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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/19/2026 in all areas

  1. Yellowstone Shuts Showers at newly revamped Fishing Bridge: We’ve had a reservation in Yellowstone for 9 months. They just sent a notice of no working showers today. We will be fine but I sent the GM a 50% refund request … at $125 a night, showers and bathrooms must work. I’ve grown weary of company execs who are clueless and don’t care for the customers they are supposed to serve. The "Amenity" Loophole: Because your reservation at Fishing Bridge RV Parkprovides you with a physical campsite, water, and electrical hookups, Xanterra classifies the public shower facility as a "complimentary amenity" or a separate service rather than a guaranteed part of your nightly site fee. Their terms dictate that the closure of a single amenity does not qualify a guest for a partial refund on the campsite itself. [1] Read more Thursday at 05:33 PM 1 1 Edit Report topgun2 My personal opinion is that you are absolutely correct. These "vendors" don't put nearly enough back into our National Parks and as a result, trash bins overflow, the lodges we all paid for are in sad need of maintenance as are the kind of facilities you mention. Yes, we are loving these Parks to death but I don't see where the vendors are doing anything but "taking" with precious little "giving. Bill Yesterday at 06:54 AM Report Tom and Doreen We had the a similar issue camping at Skidaway Island State Park, they had a water main break. We had no city water connection for the duration of our stay; no discount or refund. 19 hours ago Report Galway Girl Update: I emailed the GM for Xanterra with a concern of false advertising of amenities. He had a person call back to explain that they still had nearby restrooms open but no shower for 25 miles. They said they will apply a $50/night discount for the inconvenience. This dropped the price at Fishing Bridge from $125 to $75/night. Tip: Next year these bookings will be managed by Rec.gov instead of Xanterra, and they now only allow 6 months advance booking so if your going to Yellowstone next September, bookings open March 1.
    4 points
  2. 4 nights at Henry’s Lake in Island Park ID. Before heading into Yellowstone. Great park and every sight has a great view. It can get a little windy though.
    3 points
  3. Glad you remembered the post from a year ago! @jd1923 It's good to know the wires can be connected to the other side of the switch. The tape is a great idea too. These forums are a great way to share "problem solved" issues. Also great for sharing new ideas.
    3 points
  4. I posted something about this BLM dispersed camping site in another thread, "Oliver - Again?" But this reference should really be in our favorite thread, "Where' Ollie!" So here it is! So many of us drive by Flagstaff AZ, whether you're going to The Grand Canyon or Sedona, elsewhere in northern AZ or just traveling to or from California! Winona AZ is 16 miles east of Flagstaff and just east of Walnut Canyon, which is worth a visit (I posted pics from our visit here just a few weeks ago). Walnut Canyon and these boondocking campsites are only 10 minutes south of I-40. Drive south on Winona Ranch Rd and turn right on FS Road 128. These are well maintained service roads with some ranch traffic. Our campsite was 2.5 miles down and there are 100s to chose from! Camp another few miles down this road and you'd be a short hike to the western rim of Walnut Canyon. 🤠
    2 points
  5. I replaced my the orginal OEM Michelin's after 8 years use. My tire guy said the rubber was still supple with a lot of tread above the wear bars. In short the tires were reported to be safe for travel. I replaced them as 'aged out" for a 'confortable state of mind" because we spend so much time on gravel off the grid. I would truly be impressed with travelers that replace 10ply tires on an Ollie due to mileage wear vs aging out. It's my option, running "hard" tires for increased wear is an endeavor with no practical advantage. Running 10 ply tires on an Ollie at more than 50lbs is unnecessary.
