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The only reason to blow the lines out only to refill them with liquid would be to keep from partially diluting the antifreeze. Full disclosure: living in North Mississippi, in 13 years I've never used a drop of antifreeze. I usually do drain the the lines and water heater and blow them out but as we are usually back on the road in mid January, I sometimes don't get around to it. As far as traveling in freezing weather, a full tank of water would take a long time to freeze, I've never worried about it. The pex lines won't burst even if frozen solid but all the fittings run the risk. I do carry pex rings and fittings plus cutting and crimping tools with me.

We keep the heat register below the curbside bed closed all the time, to try and force heat forward. When camping with electric hookups, we use the Vornado heater that @Mike and Carol recommended here. Overnight we plug it into the outlet at the side of the nightstand. In the morning, we plug it into the outlet next to the bathroom door, and point it into the bath area for half an hour or so. Works well to heat up the bath. When camping without electricity, we use the furnace overnight. Then in the morning, we use the Vornado to heat up the bath for half an hour. Here are my calculations: I have 4 AGM batteries which have 400 amp-hours. Of that, 1/2 is useable = 200 amp-hours. This heater runs at 750 Watts, so 750 Watts / 120 Volts = 6.25 Amps 6.25 Amps x 11 (fudge factor) = 69 Amps. (The fudge factor is because of inverter use, and comes from a post by Raspy.) The heater heats up the space well in 30 minutes, so 69 amps x 0.5 hours = 34.5 amp-hours. I can live with that amount of battery drain. And my wife really likes the bathroom to be warm for her shower.

Just picture the captain of the starship Enterprise asking the computer for "tea, earl grey, hot" and getting a plate of succotash from the food machine.

OUR GEOCACHING TALE In the 70's (before geocaching?) our local radio station had a "treasure hunt" contest sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. The call sign, KWRO, was displayed atop the station's building in huge block letters. Each summer we looked forward to the "Hunt for the Missing W". The W was taken down from the roof, placed in a box, and buried somewhere in the county (Coos, Oregon). Throughout the day, clues would be read over the air, a new clue each day, a ploy to get people to tune in to radio advertising. The clues were repeated from day to day, each clue having a unique number (like an Ollie!). There were a few parameters - the W is on public property, no fences or barriers are in the way, etc. The lucky person finding the W had to return the the treasure to the radio station to claim the $500 prize; you might recall, that was a fair amount of money in the 70's. Each Summer, we participated in the hunt. This was a great activity, getting families outdoors and interacting with each other. When our boys were old enough, they enjoyed deciphering the clues, looking forward to the weekend when we would search for the W. I wish I had documented the creative clues as well as our discussions as each of us, with our diverse analysis techniques, honed in on the location. One year, I'm certain we found where the W had been initially hidden, along an abandoned road. It appeared that the county road crew might have dug up the box with a grader blade while cleaning debris from the shoulder. It was subsequently found later, in the same vicinity, by friends of ours - less than 5 miles from our rural community. As Coos County is a predominantly rural county with vast areas of wooded USFS and BLM land, it helped that my husband was raised there and familiar with all the remote areas. And so, the hunts continued. I suspect the W was damaged by the previous incident because, thereafter, it was not the "hunt for the missing W" but the "Search for the Missing Pepsi Can". The treasure became an empty Pepsi can containing a note instructing the lucky finder to return it to the radio station to claim the $500 prize. Not quite as mysterious as the "Missing W". Finally, sometime in the 80's, our endeavors paid off. While walking along a BLM road in a logged over area in search of the elusive can, we spotted it, partially hidden in a large stump several yards off the side of the road. It was obvious that someone had walked through the brush to the stump; I presume an employee from the radio station routinely checked to see if the can was still there. I don't remember who spotted it first. I only know that, as a four-boy, one-income family, the $500 was well received. It paid for a good part of a much needed new roof on our home.

We visited Hohenwald a few weeks ago and don’t you know last weekend I turned on the tv and found myself rooting for the Vols. (Let’s not talk about that second half.)

I do it because I have a compressor, live in a part of Maine where some winters the ground freezes solid to 5 feet deep, blowing out seasonal houses plumbing systems is standard practice, and frozen pipes for some folks are as much a part of winter as having a snowball fight.. I know the antifreeze is good to minus 50.... and I know it’ll never get that cold.. but still.. I guess it’s a peace of mind thing...

It was a one off. Hole saw from Harbor Freight. And some vent covers. About a half hour job.

