Leaderboard

After hanging around this website for 8 or 9 years. I waited patiently for production to begin again and thinking I should have bought the RED one when it was available as a demo model. I was holding out for retirement on March 31, 2018, with serious OTT shopping to follow. But good fortune came my way and I was offered a retirement package in November, effective December 31, 2017. My good fortune continued with an LE2, hull number 193 becoming available in Georgia. An early December trip up "north" resulted in a deposit and pick up was completed on the 15th of January. I would like to thank everyone at Oliver Travel Trailers for the trip around the production floor in 2016. I would also like to thank Larry and Betty, who gave me a tour of an LE2 at an I-75 rest stop north of Tampa in 2015 after they left the RV Show. I would like to thank all of the forum members for their contributions to this newbie's education. I look forward to learning from everyone's experiences, both good and bad. If I ask stupid questions or belabor minor details, be patient, that's who I am. Mike and Krunch or mossemi LE2 Hull 193 "the doghouse" We'll see you in Alabama!

I also enjoy camping in remote areas without hookups, but that last photo posted by Overland shows some rocks I'd prefer to avoid! Last October, I visited the factory for some upgrade work. I left late in the day to travel to Rock Island State Park in Tennessee. I was using Google Maps to navigate and I missed a turn. Rather than trying to find a place to turn around and backtrack (I found myself on a very narrow hard-surfaced county road) I decided to keep going anticipating that Google Maps would adjust to my error without causing any difficulties. That was a mistake and marked the beginning of a two-hour 20-mile adventure. The road quickly changed and I found myself on a narrow dirt track winding my way up into the hills. Darkness came and the dirt track became narrower and rocky. I lost cell phone service and the only houses along the track (there were only two or three) looked like places used for nefarious purposes (I was thinking meth labs) so I didn't want to stop to ask directions or for help getting the Ollie out of a jam. Luckily, the Elite II is only 7' wide and my Touareg is just under 6 1/2' wide. I passed through some very narrow spots where the brush rubbed both sides of the Touareg so I knew the Oliver was getting a little more attention from the brush. Luckily, after about 2 hours, I had found my way down the hills to a two-lane blacktop and cell phone coverage that allowed me to get back on the track to the state park. It reminded me of a trip when I was a child. My parents, my two older sisters and I drove from Nebraska to Arkansas to pick up a new boat--I think it was called an Arkansas Traveler. My mother was in the front seat navigating. I was in the back seat between my two older sisters, one of whom was in college. She somehow dropped a cigarette in the inside of a rear door of the car and started a smoldering fire. My mom gave my father terrible directions and we ended up on a narrow dirt track that my father eventually had to drive back with the boat and trailer behind the car. He had to back up a mile or so. Not a happy fellow! Anyway, the lesson I've learned from these two experiences is to scout the route when it looks like the going could get pretty rough. Much like scouting rapids on the river in my whitewater kayaking days. There's nothing worse than to find yourself in Class V rapids with Class III paddling skills!

Overland... great photographs. If this does not convert several RV Campground campers for this Summer... nothing will. Campsite photographs are welcomed. Some additional incentives for those who are on the... edge... of going OTG this year.

Several blogs for newbies suggest having a dry erase board in your RV to note important information you might forget, especially in an emergency situation (like where you are.) This seemed like great advice, having been a 9-1-1 operator who has been on the other end of panicked "I-don't-know-where-I-am" phone calls, so I mounted a board with Velcro on the back of the closet door. As I eyeballed it for level, I realized - heck, I'll be living inside one gigantic white board & wondered (too afraid to try it myself) if anyone has written with a Dry Erase Marker on their walls & if so, did it erase?

A sidebar: (boy, that is a throwback term), we had a dry erase board that was looking pretty nasty. Nothing really cleaned it well. Always a little dingy around the edges. A friend said just spray some WD 40 on it. We did, wiped it off with a micro cloth and the board looks brand new. And everybody with a camper carries around some WD40...

