I just got back last week from the first big road trip with the trailer; Covered about 2,300 miles in a week, burned through almost 200 gallons of diesel, and averaged 11.3 MPG for the trip, with a one-tank high of 12.8 and a one-tank low of 9.8 thanks to 40+ MPH headwinds pulling out of Palm Springs back into Ontario and the climb up the Grapevine out of LA. Spent about $900 in fuel alone and only got about 16 hours of sleep the whole trip, but it was well worth it!

The final destination was Indio, CA for the 2011 Coachella Music Festival. For those that don't know about this event, it's a HUGE three-day outdoor music festival with six stages and all sorts of genres of music. It was estimated the event pulled in 80,000 people a day and about 60,000+ of those camped on the grounds!

My aunt and her partner organized the organic farmers' market at the event and needed some help, so we offered to go down and help out and in return got to camp out at the event for the weekend. It was a lot of work, but we had a great time; we worked from about 5:00 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon, then it was right into the festival to listen to the music, not getting back to camp and in bed until at least 2:00 AM; that meant we were lucky to get 3 hours of sleep a night! I drove down with one of my cousins and cousin-in-law, picking up his wife at the Ontario airport on the way through since she's a teacher and couldn't take but a couple days off work.

The truck and trailer ran great and never missed a beat. We drove through just about all types of weather one can imagine; from heavy snow flurries through the Siskiyous and Weed, CA to 110 degree heat near Palm Springs to really strong winds blowing sand across the road that really impaired visibility. Not once did the trailer start wagging, but I did see an old triple axle Airstream wagging really bad coming down one of the passes in Oregon; I swear it was lifting up onto three tires with each swing! I didn't see it for long, but I sure hope he got it back under control before disaster struck...

Below are some pictures of the event and the trip down. I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep, but we're already planning next year, where we'll work Coachella again and I'll stick around down there a couple weeks to get into Stagecoach (a country music festival that's two weeks later than Coachella).



Getting ready to pull out for the trip from home. COACHELLA OR BUST!



First night camped in front of my cousin's house in Eugene. The street was a lot less level than it first appeared - notice all the fence boards on one side to level it out!



A picture of the teardrop project my cousin-in-law and his brother are working on. They already built their own teardrops and are hoping to make it into a business. They have a great shop set up and even have templates and jigs for their custom-built frames, etc. Here's their website if you're interested in checking them out.



Stopped for lunch at Sierra Nevada on the way down and parked in their parking lot. The whole lot is shaded by the solar panels above! Maybe I could take one, mount it to the top of the trailer, and they would never notice?



Parked at the neighbors across from my aunt's house in Palm Springs, getting ready to head out to Coachella. The sun is sure nice to see after driving through snow the day before!



View from camp Thursday afternoon before the crowds arrived. Wait until you see the next pic; that entire field will be filled up with cars by Friday morning!



View from camp after all the campers arrived. Hopefully the picture is big enough to see just how vast AND full this field is...







A few pictures of the trailer set up at Coachella. Think they could have packed us in any tighter? The blanket you see clamped to the slideout was an attempt to keep the inside of the trailer cooler during the day. We tried using the A/C, but only had access to a 20 amp circuit, and kept blowing the breaker, so we had to make do with the MaxxFan and A/C fan running on high, supplemented by a big box fan and the bathroom vent fan. Even with all those running, it got to over 105 degrees in the trailer during the heat of the day. Fortunately it cooled off quick at night! The fridge and freezer didn't like the heat either and had a hard time keeping up.





A couple pictures of everyone sitting under the awning of the trailer. Surprisingly enough, even though it was well over 100 degrees, the heat is so dry, it didn't feel near that hot. Plus I'm sure the constant supply of cold adult beverages helped.



A picture of the inside of the trailer at Coachella. As you can probably tell, it's pretty messy inside, but what do you expect when you have six people camping out of it (three of which sleeping inside) as well as it being used during the day as the farmers' market office, which meant there were well over 20 people going in and out of it all day long. I haven't even started mopping it out yet, but fortunately it's all just dirt that can be cleaned up. Surprisingly enough, not one thing got damaged or broken, even with that kind of heavy use. I was quite impressed.