I saw this yesterday. Very informative. We use our phone. Just something to thing about for the future.....

We found a vendor that would fabricate a custom plastic cutting board for the kitchen. The main objective was to protect the glass cover over the stove top and provide a defined work area for various chores. We purchased a slightly undersized 24" x 31" piece with full bull nose edges and 1" rounded corners. On the bottom we installed half-round rubber bumpers. If interested, suggest that you contact- plasticcuttingboard.com.

I have asked this question as well. Wheels may have changed and the tires have, but are they the same size as previous models? Has anyone out there used cable chains on the Oliver? As for clearance between the tire and fender, we used cable chains on a previous Mazda Sport Sedan with low profile high performance tires and very little clearance between the tire and the fender well. Of course , you want to drive slow, but that's the case driving any vehicle outfitted with snow chains. . . . . . Except maybe for those skiers rushing to be first in the lift line . . . . 😵 Not ordering chains for the Ollie yet. Will wait to hear what Oliver (and others) have to say. We might just wait until we get to Hohenwald and pick them up locally . . . . . after the drive out, we will have a better idea of road conditions and whether we need them.

Good question. As you can see on the map Michigan is not on the way to anywhere. We've just not gone out of out way to go there. We almost did on the way back from Alaska in 2019 (Wow! was that only a year ago?) but didn't. I do want to go out to Isle Royale and that would necessitate going there. No other reason we haven't been.

Paul and I have been sorting through boxes and closets. We came across this really cool geocache tag from Mountainborn, circa 2008 or 2009. I stuck it on my Keychain, as a great reminder of the fun and fellowship we had, with the tiny group of owners, back in the day. Just wondering? Is this stiil a travel sport? I have no idea.

I've had somewhat better luck, but also have spent time testing even worse speech reco software and learning how to adapt myself to its foibles w/o dumping too much of my cognitive capacity into the task (again, years of training from work in the software industry I'm afraid). But yes at least on my Garmin unit it's not fantastic quality reco - it's fairly typical of mid-late-oughts second tier speech reco. And unlike Siri it has no cloud processing assistance (with the cloud you can use more modern tools such as deep neural nets or their variants, which have helped drive some significant improvements in things like speech recognition, image understanding, and language translation, but these require a LOT of both memory and processing power...). And on top of the reco quality, you have to understand the speech command hierarchy the device is expecting - very early-oughts again. When we were using it regularly my wife and I did have fun experimenting with which other phrases might be reco'd as the "voice command" start phrase

Only if you like drinking antifreeze. Even if you only add it to the city water port, it may not be in the tank itself, but it's in all your other plumbing.

I've just downloaded the TomTom Go app to my iPhone. It offers downloading of maps for what appears to be solid offline use and they're continuing to funnel features from their dedicated units into the app (things like heads ups on approaching things like gas stations in a sidebar etc.). I haven't used it yet so can't give a review but from specs it looks like it may be a good phone based option for navigation while in cell dead zones (which gets tough any time you are even diverting from a route that you set while connected, let alone when you're starting up in the morning w/o signal. I like Waze when connected as it has nice crowdsourced alerts, knows sneaky back routes around traffic jams, and does half decent predictive routing taking into account typical traffic volumes ahead of you in space and time (one of the nice things about leaning heavily on massive cloud computing capability). I have a very old Garmin that is still useful when offline but I'm hoping that TomTom Go will make it irrelevant as anything other than backup in case of hardware failure. The Garmin is still a pretty decent unit - one of their first forays into multitouch screen interface with half decent voice control. I've found the voice control to be moderately useful particularly when driving alone.

We looked at the Tab 400 when they first came out (out of curiousity!). We decided the same, some nice features, easy to tow but too small, especially the bath with the fold down Sink. Not a cold weather camper, either. Mike

Not the same, but I heard Oliver is installing a different bathroom roof vent in the 2021 model. Maxxfan, but don't know the model. No matter which model, it should be bigger than the previous little round fan, so that's good.

Gettin to be a tough forum. Better do your homework before you post, David. 😂

We've been to over 250 of the National Park units from every state including Alaska. I've sometimes had to have help (Chiricahua National Monument) but have never been unable to get into a campsite with our LEII (2014 Hull # 050). From 2008 to 2013 we had one of the original Elites (Hull # 026). From a height standpoint, the LEII will be a better fit for you tall folks. From our experiences, the Elite was a little small for two adults and three dogs, the largest one at about 100 pounds.

