fpmtngal

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.

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.

It’s been interesting to read everyone’s comments and see how all of us started in different places and have gone in different directions as we have aged. I sold my house because I was done with home ownership. I came back from a delightful 2 week boondocking trip to several problems with the house, two that made it difficult to solve the first one. I realized that I had spent more than 6 months in the trailer all 3 years I had had it, so why was I keeping the house? It was on the market a month later (2019). Almost 4 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery. I didn’t bounce back right away and wondered if I would ever be able to travel again (I’m solo). I had gotten a site in a nice park near Phoenix where I went for cancer treatment and decided it would be a good idea to keep the site on an annual basis. All the time I didn’t feel like traveling and wondering how I was going to cope, I walked the park and looked at the for sale signs on a couple of park models. However, I just couldn’t talk myself into the idea of buying a park model - it was way too much like home ownership. I’ve been feeling good the last two years and traveling again. But now I’m in a big quandary about what my exit plan should be. Apparently there is now something deep inside of me that blocks the idea of home ownership so I don’t know what it should be. The CARE Center is high on my possible options, or maybe an apartment somewhere? Assisted living if I need it? I don’t know. What I do know is that the plans I had when I first sold the house didn’t happen the way I had envisioned it, so any exit plan I might have now will have to be modified when the time finally comes. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the fact that I feel well enough now to be able to travel and enjoy the full-time life. I suspect that my time doing it will be shorter than I had expected/planned on, but maybe not.

How much do you know about your trailer’s electrical system? You mentioned that you want to run the television, a coffee pot and perhaps the fireplace for heat instead of the main furnace. The coffee pot, fireplace and perhaps the television will require 120V power to run. They won’t run on battery power without an inverter. So if you want to use those things, you will need to run the generator to use them (unless your trailer came with an inverter, which is usually an option). I would want a second battery. It’s supposed to be bad for a lead-acid battery to be taken down below 50% so one 64Ah battery doesn’t give you a lot of Ah to use. I’ve used as little as 30-40Ah in a night but only when it was mild and the heater wasn’t running much and I didn’t watch TV once the sun went down (I had a 12V television at the time, no idea if your trailer has one or if it is 120V like my current trailer has). I was also cautious about using lights. I’m more likely to use closer to 50Ah a night if the night is cold and charging electronics using the USB ports. It won’t matter whether you have the trailer plugged in for a long time before you leave - your battery can only hold so much power (the 64Ah rating). Once it is at 100%, it is 100%. Leaving it plugged in doesn’t give it more power (but can be useful if you are pre-cooling the fridge, running the lights and making sure the battery is fully charged etc.).

I went in 2018 with 3 other rigs (we were all good friends to begin with, and I still often camp with them) and it worked out well. I would NOT want to go with any more rigs, especially the way we traveled. We had reservations at a couple of places, but not a lot. We would meet every evening and discuss where how far we wanted to go and where we wanted to stop. We usually dry camped in provincial and state campgrounds along the way and they are all first come-first served. With 4 rigs, we left reasonably early in the morning and drove about 150 miles or so (roads are such that you can’t plan on going 50, more like 40mph, in some cases not even that) and were looking for camping spots around 1:30 or 2 at the latest (not long after check-out time). That was a way to be almost sure of 4 spots - the campgrounds fill up fast and I often saw someone coming in about 4:30 or 5 and drive through without getting a site. Many (but certainly not all) of the full-hookup campgrounds were relatively easy to get spots a day or two ahead back then. No idea if it would still be the same now.

Passport America can be useful, though I’ve sometimes found it hard to work (you are essentially getting a deal on off-times/excess inventory and sometimes the restrictions are difficult to work around). But it quickly pays for itself. I do a fair number of KOAs. Some are really nice and well worth the cost, while others are overpriced. They do have sites that cost a lot (patios, extras) but you don’t have to stay in them. If I’m overnighting and don’t need sewer I’ll choose a W/E site and save myself some money. The quality has always been pretty good and I’ve felt safe staying at all of the ones I’ve stayed at. They might not be the best resort in town (sometimes they are very nice), or the cheapest, but they are usually clean with good facilities. The main reason why I will use them when I’m going from point A to point B and overnighting somewhere in the middle is because of their website. I usually check out the availability of a couple on my route a day or two ahead of time, to make sure they aren’t all booked, then decide at noon how much further I want to go. Then I’ll go online and book the one I want to stop at. A couple of hours later I’ll stop and there’s my reservation. Otherwise, I may be calling around, leaving messages and hoping to find inventory, which might or might not happen.

