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When I brought The Wonder Egg (hull #14) home in 2008 it had a single 100w solar panel and my batteries only held 110AH reserve energy. I did an experiment and ran the Fantastic Fan 24 hours a day for a full month, no hookups, just capturing solar energy. In the end, the batteries were at full charge and asking to keep on going to prove the trailer was like the Energizer Bunny. "In the early years" my interior and exterior lights were halogen . . . energy sucking devils. Now with all LED lights, a single, 160w panel, and 200AH of energy in my Lifeline batteries, I'm set for indefinate boondocking unless I find the never ending fog bank in the deep woods for extended camping. I recently traveled to Pennsylvania. While boondocking and using the furnace at night, I never woke up with fewer than 12.7 volts on my batteries. As soon as the sun was above the horizon, they slowly increased in voltage and by mid morning they were getting a super deep charge with 14.7 volts. Personally, I feel my current energy package is perfect as long as the tempurature is not stiffling and there is no need for the A/C. In those extremely rare instances, the generator gets to exercise. The beauty of having a rolling castle is the ability to seek the perfect climate by going high into the mountains or high up the latitude ladder. Both are fun.

Buzzy, No Tent campers here . . . Pinnacles Campground, WY. Bear country. Look closely across the wetlands, onto the opposite shore of the high mountain lake. If you see the bright white "dot" slightly above the lake (30' or so above it in reality, but just a bear's whisker in height above the lake in this long distance picture) that's The Wonder Egg, in all its boooooondocking splendor. My all time favorite boondocking camping spot so far. Pete

Couple more thoughts here in addition to some of the already excellent other post. But I do agree with Dave (trumpet guy) wish I had gotten an inverter installed, probably not the 2000 watt since we do not have or use a microwave or will never ever use the AC. But there are a few other things we could have used one for. I carry along a 400 watt inverter that plugs into the 12V port under the dining table and it does work so long as you don't tax things too much. The 12 V over the cooktop is all but worthless however due to the undersized wiring they used from the batteries to this area. Too much voltage drop. Don't know what part of ID you currently live in but we are just over the border here in MT. If you haven't seen an Oliver yet you're more than welcome to come visit ours. PM if interested. Back to solar, batteries and AC. We've camped where day time temps were either in the hundreds or near so for days on end, and never not once have we felt the need for AC. Just this past summer in Glacier we had those temps for almost our entire 2 week visit, in fact it reached 109º one day in Whitefish. But out west it cools down in the evening and you can vent out what warm air exist in the trailer quickly with the fan and all windows open. From our experience the Oliver doesn't even get that hot during the day parked in the sun. Now if you're down in Moab in the middle of July it might be a bit different story but this would not be high on my list of activities anyway. After May I don't want any part of that area, much prefer to head to Glacier, Beartooths, or some other equivalent place. But understand there is nothing wrong with the two options for batteries that Oliver already supplies. AGM's are maintenance free, while the T-105's tend to hold a bit more juice, both work great and will supply all of your electrical needs except for AC which you might never need anyway. At the risk of beating a dead horse regardless of what mathematical equations imply, unless you're using AC you will never run out of electricity with the solar package and 4 batteries on the Elite II even in the worst of weather. But there is more than one way to skin a cat. Back your TV up to the hitch, plug in the cable while running your engine and charge up that way. Beats the heck out of carrying generator around and if boon docking with no one else around your diesel engine will only be heard by you yet still quieter than all but the Yamaha's and Hondas. Another alternative would be purchase an additional portable solar panel, pull out the battery draw and hook that up in addition to the existing solar panel on the roof and charge at a faster rate. But the existing system is already overkill except in the worst sort of conditions none of this will be necessary anyway. We use lights freely as needed on our Oliver, furnace if needed, vent fan as needed, as well as water pump. We don't use the entertainment system however. We would rather be out hiking and exploring, then come in cook diner have an adult beverage get up and do it again. But I doubt that system would eat up more than a percent or two even if used.

We tow with a 2014 Sierra crew cab. It has custom heavy duty bumpers on each end with a front receiver hitch making the total length 21 feet. The Outlaw Oliver's frame was extended during construction by 18 inches making her length 25 feet. So we are a total of 46 feet point down the road. It would appear that the length of your set up with an Oliver Elite II and your current tow vehicle would be about the same as we are. Realistically I would not expect you to have any difficulties in getting into places that you desire. We have camped in many tight spaces from the East Coast to the West Coast but have never been unable to get into a place we really wanted.

Good idea regarding practicing on large empty parking lots, it will definitely help to gain some confidence. Regarding backup or rather rearview cameras. The backup camera we have on our TV is invaluable and makes it so easy that I can do this by myself, love it. We also opted for the rear view camera on our Oliver and my enthusiasm for it is not so positive, though it is still helpful to some degree. This might be the one and only complaint I have about our Oliver. Image quality on this thing is abysmal especially when compared to the factory installed Ford backup camera. Perusing the manufacturers website one would think this thing has crystal clear vision and image quality, nothing could be further from the truth. Worse yet is there are no guides to tell you how close things are and given the very wide angle lens you can't depend reliably on your own judgement. And the monitor is a technological cruel joke that only a troubled mind could have invented. After this last trip I came home and started shopping for an alternative that can be used with our iPhone, turns out there are quiet a few options available. Haven't purchased one yet but probably will. I hope the good folks at Oliver read this and make plans to change to another more capable rear view camera for future customers.

I think you will be fine, as long as you don't need to turn on a dime. Our overall length on the F150 is right around 22' also, but with a shorter wheel base by 10". There have been some tight spots but we usually manage. We also have what ford calls the Super Crew cab 4 door affair, about the size of a basketball court in the back… eh, maybe not but its large and roomy.

The wheelbase in 167". From the bullrail to the bumper is 22'. I gues is is actually a crew cab, the 4 door, even bigger than the extended cab, with the 8-foot bed. Jaque

Your wrong about this information. As previously stated above we have camped with our Oliver for two weeks or more and never not once have we need shore power… ever. The only time we dipped down into the low 80's% of our battery pack was the first week we had it, staying in TN at my sisters house when the weather was freezing cold, mid to low teens every night for 4-5 days running. We ran the furnace during the night to keep the camper around 58º and in the morning the battery pack would be around 82-85% but easily recharged even in heavy overcast days with the rain every day to 100%. As far as I'm concerned the solar package will keep anyone with electricity indefinitely based upon our experience. Campers will run out of gas and water long before electricity with this package. And again we just returned from a two week trip to Utah depending 100% on our solar package, we had rain, we had wind, we had overcast days and the lowest our battery pack got to was 96% but only because we ran the furnace in the morning. We had at least 3 nights of freezing temps at Sand Island Campground close to Bluff. Not sure why you think otherwise but this solar package is awesome providing more power than we will ever use. We have the Elite II with dual panels, 4 Trojan batteries. Hope this helps.