A Tiger … in Maine?

“Shake me up, Judy!” said Smallweed in Dickens’ Bleak House. Team Gritty has shaken things up and made a radical change to our rolling HQ. In mid April we sold our beloved Airstream “Ducky” and Ford F-250 “Big T” and bought a 4×4 motorhome, a Bengal Tiger TX Adventure Vehicle, from Provan Industries, in Columbia, South Carolina. We’re currently taking advantage of being on the East Coast, traveling in Maine, and visiting family and friends along the way. In early June we plan to drive back from Maine to the West to finish researching an upcoming book.

After months of deliberation, we decided that our Airstream, as much as we loved her, was just too big for us. We wanted to be more nimble, which required a smaller rig, and to have an off-road 4×4 setup to drive and camp deeper into the national parks, state parks, and BLM lands. The tipping point occurred while we boondocked in the Gila National Wilderness in New Mexico. While driving Big T around the wilderness, Team Gritty saw roads that begged to be explored—and camped in—old forest service roads that were narrow, rough, and required higher clearance than the Airstream could handle.

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For our new rig we considered a variety of setups, including truck campers, Tiger Adventure Vehicles, and Sprinter van conversions. While researching truck campers we discovered an excellent resource that we highly recommend anyone looking to buy or find out info on truck campers: Truck Camper Magazine. After countless test drives, tours, and many conversations about the pros and cons of each setup, we chose a Tiger Bengal TX made by Provan Industries. Mark Guild, the owner of Provan, and his staff are wonderful to work with, very professional, and have been super helpful in answering all of our questions, including any we have had from the road.

The Tiger has nearly everything on our wishlist. It has a pass-thru cab and is built on a 4×4 Chevy 3500HD (gasoline engine) chassis for offroading. The Bengal TX is smallish in stature: length: 22′ 6″; width 7′; height: 10′ 6′. The interior is beautifully designed like a yacht—everything is carefully thought out, well appointed, and the space is used wisely. The cabinets and drawers are made of solid maple with satin nickel push button knobs. The kitchen sports a one piece composite countertop, a 2-burner recessed range, a combination convection/grill/microwave oven, a pull-out butcher block cutting board that extends the counter space, and a pantry cupboard with adjustable shelves. Above the cab is an east-west facing full-size bed. All the mod-cons are included: air conditioning with a built-in heat strip, a Propex propane heating system, a Fantastic fan, a 19-inch 12-volt HD television w/ DVD player, and omnidirectional Winegard TV antenna (on the top of the front of the roof, it’s the dark-colored alien saucer).

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On the exterior, we added a brush guard to the truck’s nose (a cool place to attach a GoPro!), and upgraded the solar system. We added two 100-watt solar panels for a total of 350 watts (two 100 watt panels run north to south along the front roof, and one 150 watt panel runs east to west in the middle). There’s a 1000-watt inverter that allows us to operate everything off the solar system except the microwave and a/c, and an onboard gas generator that runs those components when we’re off the grid.

After we picked up the Tiger, which we christened “Snowbird” (though we still often refer to it as “The Most Awesome Tiger Ever!”), we spent a couple of days camping and getting to know our new rig in Sesquicentennial State Park, about 30 minutes drive from Provan Industries. One of the highlights of Team Gritty’s stay in the park occurred during a walk around the 30-acre lake. We watched a mother duck keep track of a herd—that’s the best way to describe it—of ducklings waddle this way and that way along the lake’s edge. At one point we counted 28 of them!

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As we drove toward New England, Team Gritty made a few notable stops. We headed west from South Carolina to enjoy some great Southern hospitality while we visited Matt’s agent in Georgia. Then we ventured north to North Carolina to spend a couple of nights in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) at Smokemont Campground. We didn’t have campground reservations, but lucked out as walk-ins—we found an excellent site located on the Bradley Fork river. GSMNP is rich in history, wildlife (biologists estimate that 1,500 black bears live in the park), and abundant flora. During our first evening, on a short hike we spied a black bear, a yearling perhaps, crossing an old forest road. He (or she!) paused and looked at us, then sauntered toward the Oconaluftee River.

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One cloudy afternoon we toured the Oconaluftee Visitor’s Center and then walked down to the Mountain Farm Museum, located next to the Oconaluftee River. The Museum is a collection of historic log buildings including a cabin, chicken house, spring house, meat house, hog pen, apple house, blacksmith shop, barn, and corncribs. The structures were relocated from various places in the Smoky Mountains and assembled at the site. The day we visited the buildings were not open but it was well worth a stroll around the buildings, gardens, and meadow. One structure we found particularly interesting was the well-preserved John Davis House, which “offers a rare chance to view a log house built from chestnut wood before the chestnut blight decimated the American Chestnut in our forests during the 1930s and early 1940s.”

About a half of a mile up the road from the Visitor’s Center, we also visited Mingus Mill, a working gristmill powered by a water turbine. As the millstones ground corn into meal, we talked with the miller and learned that his grandfather was one of the farmers who raised corn locally and brought it to the mill to be ground.

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We drove north on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway toward Asheville. The weather changed continuously as climbed up and down the mountains, from sunshine to a combination of rain, hail, and fog, then sunshine again. At the Wolf Mountain overlook (elevation 5,500 feet), we stopped to take some photos and met a fellow from Texas who was traveling the Blue Ridge Parkway on his Harley motorcycle with his two shitzus. One of his dogs has traveled with him for more than 10 years—this little fellow sits in the front of the bike, on a seat cushion. The second pup has been with him for two years and she sits in the back seat. This is one of the neatest things about our full-timing lifestyle: having the opportunity to meet and talk with interesting folks along the trail.

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As we made our way northbound through Pennsylvania, we camped at Locust Lake State Park in Barnesville. The 52-acre lake is stocked with trout and is a favorite spot for fishermen and boaters (electric motors only). In the evening, Team Gritty hiked along the nature trail and watched fish rise and swallows swoop over the lake catching bugs from enormous hatches. At the western end of the lake, we stopped and spied several 8- to 12-inch trout holding in the current of Locust Creek as it fed into Locust Lake. The park can be challenging to locate (we got a bit turned around at one point), so if you’re planning a visit, we’d suggest that you call ahead for directions (888-727-2757) or ask for directions at a Pennsylvania visitor’s center or rest area.

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Team Gritty arrived in New England last week. Because of previous commitments to projects we’re working on out west, this particular visit to the northeast will be a short one. We’re catching up with friends and family in Maine and Vermont, signing books at local bookshops, tucking in to plenty of clam chowder (and lobster, too!), taking in deep breaths of the fresh sea air and balsam-scented forests, and keeping a lookout for moose sporting itchy velvet, all before we hit the trail with our Tiger and trek westward….

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