Small world - I’m about a half mile away at Shiprock. A friend of mine spent a couple of days at Carefree Manor and I liked it.

While I own a generator, I would just as soon not use it. And I like being on the internet in the evenings, when I am not at all interested in going outside to start it or shut it down. So the increased power draw is pretty much a deal-breaker for me. There are still rumors floating that they will be introducing a smaller one that will have various DC options. I might be interested in it, but I’m doing well with the gen. 2 antenna. The gen. 3 antenna has to be manually aligned (there’s a phone app to indicate when it’s aligned properly). My first reaction was really negative, but it might not be that big of a deal. I like having my antenna on a ladder mounted pole, and they have an optional adapter for mounting the new one on a pole. It has to be at a certain angle, and it looked like the adapter would keep it at that angle, so all you would have to do is rotate the pole until the app says it’s right. But it’s still an extra step I’d rather not do.

It’s an upgrade in some ways, not in other ways. It uses more power so isn’t as attractive to me. The router would be a nice upgrade, but don’t think it would be a direct replacement due to the different cables? Perhaps also because the new gen. 3 system has a separate power supply? Would any of that make a difference as to whether you could use it with the gen. 2 antenna? If it would not be a direct replacement, would you then have to buy an Ethernet dongle? And if you did that, would it make more sense to just get the dongle and buy a separate, faster router?

Are you full time or do you have a sticks and bricks? What are you going to be using for internet? It makes a difference. When I first bought Starlink (just over a year ago), I researched various streaming services with the idea of replacing DirecTV. At the time I was boondocking in the Kaibab National Forest, south of the Grand Canyon. It’s a good idea to read all of the fine print in the terms and conditions if you are a full-timer with only cellular or satellite internet service - Hulu Live wouldn’t let you sign up if you didn’t have some sort of “residential” internet connection - they would not accept either satellite or cellular. YouTube allowed me to sign up for a 7 day free trial using Starlink, but when I tried to watch a network station, they said they couldn’t verify my location and wouldn’t let me watch it. I could only get national type of stations. As I recall, I think they also had a fine-print that said you were supposed to have a home network that you needed to log in from once a month - I may be wrong about that as it was over a year ago when I was researching it. The fact that they wouldn’t let me watch the local network station meant that I wasn’t interested and I canceled. I ended up subscribing to Fubo, they were perfectly happy to accept whatever location Starlink was reporting and would let me watch those local network stations. They have no trouble with either satellite or cellular. I have lots of choices for sports (one of the things the service is known for) as well as all the various live TV stations. The local stations change when I travel, which is fine with me. They are (or were when I was comparing services) more expensive, but I’ve been completely happy with them and canceled DTV.

There’s a packet you can download on the Escapees website (assuming you use their mail forwarding service) that has all the forms you need to register a vehicle purchased out of state. I had questions because I was buying a new trailer from a dealer (who refused to deal with Texas) and it hadn’t been registered before, so I didn’t have any of that paperwork. I called Polk County and got clarification what I would need from the dealer, they were very helpful. The main form has blocks for private sale vehicles and the packet had all the information about what you need (title, previous registration etc.). It looked like you could use the form for purchasing a vehicle from a private party as well as a dealership. While you can obtain the forms over the internet, you can’t do the registration online - you have to mail in the forms with the various supporting documents. The next time my truck and trailer go to Texas, I will have 3 days to have them inspected/VIN number verified. P.S. Check with California about their rules - it used to be that any vehicle transaction done in California would be subject to California state tax and registration, at least as far as buying from a dealership goes. I don’t think that private sales were subject to that but things change and my knowledge of such things dates back 5 years.

Are you planning on staying in Death Valley for a couple of days? Then it might make sense to go that way. But if you are just trying to get to Vegas, I probably would not go that way. If you don’t like mountain driving, you probably wouldn’t like going from Lone Pine through Death Valley. It goes over Towne Pass and has some pretty steep grades. It’s not fun to tow a trailer over it, even when the second time I did it I had a more capable tow vehicle (the first time was with a marginal tow vehicle and I didn’t know if it would make it over - it did, but it was sure slow). It’s a slow road. I’ve driven the 58 to the 15 many times, both with and without a trailer. The grades aren’t as steep and while it’s a fairly boring drive, it’s not difficult.

