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During the long wait for pick up day I admit to spending a lot of time lurking on the Oliver forum - so much great info and experience, thank you so much for all your contributions! But as a newbie to towing and trailer camping, somewhere in that process I began to get very anxious about the learning curve we were facing. There was so much discussion about the different systems and modifications and configuration options and work arounds and etc etc - all of it great info btw, this is not a complaint in any way - but it was all so foreign to me that I began to form the impression that this new life we were embarking upon was going to be a lot of work. It didn't take long in our Ollie for that anxiety to melt away. This trailer has everything we need and then some. Lights? Flip a switch. Hot water? Turn on the faucet. Below freezing outside? The furnace works great. Everything you need is there and easy to use out of the box. Yes, you do need to learn the systems...but not overnight. Over the last month we've slowly made our way further away from the mothership as we gained confidence in the abilities of both ourselves and our new trailer. The wealth of info in the forum has been an invaluable resource as we figure out how it all works and get our travel legs built up. But I'm very happy to report that nothing yet has felt like hard work...and that anxiety? Disappeared before we checked out of Fall Hollow after our first weekend:) We're Greg and Theresa Kopish, we'll be posting as Grumble and Twist. Looking forward to meeting you all at the rally in May! Twist

Friday evening, our local RV Club had our annual Christmas Party. We're not big, maybe 15 couples, but we enjoy each other. One interesting fact is that after Beverly and I brought #241 home, 2 other couples have placed orders, so the Oliver will be the majority trailer brand in our club. Because I've served as president of our little club for several years, one of our members brought Beverly and me a great Christmas present. Ricki and her husband Tom came over to the house this summer when we had a party to show off our new trailer. Ricki took a picture, digitized it, and embroidered a nice hand towel for us. Of course it's too nice to ever use as a hand towel. If anyone is interested in something like this, Ricki said she could embroidery towels, shirts, jackets, etc. Drop me a note and I'll put you in touch with her. (She does small or large projects. She's even embroidered items for movies which has becomes a relatively new industry in our area.) Brad

Reed, this is not completely accurate. You can easily install 3 x 160 watt panels on the roof. Back in 2013 when I designed the solar setup for our Hull #050, I used the Blue Sky equipment but the largest affordable panels available were 100 watt. We went with two because that's what "everybody else" was doing and all the early builds had this 200 watt configuration. Soon, the 160 watt panels became cheap enough that Oliver switched to them giving their trailers a total of 320 watts. I then added another 100 watt panel to my array to give me 300 watts. I like all my panels on the roof. I don't have to store, transport, deploy and worry about the theft of an "extra" panel. Best of all, it simply works. In full sun, 300 watts has proven to be more than enough to fully charge our batteries every day by 1400. Parking in the shade expectedly decreases our ability to charge, but the areas we typically travel to (Western USA) usually don't have shade anyway. An added benefit of the three panels is that now I have a large enough area to land our helicopter on the roof!

As to insurance,i remember buying mine on delivery day, February, 2008, via cell phone, on the way to the factory. We check each year, but good Sam's is still best/ most reasonable for us. They allow layup periods at home and in storage with greatly reduced rates . Reed, as far as I know, we have 2 x 100watt panels, with a 2008 blue sky controller, which is available today for $160 on Amazon. I was not addressing your situation, but mine. Our tiny system takes us to wonderful campsites, but we are careful. no microwave, no big power suckers /inverter. We camp. We don't use much electrical, other than a few led lights, the fan, the power for the fridge, etc Fwiw, our best camping friend was with us in her Casita in November for three nights.. lows in the 20 s. With a battery monitor, she managed three nights in the twenties, without solar.yes, she deployed an extra blanket. She has one group 27 battery. We never had to deploy the Honda generator, for us, or her. But, she's a lifelong camper. Back in the day, when she taught camping at our school, I went along to chaperone her trips with the high school kids. We had a lot of fun, in tents, with very limited resources. In the Oliver,We just try to manage our resources. It's another little fun challenge. After ten years, it s pretty easy....and second nature after the first year in our trailer. Happy tenth birthday to our little Oliver. Sherry

@Mmoren I would think that if you have a production start date then you already have a hull number as well as a VIN. Just ask Anita or Heather for it. They are not on your PO or your quote. And yes, the last three digits on VIN is hull number. You are doing due diligence and therefore minimizing your mistakes, we hope. We are in the same boat. In addition to other good folks here talk to Skalywag and Dave Phelps (they have the same size trailer) to get even more good ideas and problems solved.

Just about ready for lift off :) We were here in March on the other side of the road when the balloons came over us and today they took off from right here :) It sure made for a pleasant sunrise :) I took this one the other day when it was nice and sunny with my trust old Phantom 3

Man, I wish I could get mine now. April 2nd 2018 looks like my delivery date. Can hardly wait. Should start production soon. Congratulations! You guys enjoy that thing. Ray

I haven't had any problems with the doors, only the shelves. If they've changed the doors, though, I'm sure ours are the new ones since when I ordered the replacement door with the correct swing, they asked about the style of the door interior to see if I had the latest version. I think fixing the shelves will be a simple matter of adding some hardware to hold them in their grooves. I'm also thinking about adding a fan inside to keep the air temp consistent throughout.

We sure love boondocking... And here in California, us retirees pay half the going rate in state parks, so we hit up Red Rock Canyon state park again on our way south to the Sedona, AZ Rally this Thursday and boondocked in the beauty of the place. There were only 2 other RV's in the place, so we had the whole back half of the campground to ourselves :)

Rumline, Thanks for the kind words. Yes, coyotes are incredible animals. Those yellow eyes can lock-on and look for intention. Much more than simple sight. She would start a game and then challenge me to respond to her moves. She understood what we were doing and what we wanted her to do without training. We were all part of a pack that lived and travelled together. I often thought of her as a relative that had come to visit. Lot's of interaction, but also independent. Or like a cat that retained a lot of independence, but she found her place in the family and added an immense amount of joy and character to our world. So much of getting along with her was understanding her hard-wired character and her outlook on the world. She is the smartest and most fun dog I have ever had. We would wrestle and chase and play games for hours every day. We built a bond and a trust that helped her with her natural caution or wariness, when facing new challenges or meeting people. Through it all and now at about 5 1/2 years old, she has never been a threat to anyone. It was a real heartbreaker to let her go, but given the circumstances, Southwest Wildlife is the perfect place for her to be. I designed the counter top, had the piece sheared and bent and then installed it myself. The material is 14 gauge, 304 stainless with a polished finish. The sink and stove holes were made with a 4" grinder. #10 screws and nuts hold it in front and along the back. It is glued down with paintable silicone. It is holding up very well and was put down directly over the white fiberglass counter top after that was scuffed up with a scrubby pad and then de-greased. It is thick enough and glued almost continuously underneath, so it does not dent. We set hot pots on it, within reason. It was designed to be very durable and used hard. Stainless will always show some character from sliding iron pots on it it cutting on it, etc, but that's fine. It will never wear out and is far more durable than the stock countertop.

When coming home we found a great spot to boondock off hwy299 at a Trinity River access location. There were no signs saying, no overnight camping, so we pulled in and had a nice quiet evening alone by the river... Deep in the canyon there was no cell service, so we spent another nice evening enjoying the beautiful area and having a great time. With no cell phone access, this place wasn't listed that we know of in the rvparky apps but what a wonderful find. I was hearing a ticking sound that I thought was coming from the wheels, so I retorqued them all again to 90lbs and the ticking was still there... It turned out to be Karen's new sign slapping the wall in the kitchen... Lol. Still though a couple of the nuts had backed off a touch and took an eighth of a turn, so it was time anyway. We never had these problems with the old steel rims back in the day but you do need to check these new aluminum rims and be sure not to over torque them because you can damage them. 90 foot pounds is standard for the newer rims and I noticed on the Oliver web site that is says for stage 3 use 120ftlbs... But you need to go by the torque specks for the rims and the owners manual says 90ftlbs which is where I set both the truck and the trailer. Reed

Mark - the actual dimmer switch that was installed for me by the guys at Oliver can be seen at: http://www.itc-rv.com/product/backlit-led-digital-dimmer/ Hope this helps. Bil

I recently traveled across the US for 5 weeks staying in a new campground almost every night. I found a great tool that assisted me immensely. This is not an advertisement and I receive no benefit by conveying this information. The Allstays RV campground app for Apple products is a map display with RV campgrounds and the services we require as campers are all there. Basic information on each campground is displayed, a link to the campground website is hyperlinked, and the data is updated regularly. The cost is $9.99 and includes all 50 states. If you are going to travel to unfamiliar campsites, this is a great resource ! Coy