"I'd say you're psycho."

Darren the welder took a long hard look at the truck, the camper, the boat and the trailer.  He was in an extra curmugeonly mood.  After three rounds of snow in ten days  and the worst ice storm in a decade, his phone was ringing off the hook with folks needing their plows fixed. 

"You're telling me you want to put this boat on top of this camper?"

"It's only about 100 lbs, so we'll still be under payload. I thought maybe you could build some kind of winch to help get it up there."  It wasn't the first time Ben had come to him with a crazy idea; Darren had built all kind of outlandish custom equipment for his bakery. 

"And it's just the two  you managing all this?" He looked from the rig to us, just average middle aged couple, no apparent superpowers. I was tempted to strip off my Eddie Bauer parka and show him my guns. 

"You don't think it's a good idea?"

"No, I don't, and here's why."

I nodded and pretended to follow as he patiently explained all the technical flaws in Ben's plan. 

"But let's ask Tyler what he thinks." He pulled his younger partner aside. Tyler  crossed his arms in front of his chest and surveyed the rig. 

"I'd saw you're psycho," he said. 

I sighed. "I guess we'll just have to tow it." I didn't relish the idea of driving a 16- foot trailer. I can barely parallel park my Prius C. 

"How far you planning to go?"

"We're not sure yet," said Ben. "Maybe the Florida Keys?"

"Not with that trailer you're not."  

They said they might be able to modify it for us, mount some bigger tires, rebuild the axle,  but they were booked out weeks thanks to the ice storm. our plan was to head south, the direction more important than the destination, as soon as our our CSA distribution event  over on February 22nd. There was no way we were waiting two more weeks to get out of town. In the end, the boat stayed behind in the driveway; but the dream wasn't dead. We'd just pick up another one once we got down to the Florida. 

Another tiny-weeny complication was that the camper was covered in a foot of snow and three inches of ice, and 10-day forecast showed no break in the freezing temperatures. We'd bought lots of essentials items for the camper –  colorful porcelain knobs add character to the gray particle board cabinets, a sticker that said, DANGER: VENOMOUS SNAKES – but we’d neglected to purchase a storage cover for the camper.  We managed to clear the top of the camper, which fortunately had not caved in from the weight, but one of our hydraulic jacks, which raise and lower the popup, was completely frozen shut. We had to haul buckets of water from the hot tub out to the driveway and pour them down into the jack until it started operating again (yet another reason a hot tub in your living room is essential).

We still couldn't leave because the tie-downs hadn't shipped yet. I turns out you can’t just plop a camper on top of a pickup and expect it to stay put; you need tie-downs and turnbuckles made to fit your exact make and model of vehicle. Unfortunately, the tie-downs that arrived from ecamper.com did not, despite what we'd been promised on the phone. In fact, they do not make tie downs for the 8-foot-bed Tundra.  We got on the phone and luckily managed to find a welder who could squeeze in a small job later that day. He was able cut the tie-down a few inches so that they would bolt to the frame.

Now we were ready for anything, or so we thought.