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No better time to fly our flag!

Why is it that this reminds me of the 2 years, one month and 29 days I spent in the Army? Absolutely no disrespect here in that it was one of the best things that I ever did! Bill

…and the Army is celebrating 250 years today!

We have the manual Fiamma awning and have used it quite a bit. We’ve done a lot of hot weather camping and it provides shade when sitting and cooking outside. It has also provided shelter during light rains so we can sit outside and enjoy the weather. We have a sunshade that easily hooks onto the awning providing even more shade and enables the awning to be used even in pretty windy weather.. I’m not a fan of automatic awnings, but it seems that is where RV’s are trending. At Lake Guntersville. At US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs. Lake Guntersville.

On our recent trek from FL to the UT parks, we stayed in some places for one night, others for 10 (most for 5 or more). Sometimes the next campsite was only 50 miles down the road. One day it was 1,600. (OK, that was 36 hours over 2 days with sleep at a truck stop.) But, for me, the freedom is the point. I can adventure till exhausted and chill till bored. Perfect. 🙂

One of my brothers lives in Brainerd. Brainerd weather doesn't always look at the calendar. Lol. It SHOULD be in the 70s, but 40s or 50s can happen in June. At least it cuts down on mosquitoes.

This information is from September 2022, so it’s not as current as you might want. We started this portion of our trip in Ottawa, IL after my mother’s family reunion and the destination was TRNP before heading back to Florida. THNP has 2 campgrounds, Cottonwood is in the south unit and Juniper is in the north unit. Cottonwood has about 70 sites in 2 loops, north and south. The south loop has small areas and it would be cramped for a LE2. The north loop has larger sites, more suitable for LE2's and larger rigs. We could not get a reservation in Cottonwood in advance, so we booked a night in Sully Creek SP, just south of Medora. We headed to Cottonwood first thing the next morning. There were not any campground hosts available when we arrived, so we proceeded to drive through the campground, we didn’t see anything large enough in the south loop and then found 3 available in the north loop. Since I always what to know what’s around the corner or over the hill, we drove around the north loop again and found 2 of the available sites were already taken. We took the 3rd spot and I walked up to the self serve check-in station and filled out some paperwork. We ran into a campground host while walking back to our site and he showed us a site that was reserved for the new shower/restroom building construction crew and said that we could use it for the next 3 nights because the crew was off for a few days. So we moved to that site and had a great stay. We did drive to the north unit to see the Juniper campground and over all liked the north unit better, less people but also so less to see and do. We wanted to say in Custer SP in South Dakota, but couldn’t find anything and headed to Badlands NP and dry camped for 3 nights, just off SD-240 about 9 miles south of Wall, SD and before you get to the entrance to Badlands NP. Look for a dirt road on the left and other campers a mile or so off the highway. You should also be able to see 2 or 3 radio towers several miles in the distance also on the left or east side of SD-240. Drive along the dirt road until you find something you like. A word of caution, it's very windy! Good luck, Mossey Cottonwood campground - TRNP Outside Badlands NP on SD-240

I replaced two springs on the same axle at a campground after one broke and the other was failing. Took 4 hrs using the onboard rear “stabilizers” and a bottle jack. Found a pair of springs at a local rv shop. Once I made it home I replaced all four with Alcan 5-leafs and never looked back. 10,000+ trouble-free miles on the Alcans. It can be done if you have the tools. PM me and I am happy to talk you thru the process.

I don't think anybody *likes* tolls... but if its a "modest" amount and the road is well-maintained, I don't think I can complain. Excessive tolls, or tolls on highways that are in bad shape rub the wrong way. We have encountered lots of interstate sections when traveling cross-country that are less than perfect but probably ok for a passenger car with squishy tires & suspension. Pickups and trailers with stiffer sidewalls & higher pressure tires are another thing altogether. Its not unusual to find highway sections where we have to slow down significantly below the speed limit to reduce the abuse on trailer and tow vehicle... which of course is not the safest thing to do on an interstate highway with all the "squishy" cars passing us with a significant speed differential :(

Happy Flag Day!!!!!!!!!

Last night was our 100th night in our 2023 Oliver Legacy Elite II “Curiosity”! While not a big deal for a lot of campers, it is a milestone for us. Thank you Oliver Travel Trailers for building us a wonderful home away from home!

Hi Dave, sorry it took so long to respond. I leave our Oliver plugged into shore power when parked at home, and with the lithium system there is never a complete “power outage” that occurs in our situation because it takes over when the grid power blinks or goes out temporarily. For that reason I couldn’t answer your question without running an actual test of the dehumidifier’s recovery system. Well I did that this morning in the garage by shutting down the circuit I had the appliance plugged into for a minute, and you’ll be pleased to know that the dehumidifier comes back on at the previous setting when power is restored. I hope this helps you and others in deciding whether to invest in one. 👍

I'm not familiar with trailer shops around Flagstaff, but unless you have backup parts the first thing is you need to source the correct replacement leaf spring. I would call every trailer shop around Flag to see if they have the correct leaf spring. I bought the following parts, 2 springs and a u-bolt kit so I could fully replace springs on one axle, left and right, on the road if this were to happen to us. Drive slowly and carefully if you only replace the broken spring on one side as the other will become the weak link. Very sorry for your predicament! I believe the part number SW4B is all you need to order. I ordered these from SW Wheel which you can see online for reference: SW4B-BR TruRyde® 4 Leaf 25 1/4" Double Eye Trailer Leaf Spring Bronze Bushings 1750 lbs APUBR3BX Southwest Wheel® U-Bolt Kit for 5,200-7,000 lbs. 3" Trailer Axle - APUBR3BX I have read on this forum that eTrailer will overnight these parts. Perhaps SW Wheel would as well. Get on the phone asap! As far as the shock, just remove it. They are unnecessary for travel. You can install 4 new shocks when you install 4 new upgraded leaf springs. Also, re-using U-bolts is not suggested. But I would if I was replacing just one leaf to get home or to a safe place to park the trailer. Hope this helps! Best wishes, JD

We also try to avoid interstates but sometimes it’s just not reasonably possible. I hope this isn’t a trend in other states! Mike

We try to stay off Indiana interstates, but unfortunately getting from point A to point B in Indiana, off interstate is not practical from a time standpoint. Work is definitely needed. Indiana roads are no way as bad as many states we have traveled. We make use of back roads when we can. I hate I-65, I-69 (North of Indy), and I-70. I-69 South of Indy is through farmland and not a heavy semi route.

Here's a couple older Rally photos: This was an Oliver Rally in TN during 2016 or 2017, not too far from the Oliver factory. This was the first Rally at Lake Guntersville SP:

This thread was started in May 2016. There wasn’t a lot of activity on the forum then, just over 100 trailers produced. Before we left for our pick up in May 2016 someone suggested I start a “Where’s Ollie” thread so folks could post travels and good camping spots. We picked up Hull 135 on May 10 and started this from our second campsite at Land Between the Lakes on May 17. 28 pages later it’s become a nice spot to see where folks have been thanks to everyone who has contributed. Our first campsite was at Fall Hollow Campground in Hohenwald, Oliver’s spot for your first night back then. Proud new owners at Fall Hollow Campground 9 years ago.

I liked when Steve started this thread! As of Sunday, which was also Father's Day, we hit the our 100th overnight in our Oliver. We just passed the 2 year mark in our ownership, and although we only did one 2-night trip in our first 7 months, we're catching up now! By the time we get home on July 3rd, it will be 118 nights over the last 18 months. That's a better rate than I had expected, but a lot of short trips will add up! Starting to feel we're getting our monies worth too. The Oliver, the tow vehicle and the tens of thousands of upgrades on each! 🤣 She also had a bath for our special day!

We’ve done the long meandering trips and also the destination specific trips. Plus’s and minus’s for both. We’ve found that many overnight stops in a row can get tiring, so when we’re headed somewhere specific we try to find a spot where we can stay two nights and a day to rest up. Plus, we do enjoy staying at a target destination for a week or more. We’re getting ready to go to the PNW in August and September, 7 National Parks and the OR and WA coast. I’m sure we’ll be tired when we get home, but we’ll fill in OR and WA on our map! Mike