    2 points
  6. Is the hot water also blocked at the bathroom sink? (They are separate lines.) If cold only, there is one line that feeds the bathroom (see plumbing schematic). What I would do first is blow air through all of your lines. Bypass your hot water heater first. I do this to winterize. Air will empty the lines and perhaps could move an obstruction. I made this tool to connect to the City Water inlet. You'll need a decent air compressor with good air volume. Set compressor pressure to 50 PSI which is your water pump pressure. Given it's both the toilet and bathroom faucet, it cannot be the toilet filter or the faucet restrictor. If air does not help, you could try it in the reverse direction. Take off the faucet head and with another attachment blow air from the bathroom faucet back. Hope this helps! Best wishes, JD
    2 points
  7. Just came off a 10-day trip to Colorado. Thank goodness our issue started on the last night. The green LED showing 12V+ to the water pump went off by itself and the water pump stopped working. Checked the fuse in the panel and it was good. The issue was intermittent. Throwing the switch under the pantry an hour later, the green light appeared again so Chris quickly washed the dinner dishes! 🤣 Later that night we got nothing again, but just in time for morning bathroom use it worked, yay! (We had planned to wash and flush manually refilling gallon water jugs. We always have extra water in the fresh water tank in the truck bed.) So we're home a couple days so it's time to fix this. I remembered Geoff's explanation above, found it and studied it again. Actually the schematic he drew in his 4-way switch post really got me to fully understand the 3-way switch (study his picture without the the 4-way switch added, travelers connecting left to right). I had remembered his key phrase "No ground wires are involved in these switches." So my first thought is I need a ground for testing. Can't check voltage with a multimeter without a ground. So I cut a 12 ft length of wire, stripped one end and connected it to the ground bus under the dinette seat. I crimped a butt connector on the other end for the negative pin on the multimeter. With this test wire I have a ground source anywhere I need inside the cabin. While I was at it, I quickly tested all the fuses in the panel. I decided to leave this test wire connected for future testing when needed (pic1 notice the yellow/red-striped wire now coiled up under the rear dinette). Later I tucked it underneath in the empty corner below. I found 13.2V at both 3-way switches. Then I used my trusty spade jumper to first check for continuity between the travelers which tested positive (pic2). Then I used the same jumper to connect the Common wire to a Traveler wire (not pictured, think the common/purple wire jumped to either traveler). This pulls that 3-way switch out of the equation. The jumper creates a closed circuit, an ON condition for this side of the 3-way switch. As soon as I did so the water pump was back to working. This shows the issue is in the 3-way switch in the bathroom, or its connections, as suggested by this thread. Notice, I'm connected to the 3 spade terminals on the left (pic3). The bathroom switch has 6 spade connections but you only need 3 in line. I moved the wires to connect on the other 3 on the left. The RH spade terminals had gotten a little crusty in 10 years of use and notice the top-right spade is bent, in fact the female connector on that traveler was very lose. The switch works fine now. The connections were lose but now the left side connections are snug. I added some electrical tape to hold all 3 wires as a unit and then duct tape to hold the wires down. This simple addition will take the weight of the wires and vibration while towing off the switch (pic4). This should keep the connections tight longer. Going forward, look at the bathroom switch first. Not fun when something happens while camping. Thank you @David and Gail, you learned this a year ago and I had somewhere to look for help! 😎
    2 points
  8. Wyoming sunsets are glorious.
    2 points
  9. Almost forgot! Check out this horse ranch at the start of Winona Ranch Rd with views of the San Francisco Peaks! Flagstaff sits below the left end of this mountain range. Picture taken when leaving camp the next morning. Home in under 2 hours. “I’ll be back!” 🤠 Where are you camping or have recently visited? Please post!
    1 point
  10. It has been a few, perhaps 3, decades since I have stayed in the park, but I know the rates were not something I thought about. It was not a full service rv spot so maybe that is why. We were tenting then, and thus it was just a simple site. We ended up with a really good bear story. $125 just seems wrong, but I guess the sites are fab, and the demand strong.
    1 point
  11. I left after the split, after I had to let go of my first employee. The head over IT for the Corporation came out in 2000 and said, We where going to be getting rid of 50% of the end user systems next year and we needed to figure out what system and legacy procedures/systems we needed to sunset. Not what I signed up for. I had a friend At IBM that had been trying to get me over to IBM for several years. I gave him a call, and I had a job within 3 months helping to designing network and system security, also some software testing and integration for the Government. In the late 90s HP was the 2nd largest employer in Colorado, the largest was the state government. Agilent/HP in Loveland, CO had 3500 employees when I left. Within 5 years they had 300 people left. The site was empty by the end of 2010. The HP site in Fort Collins, was over 3200 people in the late 90s and are now down to about 1000, between HPQ and HPE. The Greeley site was shuttered in late 2000, losing 1000 employees. Some were absorbed by Fort Collins. There is no way I was staying around for all of that blood letting.
    1 point
  12. Item #1 Mileage is generally irrelevant. I put 19K on our trailer in 3+ years. I'll reach years of use before mileage/tread wear and so will most of us towing our Olivers. MPG is likely only a % better at higher PSI. Over inflation will NOT minimize Stress nor optimize suspension performance. The correct pressure for the load will. Overfilled tires create a small contact patch on the road, will cause uneven tire wear, and can be dangerous is slippery road conditions. Bob's example below is likely average usage. Some may tow 10K miles a year, but very few of us. We've been towing 6K miles/year.