We’ve camped in quite a few National Parks and have not had a size problem yet. We haven’t tried Chisos Basin campground in Big Bend National Park but I would give it a try. We have heard from some fellow Elite II owners who got in that it was a little tight. I think the Elite II is small enough to fit into most campgrounds but big enough for a couple to be comfortable. Mike

We stayed at Davy Crockett 2 nights. Yes pickup was at new sales Center but it will be 2 more weeks before they complete remodeling. Pickup was wonderful and informative but they didn't have electricity in delivery area yet, at least where we were. Also if you are seeing this we just got our name in forum updated to our Ollie hull name Pilots Lounge. N0673. Hope to meet other Ollie Owners in our adventures.

Lol thx

Sooooo, this chain does bring up a few questions that I (newbie) have about winterizing. Seems like some folks blow out, others do anit freeze and a few do both. Caveats: I am new to trailering, will be camping through the northern New England Winters and My E2 was ordered with a composting toilet. As best as I can tell, I would likely do a full blown winterization (anti freeze with or without blowing lines) for cold weather storage periods and simply blow out exterior ports (plus exterior shower) for driving in anything below freezing temps (even if I choose to drive with propane heat running). Does that seem right? I am particularly intersted in what it takes to do a partial winterizing to enable safe driving in sub freezing conditions IF the propane heat is left on. Sounds like there could be an issue running higher air pressure through the water pump and, from previous chains, could be other issues with purging lines with pressurized air. That said, is there any real advantage in blowing things out plus usiing AF versus simply draining and adding AF to accomplish a full blown winterization?

I'd also recommend taking the time to watch (and rewatch) the videos on Oliver University. That will give you some familiarity ahead of time, with many of the systems. It's not the same as having the trailer and equipment where you can touch and see it, but it's definitely a running head start before the orientation at pickup day.

My iPhone does what I need. I have an older Garmin that I keep up to date and carry for backup when we’re out of cell range.

Susan, I split this for you. Sherry

Our daughter, who had an RV before we did, told me that people in campgrounds are “salt of the earth people”, very friendly. We’ve found that friendliness is everywhere we’ve camped, whether it’s in a formal campground or out boondocking in the middle of nowhere. Small towns are great. We also try to avoid areas with bugs, just returned from Colorado and Northern Arizona and had few bugs, low humidity and cool nights. We do lock doors just because we lock doors. Our Oliver is truly a second home, it just travels where we do. Mike

Generally, people are nice to a fault and the Ollie provides good insulation against the few who aren't. We'd have a much greater chance of encountering annoyances in a hotel than in our Ollie. But we only go where the mosquitos do not. Deserts and high altitude. No people, no towns, no bugs, and no pets unless you bring your own or adopt a ground squirrel. We still lock our doors - keeps alien abductions to a minimum.

Mtkadan, camping is, for us, a great way to travel. We bring our own kitchen, bath, and bed. And outdoor living room. We often meet new people, and have made lifelong friends, camping. Pets, rules, etc., vary from place to place. Most organized campgrounds have a host. Small towns usually are very welcoming. Many of them, especially in rural areas, have town and county campgrounds that are pleasant stopovers, or sometimes, a really nice place to stay awhile. For example,, there's one outside Lanesboro, MN, that I really love. Cute, artsy town, lots of bike riders, etc. The county campground has been mostly empty when we've been there. Lake Mitchell Campground, owned by the city in SD, is really nice, though a bit rustic. I could go on, but, too many to mention. Here's a screenshot of city and county campgrounds in Iowa, for example. Small towns often create a campground to bring business into the town that the interstate has bypassed. It's our personal policy to spend what we can in these welcoming towns. Buy a few groceries, get gas, visit a gift shop or art gallery, maybe. Life on the road is often very fun. If you can stop a bit, and enjoy.

Definitely there is. The sales department should know that if they don’t . You don’t need the extra port to use a generator. You can use the standard port on the side of the trailer just the same. The extra port on the front just allows for an easier connection if you have your generator in the front basket or in your truck bed.

