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chasfm11 wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:Chasfm11, that would be fine with me, although I don’t know how much I can teach you about rifles. It might not be a fair exchange.

Trust me. I might be the one who is not contributing as much. Let me know when you have time.

Well I might be headed down to ETTS either this coming Friday or the next with my son. You’re welcome to come along if you want. But it’s a little over a hour away for me in the mid-cities area, it might be further than you’d want to drive. If you have a range you’d prefer closer to you, that would be OK too.

Chasfm11, that would be fine with me, although I don’t know how much I can teach you about rifles. It might not be a fair exchange.

chasfm11 wrote:I'm not sure how I missed commenting on this thread last year. We've had an entry level diesel pusher 36' MH since 2004. It had 26K miles on it when we got it and now has 89K. We've had it over much of the country. We are not full-timers nor do we ever intend to be but we spent all of last July in Chama, NM and would have done the same this year but for my wife's cancer diagnosis. We go 3-4 weeks at a time or as little as two nights like we did this week.

I didn't read all 12 pages so I don't want to re-cross ground that has already been discussed. We like the availability of most of the functions of the RV while enroute and have had some "interesting" trips like the one with 5 adults, 2 dogs and a baby doing 3,000 miles and a birthday celebration in the middle in 8 days. Now, we try to schedule travel with less "windshield"time. We tow a cross-over car so we have a fairly high MPG vehicle to tour with when we get to our destinations. I"m hoping that the Cummin diesel and the Allison transmission will last according to their reputations. I would say that the coach body will be ready for replacement before the drive-train if that is true.

Well, somewhere back in the first pages, I bought a small Jayco Hummingbird 17RK travel trailer, and we’ve used it a couple of times and loaned it out to friends. The longest time I’ve spent in it was two weeks, and that was as much as I could stand. It’s really just too small for two people for two weeks. The mattress badly needs to be replaced less like a torture rack. And the little “wet head” marine-style toilet/shower isn’t really usable for more than a middle of the night #1. I can’t say that I regret buying it, but it needs some improvements to make it friendlier to older people such as myself. So two weeks ago, as I was dropping it off at the dealer for its annual warranty inspection, I started looking at B and C class motorhomes. I wish I could afford a class A, but the reality is that’s just not going to happen. It’ll never be in my price range. I don’t want to be a full timer. But I do want to be able to spend more than two weeks in it, in relative comfort, with some breathing room. We do have a towable car. TAW’s Jeep Cherokee actually has a “tow” setting on its transmission selector knob so that it can be towed, and it is a fairly economical car to drive. I wouldn’t call it a “crossover”, as it is a “Trailhawk Edition”, and actually quite capable off road, but it is a fair amount smaller and sportier than my 4Runner. But that said, we also own a couple of fat-tire e-bikes, plus a special bike rack to haul them both. They have a 750 watt electric motor in the rear hub, and can be used either in pedal-assist mode, or with a regular twist throttle on the right grip, just like a motorcycle. They’re capable of 20mph, and have a range of between 20-40 miles on a charge, depending on how hard you use the motor. You can throw those on the back of a motor home. The combined weight, including the rack, is about 160 lbs, which “tows” a lot more economically than a Jeep. They’ll go anywhere a Jeep can go, and some places a Jeep can’t. And if all you need to do is get around a campground, or ride into town for dinner or a few groceries, they’ll do just fine.

Although I have the room for another vehicle in the driveway of my new house (room for storing the trailer too), I’m not sure I want to buy a dedicated tow vehicle for something that i won’t be using all the time. Plus, while my grandbabies are still real little, a motorhome is better if we want to take them along, because someone can entertain them and keep an eye on them while we’re on the road, which is doable, but not nearly as comfortably in a tow vehicle.

So I’m thinking pretty hard about a motorhome instead of a trailer. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but there are some good deals out there on used but not to old and good condition RVs. So it looks attractive. To me. We’ll see.

miljet wrote:You might enjoy the forum at
http://www.irv2.com/
While there, check out the Texas Boomers RV Club

I tried to join a couple of days ago, and to this moment, I have still not received the email with the confirmation link so that I can activate my account. So the site won't let me post anything. And I can't find a "help" link to contact a moderator to try and fix it. Maybe you could talk to one of their mods for me? I'm registered there as "Annoyed Man" (they have a character limit that prevents me from including "The" in my username). Thanks.

Mxrdad wrote:Also, Miljet is spot on with that RV website. Its a must have for not only the "lifers" in RV's but also the weekend warriors. Good stuff in there.

Yesterday morning, as we were going through the departure preparations prior to returning home, a lady walked past with her killer chihuahua and we chatted with her for a couple of minutes. Her first question, "So, are you full-timers yet?"

Answer: not with this little trailer! So here are my impressions regarding size..... First, our trailer is way too small to even remotely consider full-timing it. We would have to be forced by desperate circumstances into such a scenario. We're not that desperate. That said, it is easy to see why nearly everybody in the campground of our age group (I'm 64, and TAW is "late 50s") was camped with a large RV with multiple slide-outs and a LOT of room and features.