A panorama shot of the teepee camp set up behind our vendor area. Pretty nice digs, but the price to stay in them would likely put you in the emergency room - over $1,000 for the weekend! :S I'll gladly pay my $900 fuel bill to basically have an entire apartment with me.



A bus from one of the vendors working the Farmers' Market. This thing is totally tricked out both inside and out. The woodwork inside is amazing! It certainly fits the image of a "hippie" bus, but probably is better maintained than most RVs out there! These guys were also really nice and cool to talk to, not to mention, they provided us some great food for free!





Just a couple pics of the insanity that is known as Coachella. The first pic is of the crowds starting to gather at the main stage for a performance. The second pic is of the ferris wheel at the festival. We could barely see this ferris wheel from camp, as it was about a mile away. It cost $20 per person to ride it and the line was over an hour long, so, needless to say, we passed.



A tesla coil in action at Coachella. Apparently this is the largest tesla coil in existence. It was pretty amazing to see it in action!



Working the coffee booth at the Farmers' Market. I'm on the left and one of my cousins is on the right. This was right before the morning rush where we had up to 300 people waiting in line. Needless to say, we went through a TON of coffee!



Inside one of the cooling tents at Coachella. I'm in the middle, my cousin is on the right, and her husband on the left.

All in all it was an AWESOME trip, but I still haven't fully recovered. I think I need an extra week off just to recover from my "vacation"! Already looking forward to next year though!

 

Glad you had a good time! Thats a nice rig you have there!

Those old Teardrops are a really neat trailer. There was a company out of Redding or Red Bluff Ca. that manufactured them recently.

 

Sounds like an exciting trip. My daughter used to live in Rosewood, Or and my wife will never go over the Siskiyous again. Got up on top on a sunny day and it turned to thick fog. You could not see the end of the hood. We were going west and going down was a thrill. I got screamed at the whole way, LOL. Love the organic food, keep it up before the gov outlaws it and makes all of us eat GMO.

 

I love driving the Siskiyous. I have been making annual trips down through there and the Shasta area and it's the favorite part of my drive. But then, I am alone driving a sports car.

 

SHOpar: Thanks for posting the trip report, great pics and looks like a great time!

 

Excellent Trip report.
It is very interesting to see how others use their campers.
Looks like you had fun.

 

I'm on a six month trip with my camper Neal, want me to provide a trip report, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

I love reading trip reports. Sounds like yours will be a journal. LOL.

 

X-2 , give you something to do in your spare time Glenn!!

 

Ya, I'm afraid it would be. Last year my truck ran like crap because my up pipes leaked so bad. This year so far its running great (1,700 miles into trip) but now I'm having blow outs on the camper. I have new G rated tires, I don't know what's going on. For one thing I drive to fast, ST tires are only rated at 65mph and I like about 72mph, seems to be the sweet spot rpm wise. I posted in the trailer section to get some advise but maybe I should start a new thread here. A buddy of mine said to throw away the ST tires and run LT tires. I wish I could find G rated LT tires, I don't think anybody makes them. I'm also looking into a system called Mor-Ryde, independent suspension rubber system. I just think my camper is to heavy, should have been a triple axle. What pisses me off, besides changing flat tires while cars and trucks go by at 80mph is the tread is coming off and tearing up my camper BAD.

 

I have seen that rubber suspension system yo mentioned.
The guy that had it loved it. It was on his camper also. He swore by it but it didn't look right to me. I did help him work on it some, strange system but apparently effective.

 

Thanks Neal, a guy told me in the towing section about the same thing. These are the first two comments I've had on the system. The stock suspension has only 2 to 3 inches of travel and the morryde has up to five inches. I guess from what they say the extra travel takes some flex stress off your tires???

 

And probably some stress off of your frame.

 

Why didn't it look right to you Neal?