    1 point
  13. Coming back from Colorado to AZ, it takes a full day drive to cross the Navajo Nation. It's a shame that many tribes around the country live on casino revenues, but it is what it is. I learned gambling was not for me at a very young age. Many casinos in the west allow for overnight camping! No charge to stay overnight at Flowing Water Casino! We spent $10/night at Quechan Casino Resort in the very SE corner of California, when going to Los Algodones Mexico, the dentistry capital of the southern border for professional reasonable work and free cleanings! 🤣 Just drive up to the entrance and ask security. At this location, the officer named Everette was so friendly and helpful. He wrote down our names, license plate numbers and asked for my phone #, told us about casino hours and the restaurant inside. They have a large gravel lot for campers! It was very quiet at this small casino with one noisemaker at 2AM that security handled. There's nowhere else to camp around Shiprock NM! A Casino Resort might be a good place for an occasional overnight stay. He made us feel welcomed, we had the lot to ourselves and it was a beautiful night.
    1 point
  14. I know 😅 Doesn’t bother me and I like a good technical food fight 💪 Actually first heard of it when at the factory after picking it up. Really nice couple, Rod and Sandy dropped theirs off for repair, he mentioned reading this on the forum and was thinking about going even lower to the 20’s or something. Filed it away and read up on it here .. Yes have seen this chart, also aware of the early 80 setting by Oliver. Last first, just because Oliver had a high - perhaps too high - setting originally does not mean that their present setting is a poor choice. And the tire OEM charts are a starting point. Been doing this for decades, parts suppliers have their data sheets but final spec is always set by the final OEM. Customers of course are free to do what they wish. Point being none of this is convincing evidence. Let’s take it from a different angle, what are we trying to optimize? Milage (maximize) Tire stress (minimize) Suspension performance (optimize) A range of pressures is possible so the question is what is optimal? We don’t know Oliver’s reasoning on 65, so let’s examine what we have here. Putting the hearsay aside, as I mentioned AFAIK the forums argument is the chart above or variations. These are not tires that were designed for Oliver’s - they are generic trailer tires. The Big Three routinely gets Goodyear/etc to make a custom tire - mine has them. I’ve got 36” Goodyear Territories like you’d find on any offroader, but these have a twist to make them more efficient for EV’s. GM pressure spec is 61 PSI, clearly that overrides anything Goodyear might have to say. The 61 is set for handling, offroad performance and EV efficiency. But here its just an off the shelf tire. So this isn’t convincing, we have a generic tire OEM chart and a specific recommendation from Oliver, it’s not enough to conclude that we need to go much lower. Now I have a technical argument on first principles. It’s based on rough assumptions as to frequency band filtering (except on the Ez-Flex), but the basis is sound. Here’s the thing, one thing I’ve learned in 40 years is we’re all more often wrong than right and you rarely know. So what you do is a heuristic, counting up the +/- from various arguments. All I see from the former is a starting point - a generic chart, and a magic leap to a conclusion. With the argument I laid out here there’s many plusses. Better milage, better wear and handling performance, aligns with the OEM’s recommendation, and a technical discussion as to why this may be the best setting 🤷‍♂️ … its the Emperor has no Clothes here IMO, there are more negatives than positives to the ‘tire chart’ proposal. PSA Absolutely not trying to score points, prove anybody wrong, or otherwise make a stink, just a good old fashioned ‘let’s try and find the best answer’. Thanks for indulging me 😅
    1 point
  15. Dan, perhaps you're the one and only one unconvinced on our Forum today! The subject has been brought up at least annually for the last 10 years! Using Chris' @Wayfinder's search tool, I searched for TIRE PRESSURE, lot's of hits. Give this a try and read some of the many articles: https://www.google.com/search?q=TIRE+PRESSURE&as_sitesearch=olivertraveltrailers.com%2Fforums All tire manufactures have load/pressure tables. I use this table for the tires installed on our hull. OTT stated the 80 PSI recommendation on the DOT label on early hulls, mine included. Later it was 65 PSI and we can read in these threads, some owners were told 55 PSI by OTT Staff when they took delivery. Ask an older retiree from what was Firestone corporation, "Who was right about inflation pressure for the Ford Explorer?" In this case the auto manufacture Ford recommended LOWER pressure than the tire manufacture's printed standard. They basically aired a 1/2-ton truck to 26 PSI which "killed 238 people and injured around 500 others in the United States alone; more died in other countries." I figure tire manufactures know tires and OTT knows fiberglass! Except for Steve, and maybe soon enough you too Dan, most Olivers are closer to 6K vs. 7K LBS. Ours was weighed once at 6,400, but let's apply the full 7K to the load/pressure table. Keep in mind, 7K on the trailer axles plus tongue weight, means at least a 7,600 LB trailer (very hard to carry that much)! 