Lol, that photo has a similar story behind it. We made a last minute detour to see Canyon de Chelly and got directions from Siri. My wife had looked at the park's website and saw that they said to avoid coming in from the east, but she interpreted that as travelling east somehow and when she saw the map taking us around and going in from the east she said yep that's right. The directions said 'may include unpaved roads', but we've been to national monuments before that you could only access on gravel, so no big deal. So off we went, got to the gravel road, which was actually better maintained than the paved road that got us to that point, and headed down that for quite some time before Siri turned us off on a road that didn't feel right. While we debated continuing, the road become narrower and narrower until it clearly wasn't right. More of a hunting trail than a road. So I started looking for a spot to turn around while my wife tried to figure out the best route back. The photo was taken where we turned back. Always in those situations, you end up on roads that you'd never have turned onto from pavement. It's the slow narrowing that gets you. As it turned out, Siri didn't actually know where the entrance to the park was, and she'd laid out a route to get us to the center of the park, which if you've ever been there, you know that's not even allowed. In fact, if you stop your vehicle right at the entrance gate at Canyon de Chelly and ask Siri for directions, you'll get this - The route does avoid tolls, though, which is nice. We got ourselves into one other jam earlier in the trip where we didn't have enough room to turn around, but I was able to unhook, get around, and hook back up from the other side. In that case, it was a road that the forest service had blocked off from the road we were trying to get to, which wasn't even reflected on the current MVU map we got at the park office. By the way, if you want to punish your trailer, forget the gravel - just drive down a few Navaho roads. They have the same bumps and dips as any gravel road, but you get to hit them at 60mph.

Ray, we aren't up for organized trips, but if we're ever in the same neck of the woods we'd be happy to meet up. The only time we've stayed anywhere with hookups has been if that was our only choice. Sometimes when we did, we didn't even bother to hookup. We've only had about 35 or so nights in our trailer - about 6500 miles - so we're still taking it easy on her, but nothing keeping an Ollie from getting out in the rough...

I'm pretty sure Oliver uses dry erase markers on the trailers during assembly. I've used a regular flair to temporarily mark spots for drilling and haven't had any trouble wiping that off. Just don't mix up your dry erase markers with your sharpies and I'd think you'd be O.K. Grease pencils work well on the fiberglass as well, but of course don't wipe off as easily. Or just take notes on your phones like we do.

No, I didn’t do any prepping. Just stuck it on there with two strips. It’s stayed on over some pretty bumpy terrain. Mike

Anonymous Please check your owners manual since this information could be different for your model year. Ford specs for 2011 and newer trucks say the w/d should be adjusted to eliminate about 50% of the front end RISE. If the front rises 1.5" initially, the RISE should be reduced to around 3/4"...

I'm sure Ray meant not offense to anyone here, he, like many here, has a particular way of conveying his thoughts. He is very active on the Airstream forum, which is why I invited him to join ours, when he was discussing Olivers over there. He has lead numerous "adventures" for Airstreamers during which it had been found that, while interested, many were lacking the basic skills needed for any remote adventure that went too far from hookups, which then affected the rest of those involved in the "adventure". While there are more of us who purchased our trailer for this purpose, there are still plenty who haven't the experience or ability to travel those roads (or lack thereof) think of those that are for sale after 6 months ownership who want more space for "camping" So him trying to evaluate/"qualify" someone to ensure he doesn't have to get out and show them how to lock their differential to get out of a rough spot is understandable. He isn't a paid tour guide, he's just trying to share the experience and knowledge with comparably skilled individuals. I do find it humorous that the three most similarly styled posters on this forum, to Ray, are the ones that took offense to the invitation being posed as it was, I would think that once part the cover of the book they would be the ones to most enjoy the read. For an example - airforums Ray - PM buzzy with your post, I'm not sure if he is still fully active on here and know (from the past) if everything were to work out, his active adventure ability and the interest he showed before should be very receptive of the idea.

Instead of the inside of the pantry door, use the outside and appeasing the "want to write on the trailer" thoughts. https://www.amazon.com/Whiteboard-Supertech-Adhesive-Boards-Education/dp/B074PQTXYX

That means I would have to get a new phone probably, or maybe a pill of some kind so I would remember to. Some habits die hard; "I wonder what this piece of paper is for? Oh ya, marshmallows and coffee". Check... Thanks for being a 911 dispatcher. Our unsung heroes. A lot of times our only lifeline out in the field...