Meet Team Toto

Hey, thanks for visiting. Seriously. We’re still fairly new at camper-trailering, and we’re sharing our journey here. It could be a fun read — or not. Let’s revisit that after a few months. In the meantime, we strongly encourage you to add your voice, or wisdom, or what have you, to these pages. Please comment! Toto needs the love.

So who are we?

Toto is the trailer. He is a Lance 2375, built in SoCal, and he was built at our request, but of course someone else would have just grabbed him anyway. Toto was created out of thin air, plus raw materials, in July of 2018.

Chief is the truck, named in honor of a stop-motion animated movie character. Chief came from Wenatchee, and before that Tennessee.

Tyler, the Cairn Terrier team member in spirit, is scouting the far side of the Rainbow Bridge for us. Born in Kent, Washington, USA, he met us just a few weeks after his birth in February of 2007. He had the personality of an English vicar (according to a longtime friend of ours who also grooms dogs), and the good looks of movie star. His favorite things to do: sleep on the living room recliner, eat, go for walks. If you left the house for more than five minutes he would greet your return as if you’d been lost for months and presumed dead. Like all Cairns, his coloring changed over time; he started as a light red brindle and completed his tour of duty a grizzled black. He was among the finest creatures ever born. No matter when you read this, we are still grieving his loss — but cherishing oh so many great memories.

Wally (aka Cairngorm Wallace, aka cutie-pie, aka Mister Wobbles) became mortal in July, 2008 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, also in the USA. He is the alpha personality on the team. Born with a spinal defect that prevents normal walking and running, he is nonetheless irrepressible. Fail to pay him enough attention and he’ll perform the physically challenged Cairn Terrier version of tapping you on the shoulder (you’ll feel it somewhere between your insteps and your shins). Everyone who meets Wally–even people who don’t like dogs–loves him. We do too. If there is any purpose for which any of us are born, and I’m not saying there is, but if there is, mine is to take care of Wally. It’s a joy, not a burden. No, that’s not right–sometimes it’s a burden, because I have to carry him around. But I don’t mind.

The human-being part of Team Toto includes Sooz, a retired IT analyst/project lead/manager/executive. Her storied career took her from Silicon Valley data entry sweatshops to offshore Apple Computer factories to corner offices in Santa Cruz, California and beyond. She is highly organized. Tyler loved her beyond all understanding and is waiting patiently for her at the Bridge.

Doug, writer of marketing drivel and operator of the now-defunct economic engine, rounds out the team.

Between forays into the wilderness, the team resides in Gig Harbor, Washington, USA, a fishing village (with a still-active commercial fleet of purse-seiners) that also serves as a bedroom community for folks with jobs in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and the Kitsap Peninsula. It’s a fun place to live if you like your natural beauty seasoned with convenient take-out food places. So far, they haven’t cut down all the trees. They’re working on it, though. (Update: where did all the trees go?)

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