@Soggoth thanks, I love the Bishop area - I will be going down that way in the next 12 months for sure.
@DannyLLama a group trailer trip would be fun if it could be pulled together.
Here's a few pictures of mods I recently made to my trailer. I previously had the high rack but didn't really like the tent being up that high, and since it wouldn't fit in my garage, it was a major pain getting the trailer in and out - I came up with a ridiculous scheme to use my remaining two Jeep take off wheels, without tires on them, which got the trailer down to garage height. This worked, but it still made coming and going much more difficult since the tires and wheels would need to be changed out in the driveway.
I took off the tall rack and replaced it with two L-Track rails on each side, and I bought cross bars and a Trailer Awning Adjustable Brackets from
Compact Camping Concepts (great store and service by the way) and I fabricated these to the L-Track rails, painted and bolted everything together.
Previously, I had my ARB awning mounted high up on the high rack. Now I needed a way to be able to raise the awning mount when setting up and lower it when stowing it. Camping Concepts builds a nice solution for this that should stand up to rugged trail driving - it involves using 2x 1.5" tubes to mount the awning to, and those slide down into holders that are slightly larger. Works really well.
To mount the tent, I decided to drill holes into the trailer top and mount the tent down into the trailer, which improves the security because you would need to open the trailer in order to remove the tent. Here it is all painted and mounted. I tow the awning turned in for driving and then just pull it up and rotate it with awning out when setting up camp. I am installing some security nuts for the awning to make it harder to steal, and will probably use a security cable to lock everything to the trailer.
I also had the annex for this tent, but now that it's lower, that won't work, so I got a screen/tent room for the Awning and man it is nice - this will provide room enough for the kitchen and even eating or hanging out in it. You could also sleep 3 people in here if you wanted, or one very large dog.
A look from the other side:
