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We leave for Alaska in the morning. I'll try to post campgrounds en route as we have service. Also post more each day on our site.

We are on a long trip. A stop was at Worthington State Forest, Columbia, NJ. The campground is along the Delaware River & is dry. The bathhouse is semi-satisfactory. The one near us had composting toilets; another one which served a lot more people was flush. Beautiful location. We were here on Memorial Day weekend & very few people. We were in spot 38, on a grassy knoll, with a slight river view.

We could not go to the Lake Guntersville rally because we had a family gathering at Jalama Beach county park campground, west of Santa Barbara, CA. This is a really nice campground, right on the ocean. We had our Oliver, my sister had her Casita, and other family members rented cabins. On our way home we stayed in Snow Canyon State Park, near St. George, UT. A really fabulous park.

It can be very hard to understand the interaction of systems that operate off both 12 volt DC (the battery bank) OR 120 volt AC. When you are not connected to shore power it is best to switch everything you can to propane (the fridge, water heater and cabin heating), then manually select what else you want to run off the now-independent AC power supplied by the generator, by disconnecting unused circuits using the breakers under the dinette. If your generator can only supply 15 amps of 120 volt AC current (1800 watts) continuously (not peak current, which is always a little higher) you need to decide if you want to run the air conditioner only, or a combination of outlets and converter. The air con draws too much power to allow you to run other stuff simultaneously. How depleted your trailer batteries are in the morning determines how much AC current the power converter is using to recharge them. Understanding how much generator power your stuff consumes (and what time of day) is important; you can run the outlets, microwave and converter (to charge the batteries) in the morning when it is cool outside and you are making your morning coffee and toast, and switch over to just the air conditioning in the heat of the day. Use too much AC power at once and your generator will go off line, telling you to reduce the electrical load. It won’t hurt the generator, that is how it is designed. Having solar really helps because you don’t usually have to worry at all about recharging the batteries, that is all transparent and very efficient if there is any significant amount of sunlight. In dark times (shaded site or rainy day) you have to be much more careful of your power management. This is why some owners like to carry a big generator, so all the 120 v stuff can operate at once. That is a big plus, but whether it outweighs the many negatives like higher cost, fuel consumption, weight etc , is up to you to decide. Did that help? Labeling your circuit breakers with a sharpie will help you to find the right one to switch on or off when running the gennie.... observing the amps reading of the remote display of the surge suppressor is very educational. ... http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/how-to-relocate-the-surge-suppressor-remote-display/ If you are hazy about amps, watts and features, there are a bunch of generator FAQs for you to study. Picking the right size and type of generator is very important. John Davies Spokane WA

I recently purchased a 2015 LE. I've been looking at Olivers for quite a while, so when hull #80 popped up 45 minutes away, I took that as a sign. As soon as my Pleasureway Class B and my house here in Florida sell, I will be both retired and homeless and ready to redo the best trip of my life. When I got out of the Coast Guard in the early 1970’s, a friend and I traveled the country for 6 months tent camping. I have no specific plans for my initial trip other than to hike, bike and fish until I feel the need to come back to Florida to see the kids. I look forward to meeting as many of you as I can. I have thoroughly enjoyed your adventures and advice for a couple of years now.