I have AppleTV Plus - it’s always been one price for everything under AppleTV+. It shouldn’t cost you an additional 6.99/month to watch the entire series, just the $6.99. It sounds to me like there’s a hiccup with your log-in, or maybe you got the message because you are still in the 7 days free trial period? Anyway, thanks for mentioning the show For All Mankind. I had watched the first episode and liked it, but got distracted by other things and forgot about it. I’m now watching the second episode.

I’ve seen both Tochta and Mattress Insider recommended on a forum for a manufacturer’s trailers that often have hinged mattresses.

I didn’t even think about any address problem when I renewed my passport - I filled out the paperwork and sent it in to the address for Texas residents (I domicile in Livingston). Sent it off in May (from Arizona), they renewed it and sent it to Livingston toward the end of July.

Are you looking at going from Silverton down to Durango and then find other means to return to Silverton? Or were you thinking of taking the train from Silverton round trip, on the same day? Or going one way? I don’t know what the schedule is at the moment, but a couple of weeks ago, there was 1 train running and it went up in the morning and down in the afternoon. If that schedule still holds, then you would have to have somewhere to stay in Durango overnight if taking the train both ways, or else other means of transportation to get back up to Silverton (and the train got in fairly late in the afternoon). It was possible to get on the train in Silverton and go down - a couple got on the train in Silverton who had gone up the day before, spent the night in Silverton and then were going back down on the train I was on. And I know they do the train/bus option from Durango. As was pointed out above, train reservations are booked well in advance. I was in Durango the week before Memorial Day and booked my seat over a week prior - there were few seats available and I got the last seat in the car I was in.

My truck hasn’t yet made it to Texas, though I keep saying I’ll go back one of these winters. It would be nice not to have to worry about finding somewhere to get it inspected almost as soon as I cross the border, so I’m all for this. My truck would easily pass the inspection, but still - it’s the inconvenience of it.

I agree about keeping the days shorter, especially when first starting out. It takes longer to set up and tear down camp, and you are more likely to make mistakes when you are tired. Being solo also means that you have to do it all - there’s no second person to do half of the tasks. Have you made check-lists for what needs to be done for both? I did when I first started out and was glad I did. It’s been a few years (I haven’t been doing this RV thing nearly as long as many of the people here) and I don’t usually refer to them any more. Which occasionally gets me into trouble as I also get distracted easily and may forget a step. When I was in my 20s and 30s and pre-RV days, I could drive for hours and hours. Now that I am in the Medicare group, I find 300 miles to be about as far as I like to go in a day, and usually plan on less than that (200 - 250). That gives me time to stop for lunch, and not be wiped out/over-tired when setting up. I prefer to arrive mid-afternoon, set up camp, relax for a bit and then fix dinner. Relax a little more, read a bit and then go to bed early, getting up early so I can get on the road at a reasonable time. I really, really do not like to set up camp by flashlight!

Since you mentioned being concerned about driving, what is your TV? Specifically, what type of mirrors do you have? The reason I bring that up is that I started towing with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is narrower than a full sized pickup and my trailer. So I needed mirror extenders to see around the side of the trailer. I ended up getting Milenco mirrors that worked very well - and any time I was driving, I knew that if my mirrors could clear, then the trailer would clear. I found that most of the generic slip-on towing mirror extenders are designed for pickup trucks, which are wider, and didn’t quite go around the trailer. If you tow with a pickup truck with towing mirrors, then put them out and the same thing applies - if the mirrors go through, so will your trailer. As far as pulling into a camp site, remember GOAL (get out and look) and do it a lot. If I’m backing into a spot and am not comfortable with the other side or the angle I’m at (which is fairly often), I get out and look several times, just to verify where I am and where everything else is - I’m solo and never could figure out how to play pool (which is all about angles). If you are out in the empty parking lot, put out a yellow cone and try to stop with your trailer’s wheels at the cone. It helps to know where the trailer tires are - that’s the trailer’s pivot point. My first towing experience of any sort was many years ago when I owned a horse. He didn’t balance very well in a trailer and taught me a lot about how to maneuver a trailer - he would scramble if I did something to cause him to lose his balance. When you drive a car, you make a turn and start to accelerate almost immediately. If you are towing a trailer and start to accelerate at the same point - your trailer is not yet around the curve and the back of it will swing around a lot faster - did you ever play “crack the whip” as a kid? I also try to brake very gently and accelerate very gently (other things that would cause that horse to scramble - sudden shifts in acceleration). The stuff in my cabinets don’t shift much when I’m able to drive like that, so I try very hard not to put myself into a position of having to make an emergency type stop. Plus it takes longer to stop - there’s a lot more weight involved.