There was a little hiccup getting into the Sheyenne National Grassland. The last 3 miles were dirt and it had been raining everywhere. Given the condition it drove like a single-lane road. Then up ahead were train tracks with a hill to climb to get over them and strange thing was the dirt up at the tracks was muddy black dirt! I was worried in getting over it and since we are running with a 2WD truck, I thought to get a little more speed leading up to it. Wow, first time towing the Oliver we fishtailed at the crest and when the truck went one way, the Oliver went the other. Since I was brought up driving in snow, I gently turned into the direction of the spin and after my heart moved up into my throat for a few seconds, all was good. Whew! The first picture was taken the next morning going the opposite direction. It shows the mud that hit the Oliver, but look behind the Oliver to see the train tracks on the hill and the muddy section. Then look even more closely and you can see the tire skid marks made by the Oliver the evening before! Good thing on the way back it was a soft glide downhill over the tracks. So we're driving an hour north to get to Fargo and as soon as we got on I-29N I said to Chris, "Try to find a truck wash." I was thinking the kind of place that has a tall booth and a pressure-washer, the DIY kind of wash. Turns out it wash a full-service truck wash. This is the best invention! I walked in first to see if they wouldn't mind washing our non-commercial vehicle. Then waited in line for 20 minutes with 18-wheelers fore and aft. Not only the mud on the rear of the truck and the entire Oliver, but after 2400 miles on the road we had bug splatters all over both fronts. I paid to clean both TV and TT with an under-carriage wash. This was the absolute BEST $75 investment I've made for the Oliver! Works well in our budget vs. that $3K CGI detailing. Pics attached of Dirty Ollie and Happy Ollie! 🤣

Our first RV experience was a Class C rental in Alaska in 1999. When you are still working and Alaska is calling, an RV rental is an awesome way to answer. We shared our 3 week rental with friends that were Class A owners and shared their knowledge and expertise, making the experience a joy. However you get to Alaska, you’re sure to have an amazing RV adventure! Mossey

We've seen lots of awnings trashed by wind, usually when left out while the owners were away somewhere. We never leave our awnings out when we're not present and alert, even overnight. That said, we love our dual electric awnings. When camping in hot weather, I try to park the trailer in a North-South orientation so we have maximum shade on the trailer body. In the morning I deploy the East side awning, then the West side in the afternoon. Works really well.

We visited TRNP and Glacier NP (Two Medicine) in September (2019). Weather in ND was warm during the day and nice and cool at night. Lots of sun. At Glacier, weather was cool during the day and cooler at night. Very little sun, I had to run the generator at Glacier a couple times since there was not much solar activity going on. Two Medicine is a pretty dramatic site, mountains all around. Camping at TRNP, lots of blue skies. There were also lots of Bison wandering around the campground. At Two Medicine campground, GNP. No sun, cool damp weather. This park is a must see!! More Two Medicine…

If you are a die-hard off roader 15% of all the OTT owners, then the ALCAN's are your best path with their over-sprung 5 leaf. But in your situation it will be a PITA to get them to make and ship you a set with all the hardware. On the other hand, any mechanic shop can do this job. Make your deal with them for the labor and you can call Dexter and get the much more nationwide available PR4 springs as have been discussed on several forum pages as a very suitable alternative for about 85% of OLLIE owners. I would personally find out where the closest stocking dealer is to your location. Drop the trailer at a local shop, and drive to the stocking dealer and pick them up. That would save you the most time. For my 2018 OTT with the OEM Gear I used the parts listed below. Add to that four shocks. Replace all four springs, with the parts listed. They are an exact match size wise, but are 2400 pound rated vs your 1750 ones that broke. Cost will be SIGNIFICANTLY less than ALCAN's. In the mean time, dump your tanks, off load all heavy things you can and follow the steps in the attached "What If" document. Just modify it for spring failure vs. two flats. DIY - Two Flat Tires On An OE2.docx Geronimo John's Replacement Springs Order Info APR 2024 (Christy Gillentine).docx GJ

Last year we did a 4,000 mile trip to Lake Ontario and down the eastern seaboard. Hit about 8 or 10 spots, some stays were 3 or 4 nights, a couple were just overnight stops. We are on 6,000 mile trip right now, going from NM to MT to WA, OR and back through NM to home. We are hitting more spots this trip, with a 7 day stay, some 4 day stays and some overnighters. These have been our wanderings so far in our two years with Ollie. I think I am not going to do these meandering trips any more. I think I pick a spot, how ever so far, overnight how ever so many night stays to get there, and then stay 7 to 14 days in that spot, overnight stays back home to Arkansas. Our other trips during the year will be shorties within Arkansas, Missouri and maybe southern LA and MS. These short stays don't really allow me to set up a proper camp.

Bike torque wrench I use for electrical. https://a.co/d/6xEek4l you probably have any sockets you need already. if not here’s one in in-lb with sockets: https://amzn.to/3G4ja5W Craig

Agree Mike, we hope this does not set a precedent. Here in NC we have a fuel tax at 40.3 cents per gallon that is supposed to be a source of key funding for road construction and maintenance. Then we also have an inspection tax of 0.0025 cents per gallon. 🤔

So Bill replied to my post on, "We saw an Ollie" and I thought my reply would fit better here, on Where's Ollie" one of my favorite threads (thank you Mike)! I believe that is where we are camped, on the BLM land just outside of the west park entrance, heading to and presently 6 miles south of Wall SD. From our campsite, you need a wide-angle lens or pano-view on your phone (which did not turn out). Walking from our hilltop site, 30 yards toward the dirt road, these are the views. From up here we can easily see 60 miles over the badlands. Love that the wind is from us towards to dirt road, what a great campsite! Sorry Bill, I don't do dawn unless I'm up all night! 🤣 Dusk will not show a decent sunset since at this time there is not a cloud in the sky. God Bless! we finally got out of the doldrums of the great Midwest and back to bright clear dry western skies, high pressure and higher altitude to keep my head straight. Chris wants to go to Wall Drug tomorrow, but to me it's like the Ron Jon of SD, less the surfboard stuff! For history and tradition I will attend. I'll get their long-advertised "free ice water" and a couple donuts, to boot!!! 🤣

We’re here. It was a moderator that started this by suggesting “hook ups” have meanings outside of the RV world. The graphic piled on a little. Mildly humorous, not something most of us would put on the outside of our trailer, but humorous in an eye-rolling kind of way. In fact, those of us who boondock quite a bit couldn’t use that graphic because we’re more interested in “no hook ups”. Mike 😎

Jeff & Cindy, we're on one of those "meandering trips" right now, so we certainly understand. One thing is for sure, 5 weeks is not nearly enough time to leave AZ, see family in MN and have much time for multi-day stays in between! I like how Mike said it: I much prefer short drives each day and taking each day as it comes. Then as Mike wrote, staying a couple nights to "rest up" which we tend to do when we find a spot we like! I thought we would have some 3-day stays on the way back. That's not going to happen. We have 2860 miles so far and a good 1600 miles to get back home. We setup camp as needed on a daily basis. On one-nighters I prefer to stay hitched and even on some 2-night stays if we are just going the rest up and enjoy the campsite. Sometimes I'll decouple to get the tongue up high enough to level, but just keep the truck in place for quick coupling when leaving. I'll ask Chris about what's for dinner and sometimes we need the grill or not. If it's cold out I'll pull the fire ring out of the front basket. We cook over the fire ring too using skillets on a grate or the Lodge Dutch Oven. We've had more rain, certainly than we're used to, so I'm often partially breaking camp the night before to be prepared for a Midwest storm. Several nights I put our lawn chairs inside the pickup so they would be dry in the morning for coffee outdoors. When we leave, Chris works inside and I do the outside, it only takes us 20 minutes to break camp ready to leave. No checklists but we have it down now. Got to see all we can on our large travel loop. I remember the map of your large loop which is at least as big. I'm not pulling the Oliver, not likely to Minnesota again in my lifetime, so we want to make the most of it on our way to and from! Enjoy your trip and best wishes, JD

There are many different ways to experience the outdoors and see the nation. Do whatever works for you. Sounds like you have a good plan. Enjoy Ollie'n!

Sorry guys. I forgot to post back up I replaced with the black and left an additional 3/4"-1" to push in. The cutters Patriot shared the link on were awesome. I did the work prior to the Rally.

We ended up in the Sheyenne National Grassland in southeastern North Dakota at Hankinson Hills Campsite and what a beautiful place. 😂 Amazing! The green and golden pasture views with cross-fencing like a Civil War battlefield! We drove up just after one trailer had parked, two of us in 25 campsites. They took their loop and we took the other. A little later, three girls with two trucks and horse trailers came to camp and pulled in next door to us. We walked over to say hello and what beautiful people with their draft/show horses. These 3 women is their 30s had never traveled out of North Dakota in their lives! Chris and Kayla are pictured below. We would have stayed 2-3 nights but wanted to get to Fargo the next morning and then head west in search of sunshine again...