For instance, we used the campground's toilet and shower facilities for nearly everything except a middle-of-the-night tapping of the kidneys. I noticed that I never saw any of the other guests using those facilities, for the simple reason that they didn't have to. I'm sure their RV's bathroom facilities were more than roomy enough to use for all uses, and less spartan than our little marine-style "wet head". Ours is suitable for travel, but I would want something more substantial for long-term living.

At home, we sleep in a king-size bed - a split king Sleep Number bed which allows us to individually change firmness and angle/elevation of head and feet. With my back issues, this has proven to be near-mandatory to obtain a decent night's sleep without being well-medicated. We are each able to get in and out of bed on our side of the bed. Our trailer has a smallish queen sized bed, which is just barely long enough for either of us (at 5'10", I am the taller of the two of us). It is mounted crossways in the trailer, so one of us has to climb over the other to get out of bed, which leads to what I called "relay-peeing" in the middle of the night. If one of us gets up, the other takes advantage of the moment to get up also to use the facilities.

And then there is just the issue of square footage. We spent most of Sunday evening into Monday morning confined indoors due to a rainstorm passing through. We've been married 28 years and get along very well together and enjoy one another's company, but I can see how we could begin to tire of one of another's presence if we had to live this way full time. The U-shaped dinette, which is fairly large for such a small trailer, thanks to being located in the slide-out, is not really a substitute for a good couch or armchair; so there is really no comfortable place to sit for extended periods. The truth is, a trailer like ours is meant to be an adjunct to outdoor living - simply a place to retreat to for the night, or for passing bad weather. But it is not really a place to live full-time, or for any kind of really extended stay.

The question then becomes, what would it take for us to want to invest in an RV large enough to live in at least semi-permanently? The answer is, we're not there yet......in no small part because we have two precious grandbabies that we just can't get enough of. As I am fond of saying: my grandbabies are #1; all others are #2 or lower! Right now, we live fairly close to them, about 15 minutes away. We're unwilling to spend large amounts of time away from them, so there is no practical way to fold full-time RVing into that piece. If we lived far from them, then long-term RVing would make perfect sense as it would be a way for us to spend large blocks of time with them.

Then there is the financial peace piece (yes, I said it that way deliberately). We are, other than the loan on this trailer and a small credit card balance, debt free. We own our home free and clear. It is comfortable and spacious for the two of us, and we like living in it. Hospitality ranks highly among spiritual gifts for the both of us, and we enjoy entertaining - particularly in the Lord's service. Our home affords us the ability to do that easily and fairly regularly. Since there is no need to invest in a "house on wheels", I have to consider whether or not I want to assume what is essentially a mortgage, all over again, as the price of entry into longer term RV living. Add to that the cost of a tow-vehicle, since neither of our current vehicles — both of which are capable of towing our current trailer — are capable of towing a much larger unit better suited to full-time RVing. Since a large trailer is more affordable than a large motor home, that means we'd have to buy a large heavy-duty tow truck, probably diesel, so there's another $50-$60K (assuming new).

And then there is the cost of storage. We live on a smallish suburban lot just under 1/4 acre. There's no place to store even our little trailer, let alone a large RV. So we rent space at a local storage yard which is conveniently located to our home. We could probably store it more cheaply if we were willing to store it further away, but we're willing for now to pay a little extra for that convenience. It's a covered space at a local facility. There are several large RVs stored adjacent to my spot, and they use two spots like ours; so I'm assuming twice the cost of storage for something in that size range. We don't own any land yet outside of the city (although that is in our future plans), so we don't have a free place to store it. I am willing to discuss storage at my son's brother in law's place in Colleyville, in exchange for allowing him and his wife to use it, but my wife is not as sanguine about sharing it as I am. And then there is the consideration of upkeep costs. If he breaks it, do I pay to fix it? Stuff like that.......

So for now, we are going with what we can afford right now, without going into a large amount of debt to have it. So between that and our family/grandkids situation, our RVing ambitions are pretty limited to what we currently have, including limiting whether or not we can consider full-timing it.

We got back from Lake Whitney this afternoon. We got down there on Saturday, quite a bit later than we expected to, and ended up setting up everything in the dark. I consider that a successful first test, as I got it all done with no loss of blood or busted knuckles. We enjoyed the solitude, lived simply, realized why people buy great big rigs instead of little tiny ones like ours, but still enjoyed the time together, even in what is a pretty small space for an extended period. My 4Runner towed the trailer just fine, although fuel economy was substantially reduced. Normally, on a trip like that, I'll get around 19-21 mpg, but I averaged 12 mpg towing the trailer.

The bed was actually fairly comfortable, and I got on average an hour more of sleep each night in the trailer than I normally get at home. The tiny little toilet/shower was strictly a "middle of the night" affair, as we had a full sized bathroom and toilet a short walk from our site. We weathered a good thunderstorm on Sunday night, and nothing leaked. We stayed nice and dry. We did have to reel in the awning as the wind picked up before the rain started.

