All Activity

It will be a few months for me. Maybe it will be open by then.

Finally getting time to get working on the truck. Fixed the ABS. And getting ready to install the hitch.

I once had a long conversation with someone who full-timed in a sprinter van, mostly all boondocking. He had some good insights into water management - he said he tries to use his water twice, like using dish water to flush the toilet, and so on. The Pebble is an interesting concept, but I look at it as just that - an interesting concept. It wouldn’t work for me for a number of reasons, but it’s going to work for others. And in a few years they may come out with one that would be perfect for me. I was able to go 2 weeks dry camping with 45 gallon tanks (all 3 of my tanks were 45), but that’s about it. My new trailer has 40 gallon grey and black, 45 fresh, so I’m thinking 10 days is the max. I did a little more than that once, but the last 5 days were somewhere with restrooms, which I used part of the time.

Testing your boondocking limits where you have full hookups available makes it less stressful. I wish I had done that because I always wondered how much longer I could have gone if I'd been willing to push the limits. I did once have my gray water back up into my shower but I never waited for the toilet to burp. Linda

The owner's manual should give you the proper answer. If not, call the factory's customer service number. I actually removed the one that came with our trailer for a time. We were installing an electrical upgrade, so many other things were replaced, too. I now have a true battery disconnect switch that is mounted very close to the batteries.

Bruce, you nailed it with your first paragraph. What works for you may not work for me, and what works for me may not work for you. The biggest problem I see with both of those trailers is that they are designed by EV engineers, not campers, and certainly not by full-timers. I didn't poke around on their websites much, but I didn't see much about weights, tank capacities, etc. How will these things perform on cloudy or rainy days? What about wooded campgrounds, like may State parks? Water usage varies quite a bit. We met some Airstreamers last year that say they go 7-10 days on a tank of water, but I noticed that they were making several trips each day to use the campground facilities. How long would their water last if they didn't use other water? Next week we're going to experiment some. Sunday afternoon I'm going to fill and dump, then we'll go as long as we can using as little water as we can while still using only our own water. That will tell us how long we can boondock.

That would be at CO 149/US 50, right? Weathershare.org only shows heavy traffic there so far.

Years ago when I was involved in the RV industry I got a lot of questions from new folks wanting to know the "best" RV and the "best" setup. My stock answer was "I don't know". Simply because everyone has a different set of expectations of what the RV lifestyle is. In our last RV, a 20ft B class, 40gal of water would last us about 8-10 days. Navy showers helped a lot. Our 200amp batteries and 200watt solar would never run out. 12volt fridge and propane only for cooking and hot water. In 4 years we never turned our TV on. Used only led lights. My point is that we went RVing for the "simple" life. Friends or ours have a 40ft pusher. They never turn off their 3 a/c units. Have 3 TV sets on all the time. She loves her hair dryer. It's nice to see what others have and how they live. Be it in a resort or boondocking up a dirt road. It's what makes us all different. At 73 and bad health I do a lot of dreaming. An 8 ton 4x4 truck with a roof top tent goes around and around in my head. Camped up a dirt road smelling the smoke from our camp fire just staring at the stars. Mind you a big DP in a resort sounds fine to.

I was 81 Christmas day. The huge age gap between our generation and those <50 means differences in how we travel and camp. The instant communication on a cell phone of the facebook escapees better fits their needs and lifestyle. I predict the escapees discussion forums will mirror the decline of the FMCA discussion forums, although some years later, as they too have a facebook site.

I'm sorry to hear Pam's getting worse, becoming a caregiver for your life mate is difficult, for me anyway. That IMO is what we signed up for when we married. My wife has gotten so much worse in the last 2 years we are not able to use our MH when/if we ever get it back from the body shop. It's almost too late for us to move to a smaller house. It's all I can manage to keep up the outside work and the inside work. I suspect our move will be from our house directly to assisted-living or a nursing home. Lins want's to downside, sell our 40' MH and buy a smaller RV. One of these electric units appears to meet her needs; if they become available this year. At this point, whatever she wants I plan to make happen while she remains mobile.

