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Overland, if you're headed to Arches be aware of the long lines at the entrance station. On our arrival day, we drove past at 11 AM and there was a very long line. The week before we left there had been an article in the SLC newspaper about possibly an entrance reservation system. After arriving and setting up camp, we went for a bike ride and went into the park early the next morning. The NPS web site suggests "to avoid traffic, we recommend entering the park before 8 am or after 3 pm." I think that is true seven days a week during the spring. We arrived on a Tuesday in the morning and a lot of the campground sites were taken. Fortunately, there are a lot of areas with good BLM dispersed camping sites.

Sherry, The microwave is screwed to the rear of the cabinet. The rear of the microwave is a single layer of thin steel, so I just drilled three holes back there and ran three screws into the wood wall from inside the oven box. The surround is a plywood box as built from Oliver, except it was rough cut and unfinished. Side to side I shimmed the microwave up to press into place between the pipes and the right side wall. So, it is pressed in and screwed in place. The (3) vertical stacked, wine rack tubes are 4" ABS and the (5) lower tubes are 3" ABS. They fit perfectly with zero play. A few #6 flathead stainless screws into the side wall and floor convinced them to stay there. I slightly modified the rear cord minder on the micro and set it on a 1/4" piece of plywood so the tubes supported its feet. It's set up high in the box so that it's door clears the drop down door with enough clearance to pass over a plate that is ready to go in. The rough cabinet, as it came from Oliver, was not designed to be seen, or support a piano hinge and latch, so it took some work to clean it up, tie the fiberglass to the plywood edges and cosmetically fix the rough cuts. The catch Oliver uses on the closet and pantry doors is a very nice piece and I was able to get them to send me one. But I had to make the strike plate and the arm that swings up to catch it, as well as make a few other little adjustments to it. Inside there is no extra room. The catch clears the micro by 1/8" and the micro door clears the strike plate by about a 1/16". The chains fall into spaces on each side of the drop down door that trap them to prevent swinging around underway. The latch mechanism is contained inside a hollow cavity in the door that allow it to be taken apart, but not seen. The door is stiffened up with strips of 3/4" X 4" oak and everything is varnished to prevent warping from moisture. Everything went in and fit around everything else, but it is tight. Also, the new microwave is a 700 watt model (vs about 1,000 for the original), to run easily on a small generator or small inverter. It's great not having the kitchen knives, spatulas, tongs and barbeque lighter in the kitchen drawers. Plus three wine bottles are handy and lying down, instead of trying to contain them in the closet, or something. Since they are in close fitting ABS tubes, they can never break. Even the extra keys have found a place where they can't escape.

John, I switched mine early last year and it went fine. The new 2 5/16 coupler is not much stronger, but the ball certainly is. I just bought the part and transferred the hole locations over to it from the old one. Be careful that you use the right grage 8 bolts, you can use the old one, but I had to add a washer to each because the nuts had run out of threads before pinching the coupler onto the tongue. This meant the bolts were able to move around and it had started to elongate the holes a bit. The trick is to use bolts that support the load in their unthreaded area, but have enough thread to tighten correctly. This means you'll need ones that are about an inch too long and cut them off. A couple of washers allows you to get just the right length of unthreaded area in the coupler. There isn't enough room in the new piece to change it's overall length much and the farther out you go the weaker the design. The new piece uses a different catch and the lever is gone. Good! I kept tripping on that thing.

TG, this brought back a wonderful memory. When our youngest son (who had a speech impediment) was in the first grade, he performed "Wockin Wobin" during the school's talent competition. He didn't win. :)

All day pickup at the Mothership on Thursday (April 4) was quite enjoyable. Rainy day, but delivery occurred in the Sales Office "showroom". Great young techs, Blake and Hunter, demonstrated all things Oliver (0930 until about 4PM). Extra hour due to defective Andersen Weight Distribution hitch ball (had to get Jason involved to get my TV hooked to the Andersen WD hitch). Apparently, slightly new ball design (will send pictures in another email). Got to Montgomery Bell State Park late (before dark) and had to setup in the rain. Plumbing was winterized, so decided to spend first night without water (power hookup only). No problems leveling trailer with Andersen levelers. On Friday (today), flushed antifreeze, got Truma going, tried out composting toilet, drained potable water tank, all good. Internet using my Verizon MiFi 8800L, but also got the WiFiRanger connected to the State Park Wifi to test it all out. Still a bit uncertain of the WifiRanger - need to review some more. Very enjoyable camping setup, picture attached.

The latest modification is to the microwave cabinet. Our microwave tried to "escape" twice from it's cabinet and broke itself in the process. I decided I could do better and get more use from that area. So I installed a smaller one, that will still accept a full dinner plate, and I was able to fit in a wine rack, utensil storage tubes for the kitchen knives and things, and a couple of key hooks. We also gained a work surface which becomes extra counter space for preparing food or for a dish drainer. The latch was modified from a pantry latch and will not open while traveling. When closed we have a nice piece of furniture to look at that matches the rest of the tops we have, instead of looking at the old microwave. Since the microwave is now in the cabinet, it's door cannot open, so it is good for storing bread, towels, cereal boxes and things like that. It's very easy to pop open the cabinet, grab the bread, and build a sandwich on the new work surface/door with stuff from the fridge below. Or get things out of the fridge while someone is working at the sink and have a place to put them. Here are a few pix:

I just could not resist given the current thread on "Rockin Ollie"