DavidS - If your friend is looking for someone else to give a CampChef to - I'm available! 😁 Bill

Ed & Nancy. No doubt Eddie B will have his perspective but in the meantime a couple of thoughts of my own. Most, perhaps all USFS and even BLM campgrounds limit a maximum stay in anyone camp spot or campground of 14 days consecutively. You could certainly go form one place to the next quite easily. The same holds true for camping in Glacier, but again its quite easy to move around from within the park based upon my experience. The campgrounds in Glacier all have dump stations as well as fresh water fill ups too. Understand the Flathead Valley is a very busy place especially in the summer (with subsequent heavy traffic), meaning you are never very far from adequate facilities such as dump stations and the ability to replenish water. USFS campgrounds by comparison tend to be considerably more primitive with far less facilities. However the vast majority of them do have fresh potable water that you can replenish easily enough in the Oliver. Columbia Falls and Coram are the closest to Glacier while Kalispell and Whitefish are just a few more miles further into the valley. So the quick answer to your question is, yes you should be able to do this but with a bit of moving around from campground to campground. Also I wouldn't rule out the many Montana State parks in the area. All are located in some very nice areas on Flathead or Whitefish Lake and have very good facilities including hot showers. Hope this is helpful.

One last thought that occurred to me after my post from yesterday. Fires: In the last decade, perhaps longer, our summer air quality state wide (usually) has diminished greatly due to western wildfires. For those who don't live out west the next part will most likely seem improbable to you. Even if Montana doesn't have much itself in the way of fires we do get smoke and lots of it from other states. Its not uncommon in the least for the CA wildfires to inundate our skies here in MT, and its not just CA it could be BC, OR, WA, ID, NV or any other of the western states or provinces dependent on the prevailing winds at the time. Generally through out most of the summer, spring and early fall months the prevailing winds are from SW to NE but even this can change in a heartbeat. This past summer of 2019 MT had very few fires itself due to the heavy snow fall and continued wet and cool weather throughout the summer months and for the most part we did enjoy for a change mostly clear skies and clean air and lots of rain. Our snowpack this winter is above average, a good thing, but even this is no longer a guarantee of a summer/fall season without fires. Please understand this information is not meant to discourage anyone from venturing up this way, but rather come prepared yet most importantly have some alternative travel plans should all hell break loose with fires. Here's hoping for a fireless season with beautiful blue skies… that we used to be known for. Rob PS, I would like to make one correction to John Davies expose on traveling to Glacier from last year. Had not realized he had written up such an excellent piece, but in quickly scanning his prose I saw he mentioned "Kalispell State Park and Lake". There is no such thing, including a Kalispell Lake although there are a number of lakes nearby Kalispell. Perhaps he meant either Whitefish Lake State Park or even Flathead Lake to the south of the town. Again there are numerous state park campgrounds around Flathead Lake and even Whitefish Lake. My favorite by far is the one near the small touristy town of Big Fork called Wayfarers State Park. Its small but there are numerous spots to fit an Oliver into and all of the MT state parks do take reservations. Whitefish Lake State Park is also nice, but if you camp there expect to be woken off and on through the night with freight trains that run literally right next to the park. I'm talking a stones through if that. Hope this helps.