7,000 / 4 = 1,750. This table recommends 40 PSI. 65 PSI will carry 10,480 on 4 tires, 80 PSI 12,340 LBS. As I wrote above, I agree with Bob's numbers. For 3 years, 20K miles, I've set pressure somewhere in the 45-52 range. 45 PSI for summer travels, and a little higher during winters. Some go with 55 PSI. OTT recommending 80 PSI for years caused a lot of interior damage; screws on drawer slides coming lose, plumbing fittings cracking, electrical connections failing, LEAF SPRINGS FAILING, etc. OTT recommending 65 PSI; now you have 10K in tire/wheel carrying capacity, on 10K axles, on 10K in Alcan springs, besides your piano, you can add enough equipment for a 4-piece band, if you can find the room! 🤣
    1 point
  16. 2025 Ford lariat F150Having the same intermittent warning pop up on my dash. Legacy elite two 2021 hull 707. Brakes look like they had some mileage exchanged with four new Dexter backing plate brake combo. Worked fine. All the slow drives. I did around neighborhood to test. First trip up through George started getting warnings and brakes would basically shut off. Checked all my connections 23 times when sitting still operated fine about 3 A at each break 14 A when tested at the breakaway switch finally saw the threads about the wire in the axle pulled the front one out. There was a few rubbed spots. eventually would’ve failed but found about the middle of the wire in the axle. looked like somebody had set a hot welding rod a piece of hot metaldown on the wire in a couple places. Didn’t have any wire yet so cut the bad section sliced back together taped it to the axle. Seems to be working fine a couple hundred miles. Ordered some new marine grade Wire and some “solder butt connectors” comes with small heat gun. shrink wraps, and solders at the same time. Will attach the wire to the outside of the axle.
    1 point
  17. A day late posting but HELLO to the Oliver LEII parked at Ewen Pines Roadside Park on the UP on 9/17/2026. We were the Oliver blowing the horn. Saw you wave back! If you’re headed up the Keweenaw Peninsula check out Four Suns Fish & Chips across from the Quincy Mine. https://www.facebook.com/share/1D4iw9PFR9/?mibextid=wwXIfr Bill 313
    1 point
  18. I’ve held many work-related video calls on the Gen 3 without issues… with an open sky. One could likely play an online game too, such as World of Warcraft, but maybe not a first person shooter (FPS). The latency requirements are high and one would be getting killed a lot in the FPS game.
    1 point
  19. We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Oliver Rally will be held at the stunning Lake Guntersville State Park in Alabama from October 21 to October 25, 2026! Get ready for another unforgettable gathering of Oliver Travel Trailer owners and enthusiasts as we come together to celebrate community, adventure, and the great outdoors. This annual event is your opportunity to connect with fellow Ollie owners, exchange travel stories, learn helpful tips, and enjoy the camaraderie that makes the Oliver family so special. Location: Lake Guntersville State Park, Alabama Breathtaking lake views, hiking trails, wildlife, and top-notch camping facilities await! Dates: Wednesday, October 28 – Sunday, November 1, 2026 Wednesday, October 21 - Sunday, October 25, 2026 What to Expect: Welcome Reception & Meet-and-Greet Educational Workshops Vendor Exhibits & Product Demonstrations Group Activities, Games & Outdoor Adventures Evening Campfires & Entertainment Raffle Prizes, Giveaways & More! Whether you're a seasoned rally-goer or attending for the first time, there's something for everyone at the 2026 Oliver Rally. We can’t wait to make new memories and celebrate our shared love of travel, craftsmanship, and community. Registration details and event schedule coming soon – stay tuned! Until then, mark your calendars and start planning your route to Lake Guntersville — we’ll see you there!
    1 point
  20. after 3.5 months on the road and the Colorado mountain hiking trails we are heading home…. pulling out of Alvarado campground USFS near Westcliffe, Colorado San Isabel National Forest Sangre De Cristo Wilderness we hiked mountain trails all over Colorado and hit the pickleball court in Gunnison our longest hike was 10.5 miles, 2600 ft elevation gain
    1 point
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