Linda and Glenn, they also have to take into account the state of the art systems that use much less power or use it in new ways. Look at the storage capacity of the batteries versus the 12 volt/six volt battery AGM versus other types of batteries versus these dedicated battery packs with very large energy density. I don't even remember what we had in our first 1990 rig for holding and fresh but it was a lot less than our second rig we only had for a year or two then sold. But we could go a week easily on our fresh and holding tanks. I believe we had 50 fresh and 30 black and 20 gray or some such. However we did overflow the gray once and it backed up into the shower drain! With their combined black and gray I hope they have a holding tank back-flow preventer valve of some sort. Regardless I find the actually new systems instead of the same old reefers. roof A/C units, big Propane furnaces and water heaters, very interesting. A friend of mine who repaired and sold used cars once remarked that there is an a** for every seat, meaning one size does not fit all. Lots more info here: "WARNING! This New RV Will DESTROY The Entire RV Industry! (Pebble Flow)" Wow this video shows a bunch more from an experienced RVr.

Rod did you figure out what you are doing with that yet? Sorry I don't frequent these forums much anymore so just saw this.

I am 50 but I joined when I bought my truck in 2018. 6 years ago. I would have been 44. Seems longer than that.

Just a heads up, the bridge at Dillon Pinnacles on Hwy 50 that crosses the Blue Mesa Reservoir is now closed indefinitely. CDOT closed it yesterday due to problems with the bridge integrity after inspections yesterday. All that is known yet is there is no date for it to be open. So anyone who is planning to travel that way on Hwy. 50 you won't be able to. As of now the detours are I-70 and Hwy 160.

we can go a week without dumping our black tank. We have 4500 watt of solar. This time of year, not too hot, we can go many days on solar and batteries. During the 100 degree summers ac pull more and batteries will run out at night. But our camper a lot bigger than this one. That one has only 1 ac also. With enough battery I can see 7 days in it. I can't judge on water usage. We have never went days without water hookup. Should add we have mini splits for ac

Yes I was at Rolling Retreats. We stopped in to say hello to friends and get some maintenance work done on the trailer.

Depends on your conservation efforts and how many people you have. In my last van I had 40 gallons fresh and 20 each black and gray and I could easily go a week or more. I also had 400 watts solar and 400 amp hours with everything being electric except for the diesel furnace. I never came close to using all my fresh water before I found a dump because I got nervous since my sensors did not work. Linda

Sorry to hear Pam is not doing well. I hope you guys are set now. Yes we want to get another truck and drove the Ford F-150 Lightning XLT extended range and it is awesome! We can't fit it in our too short garage. They brought one to our house and Lynn drove it after I did at the dealership. She is as enthusiastic as I am and wants to move and get one so we don't get to be your age with four flights of stairs in the house like we have now counting the basement stairs.

YW Ray. Pretty significant improvement over the old systems in my book too.

They obviously have never boondocked much. 7 days on the tankage they have is not going to happen. One of them uses a combined black and grey tank and neither one carrys much in the way of fresh water.

I thought it was interesting that they said something about dry camping for 7 days - it almost sounds like the trailer will use more power than the solar can produce. I’d either want more solar so I could dry camp indefinitely (as far as power goes) or have something that runs on propane. Having a trailer with its own propulsion makes sense if you have a TV that’s undersized power-wise. However, I noticed in one of the videos how much the back end of the TV squatted when the tongue dropped onto it - so what would be the tongue weight? Would it overload the rear axle of the TV? Can you use a WDH? I’ll always cheer on these innovative trailers and their technology - my ideal would be to be totally energy independent (both vehicle and RV) and a full-timer. Not sure I’ll see that in my lifetime.

So you are thinking of another move? We just moved a few hundred feet to a bigger apartment and moving seems to get to be more work with every passing year. We thought we were buying our last home when we left fulltime life but that has not turned out to be the case. And we are to a point of downsizing even with the vehicles. I believe that you are about 10 years younger than I so here's hoping that health treats both of you better than it has Pam.

I have a Gulfstream Conquest Super-C. This is built on a Chevrolet Kodiak chassis. One advantage I see is that unlike the van-based Class C, the front wheels are set out at full track width. There driveline is the 8.1 gasoline engine and Allison 4-speed automatic, just like my 2004 3/4-ton Suburban.

Those are really cool! Thanks for posted them Derek.

Topics can be pinned on the main page, but posts within topics, unfortunately, cannot be pinned. It would be best if someone would re-post that URL occasionally.