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Boon-docking somewhere in the Southern Mojave Desert...

Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2017 to you, as well. And, the same to all our Oliver friends. Sherry

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and we look forward to seeing many of our Oliver friends in 2017! Mike

I've seen some other people asking about the refrigerator and I just went through that section in the owners manual and pulled out a bunch of sections and pasted them into 1 sheet that everyone should know. This is my 3rd Dometic and they are great refrigerators but they do have some places that we need to watch. First is the upper door latch, they can break and Little House Customs has plenty of extra and spare parts. I've copied part of their page here- "From LHC" FRIDGE HINGE REPAIR/DAMAGE PREVENTION KIT All too often we hear of the top hinge breaking on the 17" Dometic fridges. This is bad news when it happens because that top hinge is part of that quite expensive door! This stainless steel bracket is easy to install and will repair that broken hinge permanently or prevent it from happening on one that's not yet broken! The very thin profile is nearly invisible when installed. This is a must have for all 17' refrigerators. FRIDGE SPILL CONTAINMENT TRAY Okay, so if you’ve ever spilled milk in the bottom of your fridge, you know you want this and don’t need to read any further. If you haven’t, you still need it but are welcome to read on. This tray is sized to fit the very bottom of all 17” fridges. At 260.15625 cubic inches, it will handily contain an entire gallon of spilled milk while stealing almost zero space in the fridge. You did remember that there are 231 cubic inches in a gallon, right? OK, maybe not but I did... trust me. FRIDGE BUTTON GUARD Who hasn’t bumped the fridge control, switched to DC and run their battery down? This new version is made for us by Charlie Young. It's clear, fits the fridge well and doesn't require removal to operate the buttons. It attaches with clear VHB tape to the control panel. [end of LHC web page additions] Back to the story - The first thing we did with our last trailer was to call and make an appointment at LHC to have them put the additions on that we wanted. We had Larry put the "Damage Prevention Kit" on along with the "Fridge Button guard" and it really gave us a good piece of mind because we do take off through the woods with trailer in tow and park in some amazing places. Bumping the buttons will become a regular thing without the guard installed and I highly recommend it. The new metal door hinge replaces the plastic one that comes with the fridge and will save the door from needing to be replaced if the stock hinge does break. I added the containment tray to this article because I don't remember Karen having on in our fridge :) The only problem that we had with the fridge was caused by me not knowing the voltage limits of the control panel. Even though you're running on gas and thinking that as long as the battery is putting out, it will be ok, this fridge does have it's minimum voltage of 9.6VDC. It will work a few times if your lucky and your batteries drop below that, but if you continue thinking that it will keep it up... Unfortunately that won't happen. With our Casita, we only had one Battery and it worked pretty good most of the time with the one battery. Usually over night it would drop from a full charge of 13.8VDC down to usually 11VDC overnight and this is acceptable. But then I started getting cocky and kept taking it lower and eventually found out that her CPAP machine would run fine down to 9.5VDC before it's low battery cut off would kick in... You can see where I'm going here - because the fridge was on gas, I really wasn't worried about it. So one night when we were parked boondocking I noticed that the trailer hadn't charged back up while we were driving and found that I had not plugged it in all the way because a small piece of gravel had been knocked into the 7-pin connector. So we were now going to be starting off the night at only 11.5VDC even after running the generator. The CPAP kicked off and woke up Karen,and the voltage had dropped to 8.7VDC and that's when our refrigerator problem started. I could hear the pilot igniter probe clicking on and off, trying to relight the fridge but it wasn't working at all on propane but it worked fine on AC or DC... ANd that's what we used to get home along with our cool box that we keep in the back of the car. An old friend of mine up here is a Mobile RV mechanic, so I gave him a call and he came right over. Then after pulling it apart and looking things over, he found that the main relay on the board wouldn't pull in, so the propane wasn't getting the signal to start. So I ordered the new board and that was that. The Moral of the story here is - Know the fridges limitations... In the attachment, I've pulled out the basics and then some from the Dometic Owners Manual. It would be best for everyone to read the entire manual and then use this page if needed as a reference, but either way, if you read this, you will have a real good understanding of your Dometic Refrigerator. Reed Lukens Copy it, Paste it and Save it to your Oliver Maintenance Files :)

We are in Loveland,CO at Boyd Lake State Park for two weeeks visiting our kids. We woke up to outside temp of 10F this am. We are pretty comfortable except for having to walk the dog! The furnace ran most of the night. Inside temperature seems to stay about 5 degrees cooler than what temperature we set the thermostat at. ..50 stays at 45 , 65 stays 60-62. We have a little space heater but mostly it runs when we come in and turn up the thermostat..makeusfeel less chilled.

Great idea about a "senior" National fishing license. A great way for states to get some well needed tourists into their state. Also most seniors are " catch and release" type anglers and wouldn't deplete any source. Maybe we need to petition our members of Congress? I know Maine sells non-resident licences that vary in length of time, but you have to find someone open to sell you one. Maybe for a few bucks you could get a stamp that would make it reciprocal in another state?

Wishing Everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

My feelings are also creeping in about the "passing the baton" by the company. Also seeing articles on here being "lifted" and relabeled on a Facebook page as new or by another author. Hopefully the company doesn't loose site that this might be a two way learning experience for both company and customer...

To all our Oliver friends, both those we've met and those we've not yet had the pleasure... Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year Here's wishing safe and fun travels to everyone this coming year and continued success to the team that builds the world's Best Fiberglass Trailer - OLIVER !!!!

Our first camper was a used Chalet A-Frame camper. Purchased it during 2010 and really enjoyed camping with it. We were camping on Mount Pisgah campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway during 2010 when we saw an Oliver. The owners gave us a complete tour and we really liked it. At that time, Oliver had stopped production and used Ollies were not easy to find. Our Chalet had floor rot, so we decided our next camper would not have wood floors. Purchased an all aluminum 2010 LivinLite CampLite 11 travel trailer next with aluminum sheet interior/exterior walls, aluminum ceiling/roof, aluminum frame, and aluminum tongue & groove plank floors. The 2000 pound CampLite was rugged, but small, so we wanted to move up in travel trailer size. Oliver started building the Legacy Elite II, so we were very interested in buying a Oliver. We scheduled an Oliver plant tour last May 2016. Before heading to TN for the tour, a used 2015 Elite II in MO was posted in this forum's "For Sale" section earlier that week. We went on the Oliver tour on a Thursday, headed to SE MO that afternoon and camped in the used Ollie that night on the owners farm. Purchased the Ollie from the couple in MO the next morning. Chalet A-Frame: CampLite 11: Ollie Rig:

This is Round Pond Recreation Area at West Point, New York. Campsites are spread around the pond with picnic pavilions, boat dock and beach area. Sites are nicely spaced, we couldn't see our neighbor - the next site was about 30 to 40 yards up the road. This is just across the road from our site looking across the pond. This was the third week in October.