Blog Name Change

Well regular visitors to our page will notice we changed the title of our Blog from Weakley Family Homestead to Our Little Lodge. We decided to change the name as Our Little Lodge is in alignment with our goals. We will be sharing the buildup of our 85 Chevy Crew Cab Dually 4X4 retirement truck as well as the Truck Camper ( hence... Our Little Lodge ). We will also be sharing the buildup of our project Blazer Nugget , this is the vehicle we will have in tow. We are very excited to share with you that we will be embarking on a new set of travel plans. We will start the KOA Journey on this blog as well.You may be asking what is the KOA Journey ? We plan to travel to EVERY KOA as part of our retirement travels. We will share all of our  travel stories , stays , memories , and friends we make along the way. We will give more details about the KOA Journey when we get to that point of this huge retirement undertaking. Well.... keep visiting and PLEASE leave comments !!! Remember when life gets tough just drop er in 4Low.

Our Little Lodge

The Moose is the name we have given to the truck that will serve as Our Little Lodge.The Moose will be our primary retirement travel rig , one that will be built to carry and haul the camper and trailer. The Moose will have in tow our retirement off road travel rig known as Nugget. Todays post is all about introducing these two rigs to you , so that when we do the build you know which one we are talking about. 

I have always been a Chevy man and I have always LOVED the Chevy Blazer. My first vehicle in life was a 1969 Chevy Blazer 4x4. I Love my trucks to have 4 Wheel Drive , my wife and I like things to have a rich feel and a custom touch. I have always liked the mid 80s body style of Chevy trucks , man that sloping hood just does something for me. I'm a gear head so I always seem to have to tweak things to suite my liking.

Many years ago I was driving home from work when I saw a 1986 Chevy 3500 Crew Cab pickup truck sitting by a fence in a person's field next to their shop. I drove by that place for a year and every time I would just see that truck and wish to myself that I could own said truck.I would fill my wife's ear full of conversation daily about the truck , when we would go to town I would drive her by and show it to her. One day when I came home and spoke to her she said she really liked the truck and said I should just stop after work and ask the owner about it , she stated "what's the worst that will happen they say no ". I did it ... I stopped by and visited with the owner ! The owner stated to me that he in fact was not the owner it was a friend of his who was moving out to Colorado from California when the trucks transmission gave out. His friend had asked if he could park the truck at his place and would retrieve it later. I asked if he could contact his friend and that I would stop back by at the end of the week. True to my word I stopped back by and he said his friend would sell me the truck but it had to be that week as others were asking about the truck as well. I quickly raced home and had the wife contact the banker , she secured me a loan from the bank so that we could purchase this fine truck. We stopped by one evening to drive the truck home when I remembered that the transmission was out. I filled the transmission with (2) bottles of Lucas transmission fix and a few quarts of DexTron Automatic transmission fluid. I fired the truck up and went through the gears , and she had reverse and that was it. I drove that truck home in reverse as I was so darn excited I had to get it home . How far you ask ... well it was about 10 miles and yes we had to stop as the truck would start to get hot. Hey we made it and we now have a cool story about how we got it home.

I stated above that the truck is a 1986 Chevy 3500 and it was a 2 wheel drive truck when we bought it. When we got it home we really started looking the truck over . The truck had badges on it that said Auto Form ? The truck has lighted chrome running boards , captain chairs , wood grain all on the inside as well as tan velour.This truck had a lot of chrome even the wheels are chromed not fake simulators.We were in LOVE from the very beginning but wanted to learn more about this Auto Form. We started researching and asking questions , appears Auto Form was a custom truck conversion company back in the 80s. Auto Form tricked this truck out and they are hard to find , ours has a back seat that folds out into a bed.  We decided that this would be our retirement travel rig , but we really wanted 4 Wheel Drive. The truck had a 6.2 Diesel engine and a TH400 automatic transmission. I really wanted a bigger diesel one that was designed to haul todays heavy loads and one that would handle what my wife and I were planning to throw at it. I wanted a standard transmission not a automatic , I really like standards. So what were we to do ? We really LOVE the truck but wished for a little more to suite our wants. Well the only reasonable thing to do is build what we want. I quit my job as I wanted to start my own mechanic shop , this would later prove to be a stupid idea. I had a customer come in one day and asked if I could put a 1985 crew cab body on a Blazer frame. I accepted the job and when he dropped off the crew cab I was excited as I just had a idea . I asked the customer if I could keep his drivetrain and he said I could have it all. I closed my shop some time later as we were just barely hanging on and I did not want to live that way. I quickly found a job that would later become my career job , I was now providing for my family. I borrowed a friends barn as well as his tractor , I swapped my 1986 crew cab bed and body onto my new 1985 crew cab 4x4 frame. The donor frame also had a 6.2 Diesel and the best part was it has a Muncie SM465 4 speed manual shift transmission. WOW ... now we have our tricked out Auto Form conversion truck sitting on top of a 4x4 chassis complete with a manual transmission , life was great. Now the sad news is that is where everything came to a grinding stop , life took over and I had to focus on other things. The truck has now been sitting for 10 years , and well you can see by the picture above that mother nature is taking her toll on our dream. Not to worry we are finally getting back to this project as we have refocused our lives. Please keep posted to our blog and follow along as we build our dream rig.