@ Renagade, first good luck with your trip up here to Big Sky Country. Welcome! I have lived in MT (Bozeman) for well over 40 years and have been to Glacier countless times during all seasons and have watched the tourism in the park explode since the mid 70's. With that in mind while I agree with some of the responses here I also have a somewhat different perspective on a few things. Weather: come prepared for winter. Montana weather is extremely volatile and at times just as unpredictable, and the park itself on any given day can have dramatically different weather compared to just a short drive out of the park. Given that you are from southern FL, your idea of winter and ours is on an order of magnitude different. On the other hand you might experience days that are sublime and think my suggestions are an empty threat, they are not. For instance just over a year ago, late May-early June, I left home in low 80 degree weather here in SW MT. Arrived in Glacier and the next day the weather turned upside down and stayed that way for 5-6 days. It was what most people would refer to as dead of winter or near so. Heat of the day, 42º, down to near freezing at night howling winds, some snow and often rain. This past fall, winter came early. Perhaps the 2nd or 3rd week of Sept, fall color died on the vine sub zero temps for a week or two with plenty of wet heavy snow. The day before the storm hit my wife and I were hiking in tees and shorts. This is not uncommon at these elevations and latitudes. The closer we get to the shoulder seasons the more volatile the weather can be. Campgrounds: You can get RSVPS at Fish Creek just across the lake from Apgar as well as St Marys and Swiftcurrent in the NE section of the park. John is correct Two Medicine is beautiful but it fills in the short summer quickly every day. It also closes fairly early but don't recall how long after Labor Day, sorry. East Glacier is on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation so laws regarding many things including alcohol can be very different and for what ever unknown reason can change from day to day. Supplies in the area are limited at best IMO. Most hikes from Two Medicine campground tend to be quite long, some with serious elevation gains. In addition to Apgar, Fish Creek, St Mary's (by far my least favorite) consider Swiftcurrent as well as Avalanche Creek which also closes earlier than most. There are size limitations at Rising Sun Campground but you could probably squeeze an Oliver in to one or two of them the rest are far too small. Its also first come first serve. Avalanche Creek does not afford much in the way of views, it is deep into the forest but still a very nice campground centrally located for day tours, hikes and what ever your'e up to for the day. Travel, The route into Glacier: Most are beautiful drives. However I do not recommend the route from Missoula to Kalispell. While there is some beautiful scenery along this route the traffic is VERY HEAVY almost the entire year. It's become more trouble than its worth to me. However I would be remiss if not mentioning the state park campgrounds scattered along the shores of Flathead Lake, all are nice with awesome views and fairly good facilities. My preferred route at least from Bozeman is a trip up the Seely-Swan River Valley that terminates in Big Fork and from there about another hour (towing speed) up to Glacier. There are a slew of very nice USFS and BLM campgrounds along this route as well. The Front Range route through Augusta and Choteau Highway 89 are also very nice but the closer you get to the east side of the park count on steep narrow winding climbs and descents. Its a slow go after Browning assuming you continue on to St Mary's. Camping along this route is virtually a no go unless you decide to head due west into the Front Range where you can find some awesome USFS camps there. This would be a detour however. The southern perimeter route highway 2 will be an easy cake walk though a bit more exciting than what you normally might drive in FL. From Mid August on tourism tapers off considerably both in Yellowstone as well as Glacier, due to kids/family back in school. However the weekends assuming really nice weather will experience quite a bit of day use and some camper influx from the locals out in Flathead Valley. It is worth noting, not once have I ever been able to get a drive up camp spot in Glacier even during the peak of summer season including but not limited to the 4th of July weekend. Bowman Lake can be overwhelmed with local day users during the weekends with nice weather. However don't miss this place, its about an hours drive up there from Apgar but not to be missed. Take the outside road. There is a nice hike along the north shore of Bowman Lake that will take you to the far end of the lake about 14 or so miles RT, but very little elevation gain a rarity in this park. That should be enough to digest for now, good luck on planning your trip. Let me know if you have questions.

We use these for stabilizing the front corners of the trailer once level. These are very good too for jacking up the side of the trailer for tire/wheel removal repair. Beauty of these as they are both an adjustable jack stand AND a hydraulic jack. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GJJZ5NI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Don’t buy these https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0751TG8MH/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I tried to use them on 2 separate occasions (on gravel and then on asphalt) and they just scoot along in front of the tires. Read the reviews and heed the warnings. I use a stall mat from Tractor Supply cut into 12x24 inch pieces. Works on any surface, conforms to unevenness in the surface (unlike hard plastic or wood), and leaves space to use a chock effectively. I also use an old piece of heavy conveyor belting material cut into squares that fit in a milk crate, and 6x6x8 inch tall blocks (left over from shop construction) that can be used as shown or laid down. The 8 inch height dimension was arrived at using the highly scientific and extremely accurate TWIH method of sizing things, and further validated by TLAR analysis. (That’s What I Had and That Looks About Right) I only use these jack stands if we are setting up for extended stays or if I have to set up with the front end elevated. These don’t carry the weight of the trailer, they are just snugged up to reduce movement in the front.

JuniorBirdMan, "Up in the Air!!!" and welcome to the Oliver forum. Being another recently retired and single father of a furkid, I have to tell you how great it is to have Oscar as a traveling companion. He & I hit the open road last fall for a 3 month, 12,000 mile walk-a-bout that took us from Florida to Washington state and many points in between. There are few very minor inconveniences, such as the occasional cold early morning walk instead of simply opening the back door at home and the every present "courtesy bags" . If it's hot outside and you need to run an errand, leave the a/c on for them in the trailer or take them along in the car, run inside with the car & a/c on, the doors locked, and an extra car key in your pocket. Their companionship is well worth any minor hassles you may encounter. As you hit the road in your trailer, you'll discover just how many of us are wandering around the country with our four legged friends who seem to enjoy the journey as much as we do. (So many smells to smell, so many trees to water, so many other dogs to sniff . . . ) Pete Don't leave home without them.