I’ve driven hwy 20 from Bend to Corvallis/Albany and plan to do it again this summer. It’s a pretty drive, not difficult for me towing a 21’ travel trailer. I’ve never driven the other two routes, so can’t tell whether they would be better or worse than hwy 20.

Interesting conversation about solar and hydrogen cars. I retired back in 2016 and not long before that, one of my co-workers leased a hydrogen car as his commuter car. He had a place near where he lived that he could fill up at, and he could make the round trip to work and back without needing to refill anywhere. I have no idea how long he kept it as I didn’t keep up with him once I retired. My employer was a big outfit and they looked at installing a hydrogen filling station at one point. The logistics/infrastructure turned out to be pretty significant, there were additional safety concerns, and they ended up scrapping the project (2015, I think). There was a researcher/scientist that at least 10 years ago or more came up with a way of using borax with something else to produce hydrogen for fuel - the idea was that it would be a canister system where you would exchange an expended canister for a new one, and the borax could be recharged at a facility somewhere. I don’t remember the details now, but it sounded like a possible way of making hydrogen cars more practical from an infrastructure point of view. I read about the research and then never heard anything more about it. Lots of possible reasons why it might not have worked commercially (mining the borax, whatever process it was that would charge the borax could have been cost-prohibitive, etc.). Personally, I think Teslas are very cool cars (a friend of mine has one)! I used to own a Prius and loved it - I sold it after 5 years when it had something like 180,000 miles on it. The person who bought it from me sold it after 5 years (car was 10 years old) and it had 280,000 miles on it. It wasn’t a plug-in but it was sure nice. I’m patiently waiting for the day when both my TV and TT can be energy independent - where I can dry camp for as long as I want and not have to plug in or fill up anywhere. I could drive 3 or 4 days of around 300 - 400 miles in a row without having to worry about charges or fuel etc. Where my TV would be capable of towing a 10,000+ lb trailer and all my stuff (high payload). The technology isn’t there yet, but I keep hoping that it will get there before I have to hang up the keys. Maybe there will be a breakthrough that will make it possible. I keep cheering on the researchers and hoping.

I’ve visited 6 (North Cascades) and 9 (Wrangell/St. Elias), I’ve always wanted to visit Isle Royale, but have never managed to get there. Maybe one day…

Interesting comment, I haven’t heard anything about something like that and didn’t experience anything like that when I entered California a couple of days ago - my truck and travel trailer are licensed in Texas. I didn’t even get stopped at the agricultural inspection station on I-10 in Blythe this time - they waved me through without asking me if I had any produce or firewood. I’ve gone in and out of California a couple of times a year since 2019 and other than occasionally being stopped at the agricultural station, I haven’t had a problem. I talked to a truck camper owner recently whose rig is a TC mounted on an F550 with cabinet. He once got the signal to stop at a weigh station, but I think it was in Arizona. They didn’t weigh him, and the person he talked to didn’t know why his rig would have been flagged. The inspector did measure his rig and asked him to move his camper jacks slightly - the jacks stuck out 1” too much (easily adjusted). But that wasn’t California.

I looked at Dutchmen’s website and the manufacturer hitch weight for a new one is 748, not 720. Adding the average ship weight with the stated cargo capacity I would guess the (unstated) GVWR is likely to be 8900 lbs. When I take the average shipping weight and the stated hitch weight, the trailer appears to be designed with a tongue weight almost 13%. So assuming the same percentage, I would guess that the trailer’s tongue weight, when loaded, will be over 1,000 lbs. So Rob’s point about the Tundra’s payload becomes more important than the tow rating. What’s the door sticker on the Tundra say? What’s the payload capacity of that particular truck? There’s a wide variance of payload when it comes to half ton trucks - it depends on each truck’s features (for instance, a truck with a moonroof will have less payload than the same truck without one). While most WDH are around 100 lbs, the lightest weight one is the Andersen. It is often less than 50 lbs total, so that might help you a bit with payload. Remember that everything you put in or on the truck will count as payload.

Do you have a park in mind? Many parks around the Phoenix area are set up for seasonal or annual people and often allow USPS mail to be delivered to them. A number of them are a mix of park model RVs and regular RV sites, with park model owners (some of whom live there year-round) able to use the address for their domicile (since they really do reside year-round there). I currently have an annual site in such a park and would have the ability to use that address for domicile purposes, but don’t since I am not there more than 4 or 5 months out of the year (plus I do plan on settling down in Texas eventually). Polk County is very understanding about Escapees members - I’ve twice received jury summons and have just contacted them to get excused.