It was a great trip with just over 1000 miles put on the RV and Jeep in tow.  New Mexico has some great areas to visit, and we have just started our journey around the state.

Stay tuned for more trips like this and enjoy the pics!

Links

KOA

Advance Adapters

Ruidoso New Mexico

Roasting marshmallows for s’mores.

Local lake near our campground

Cadillac Ranch

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