All in all, it was a great trip, and we're already talking about where we want to go next.

jocat54 wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:Lake Catherine SP in AR may be the nicest State Park we've ever stayed in. Just sayin'....

Arkansas has some great state parks. I few years back we took a month long trip (Late Sept to late Oct) up to Maine to see the Fall Colors and spent some time in Arkansas on the way back. Really enjoyed their parks.
Keep in mind that if you travel to the NE that time of year that a lot of their campgrounds close for the winter in late Sept-early Oct.

I haven't been trout fishing since I left California, and I understand that Arkansas has outstanding trout fishing along the White River. I'd like to find out if what they say is true. Fresh trout for breakfast is hard to beat.

carlson1 wrote:I hope you and your sweet wife have a good time and get some relaxation on this trip. My first trip out I worked myself to death trying to do everything the first time. Enjoy.

Thanks Carl. I hope so too. I don't expect the first day will be that relaxing, but that's how you learn.

We booked our first trip - a short one. We're going to be at the Thousand Trails Lake Whitney RV park on the 13th, 14th, leaving on the 15th.

carlson1 wrote:We need to all meet up at a State Park or RV park for a couple of days and of course it needs to be close to a range.

Now THAT would be fun. If I don't go to the CAF airshow in Dallas this weekend, I'll be down at ETTS getting some rifles zeroed. I'm going to ask Patrick, the owner, if it would be cool to have a smallish group of RV campers there to dry-camp overnight some weekend. There's no hookups, but the place is a couple of hundred acres, so surely there's room to park a few RVs. That would be fun.

Man, am I glad I started this thread. I am learning a ton of stuff from you veteranos.

Yeah, the technicians who ran us through how to set everything up when we took delivery went over that with us - not the video, but the principle.

E.Marquez wrote:Should you want to connect the two flex lines to a Y this will do ya..
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/it ... tion/31209

EXACTLY what I wanted to know. THANKS!

OldCurlyWolf wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:So we went to Walmart and bought wheel chocks, a Lynxlevelers RV Leveling Kit, a knee-pad, a 15' Camco RhinoFLEX RV Sewer Hose Kit, RV toilet paper, a clean water hose, a 90º brass elbow and a brass water regulator for the clean water hookup, and a light broom and dustpan.

Question: do you have to have a separate drain hose for the gray water tank, or do you just use the same hose you use to drain the black water tank?

I recommend an inline filter for the water line that removes minerals, etc. It will increase the life of your water heater among other benefits.
My black and grey water tanks are hooked to the same outlet for drainage, so I obviously use the same hose.

If you have separate outlets I suggest two hoses with a splice to one end on the sanitary drop.

Yeah, my trailer has separate outlets. The guy who was training us on Friday when we picked up the trailer gave the same advice as yours about using a spliced hose, but when I looked for such a thing at Walmart, they didn't have one. That's why I bought just the one drain hose. If there is such a coupling to be found that would connect two hoses into a common drain hose, I'd gladly buy it if you can point me to it.

Oldgringo wrote:OH! Did you get the $100 decorator's rug for under your awning yet? If not, there are 9x9 (?) pieces of outdoor carpet at Lowes and HD that will do the job as well. They'll roll up and ride well on your rear bumper secured with bungee cords.

We have a folding table from Walmart that serves us well under the awning. Just sayin'....

Happy Trails to you......

Thanks OG. No, we didn't buy a $100 decorator rug. We did look at an outdoor decorator rug in the RV section while we were at Walmart, but didn't buy it. I don't remember the price. We did buy an 8'x10' gray tarp; I don't remember the price for that one either, but it was probably about $10. But the outdoor carpeting idea sounds like a winner, as does storing it on the rear bumper, so thanks for the idea. I'll check that one out in the next day or two.

E.Marquez wrote:Same hose for both...
Then the last drain before storage, I would empty the fresh water tank into the system, filling it as possible both grey and black water tanks.., and drain again.
1: I liked to flush, sanitize the fresh water system, so needed to drain anyway
2: I wanted to get as much fresh water though the black and gray tanks with less "wasted" fresh water

As we "camped" at sites I often did not trust the fresh water hook ups...we drank and cooked with bottled water ..fresh water tank was for showering, cleaning and in a pinch cooking after it was boiled.

Erik, I'm not sure about my gray water tank, but I know that my black water tank has one of those internal "sprinkler" heads, and there is a secondary connection at the back of the trailer for city water, which exists specifically to flush out the black water tank by means of the sprinkler. Do you think that between that, and pouring a gallon or two of water down the toilet, that would be sufficient to flush that tank?

We will probably be buying and drinking bottled water too for the most part. (I do that at home anyway.) I might boil the incoming fresh water to make coffee with, but unless I was hooked up to a municipal water supply where I knew the water to be good, I'm not sure I would trust it either. For instance, one of the first places we'll be going to is the Lake Whitney RV Campground (it's one of the Thousand Trails sites on our free membership). I have no idea if the water comes unprocessed from the lake, or if it is off of the treated water supply from one of the surrounding municipalities. Of course, I will call and ask when I book the reservation, but I may not get a clear answer, so......