WHOA..... What about Nugget ? No worries my friends I will now tell you the story about Nugget. I stated earlier that I'm a Blazer freak , and my wife has come to Love them as well. We have owned full sized Blazers over the years and have really enjoyed them. We both have taken a liking to the smaller S-10 Blazers as they are easier to handle while supplying about the same amount of room. We decided that the little Blazer would make a great off road adventure rig for us as we travel when retired. I own a 1985 S-10 Blazer and use it for work , so I have spent allot of time researching parts and accessories for my little truck. One day I was searching my local Craigslist ads when I came across a ad that stated 1985 Chevy S-10 Blazer , well that peaked my interest as these are getting hard to find , I Love the 85s. I opened the ad and to my surprise it was a Outdoorsman Edition , well I had to go look at this.My wife and I along with our girls set out to this person house to look at the little SUV. I had no intentions of buying this Blazer, I just wanted to see the Outdoorsman Edition as these are super rare. Well when we arrived at the house I recognized the custom motorcycle in the mans garage. We started visiting and turns out we were old co-worker / friends. We tossed a few beers back and I educated him on the little Blazers. He repeatedly told me to make a offer on the non running Blazer , so I finally blurted out a $ 300.00 dollar offer and damn if he didn't take it. Well we loaded the little Blazer on the trailer and started back home , I was in amazement as I just scored a rare 1985 Chevy S-10 Blazer Outdoorsman Edition. Now what you need to know is that I LOVE the 1985 S-10s and I have a ton of parts for them. 

I quickly put the little rig in our garage and started working on it to find out why she did not run. While I was working on the little rig I discovered she had a 3.4 GM Performance Parts engine installed.WOW O WOW ... man was I super excited as again these are rare to find in the Chevy S-10s. I discovered the engine had a flat cam and started making plans for a full rebuild of this little engine. I started installing a Trail Master CT10 5" lift kit as my first modification. The picture below is how she sits now in my garage. Please follow our blog so that you can see the build up of one rare S-10 Blazer.

Well today is the 4th of July 2014 and I hope you all have a GREAT holiday !!! I will be in the garage this weekend working on Nugget . More to come on both rigs so please stay tuned to our blog and Thank You for following us.

Blog Found & Our First Post

WOW !!! So I was on the computer surfing the net for Truck Camper topics. I came across the Redneck Express Truck Camper blog , while reading through some of his postings I decided to join the group. I was shocked when I logged in and the screen showed I had already created a Blog account.I was very excited as I have been looking for ways to share my familys life journeys as well as my wife and Is retirement travel rig and set-up. So here we are .... I decided to start my first Blog posting ever.

Please allow me to introduce myself .... My name is Chris and I live in Colorado with my wife Tammy and our two daughters. My wife and I are high school sweethearts that have been married for 19 years and counting. We share a passion for Camping , 4 wheeling ,  Hunting ( she goes to support me ) , Homesteading , Off-Grid Living , Cooking , Movies , Reading , Models 1/24th and 1/25th scale & really all things in Life. I'm no formal book writer so please forgive me now .... I will get better with time. My wife has been  a stay at home mom since our first daughter was born. I was blessed to have a good working career , one that would support us and allow me to provide a good life for my family. We are now starting to focus on getting ourselves setup for retirement. We purchased land so that we can start our own Homestead free and clear when retirement comes. Please visit our web site http://www.2lr-homestead.com/ . 

This blog will be mostly focused on the building of our retirement rig , truck camper , trailer , and off road retirement rig. We will blog about our travel adventures as most of the Homesteading will be covered on our web-site.I stated earlier that I follow the Redneck Express and find it really neat. I say if you have not seen it you must go check out his blog ... I think you will find it interesting and good reading.

Disclaimer !!!!!  I'm not a college educated man nor am I a expert writer . I'm just a guy who wants to share his story so please be patient with me. Please leave feedback but please keep it clean and professional . 

I know this is a short intro and I promise there will be more . I will post more as I get pictures uploaded of our project so that we can start blogging for you to enjoy. Goodnight from Colorado !!! 

" When life gets tough ... Drop it in 4Lo "