In 2016 we decided to live on the farm in Somerset, NJ. Jess and I researched online and visited used RV dealers, including multiple trips to Freehold. One of our requirements was a full height interior; I’m 6’3″ and Jess is 5’11”. We also wanted a bumper-pull as opposed to a fifth wheel, so Betty (the pickup truck) would not need surgery. We tested a dozen different campers before settling on a 2008 Jayco Eagle 328RLS that was in great condition.

Rubble is nominally 28 feet long, but measures 35 feet from nose to tail and a little over 11 feet tall. She has a 6’6″ high interior, providing plenty of headroom, but my feet still extend past the end of the bed when I’m stretched out. When we are parked, the dining room and sofa bed slide out a few feet from the wall of the trailer, giving us much more square footage.

The layout of this travel trailer is a big selling point. The dinette is across from the kitchen, the sofa is across from the entertainment center, the shower and toilet are near the bedroom, and the exterior door opens into the kitchen and not the bedroom. These may seem like obvious design decisions, but no other trailer we saw (including many more expensive ones) had all these properties. It really feels like there are 4 rooms (living room, eat-in-kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom) in an open plan. There is storage in overhead cabinets and under the bed. In fact, it’s more space than we need; we eat in front of the TV and never use the dinette.

Living on the farm was different from being in an RV park. There was no septic hook-up, so we didn’t use the toilet (squatting in the horse stall felt more natural anyway), and used basins to wash dishes instead of the sink. We didn’t have a permanent water source either, so we filled 2-liter bottles with potable water. We turned on the propane water heater for 10 minutes before each quick shower. We were running an extension cord 150 feet to a normal outlet, so we didn’t use the refrigerator, freezer, or air conditioner. Even still, we loved it!