Basically - it is "we" who got what we asked for. The "packaging" of various options was primarily done for two reasons - we (the owners) were yelling (loudly) that we wanted better quality control and the packaging helped limit the number of different variations thereby simplifying the production process and, therefore, increasing quality. At the same time, Oliver developed a multi-tiered quality control approach where each "station" on the production line was required to note that they had completed the "tasks" of that station and these things had been inspected for quality control. Then, at a later date, when a quality issue was found, it could be traced back to the station where the issue occurred where either further training was taken or different processes were instituted. The second reason was that the vast majority of Ollies were being produced with these same options anyway. Bill

Just pulling into Abilene, KS, going through town saw an LEII parked in a driveway. We’re hear for two nights on our way to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming.

Not sure if this will work with your awning.

We typically try and stay off interstates when we are traveling. We much prefer the roads less traveled and always try and avoid toll roads. Let’s hope this idea does not get traction in other states. Another money grab! 😏 https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/indiana-becomes-first-state-to-approve-tolling-on-all-interstates/3771725/

Leaving Beaver Creek Rec Area we had to stop at Scheer's Meats in Linton North Dakota. The place looked promising the day before but they were closed. If I remember correctly, Kara help us. We picked one huge T-bone to split, 2 lbs of hamburger meat (had a burger for lunch today and it was great)! And bacon, liver sausage and jerky and we could not believe it all for $52! Great meats and service and if we lived nearby, definitely would be regulars! Then we headed to Pierre SD, a town I've wanted to visit. Nice clean small city. We stayed right in town at Griffin Park on the Missouri River. Chose it for the pickleball courts a short walk away. Great river view, beautiful soft lawn, although the RV spots were just a gravel lot. We needed the electrical cause the heat wave had started. We enjoy short hikes when traveling, but Chris and I have played tennis since the 70s, together since the 90s and for us 2 hours of pickleball is good exercise, gets the endorphins up and we feel better all evening (and at our age, some aches the next day of course). This was the 5th time we played n our trip. We played in Lincoln Nebraska, Mason City Iowa, Lakeville Minnesota, and both Fargo and Pierre in the Dakotas! We also shopped food in as many places always in small family-owned shops. In another post after @Patriot mentioned getting a fridge-freezer for our TV, I was like, no I don't want to do that. But he was right which is often the case! If we had a second freezer we would have spent another $100 at Scheer's Meats for sure. An upgrade should be coming a a time TBD...

Love it! Boondocking on the Badlands Wall BLM as I write. Per Mike’s comment, I added a column to our “Oliver Travels” spreadsheet! So I’ll need the 100 camping badge and the 50 “no hook-ups” badge, now 104 nights and 56 of them dry-camping. That’s about 54% but if I continue camping more in the west, we will get that number higher! 🤣

John, I would just go with hand tightening, but… What would help is to purchase new split lock washers, nuts too if you like, correct size and good quality from a local hardware store (not Amazon). The hardware parts on these breakers are cheap and weak. The stronger spring steel in good washers should hold tight. You can torque, even over-torque the cheap hardware and they will still loosen up. Give my idea a try! 😂

So why did I calculate the above power potentials? Certainly not to coerce anybody to do anything. But to inform of the power potentials that we need to be aware of. Yes, to me the primary purpose of having a battery AND a solar discos are (#1) maintenance and (#2) emergency use. #1 MAINTENANCE SAFETY & CONVENIENCE: When we are doing maintenance on our Ollies that in any way involve electrical it is important to disable ALL power sources that can bite us. Certainly 120V shore and Inverter power sources, as well as battery and solar. Why all? Because each trailer has systems that interconnect between them. Examples: Inverter, Converter, Refrigerators, computer power ports, etc. As stated above the are many ways that a simple mistake during a simple maintenance task can, and likely have occurred from not making safe all power sources. If you don't have the necessary disco's and don't have the background experience in such systems to safely disco hot circuits.... You really need to think about your situation. With the disco's you just need to: Turn off a 350 A battery switch Flip a solar breaker Physically verify your Ollie is not plugged into shore power (Generator, Power Pole, Outlet). Without disco's, we can manually make the job electrically safe by taking apart hot cables. This is a sweat producing moment for many and hazardous as well. But it takes a lot of time. I guarantee you that at some point in doing so, you will realize that the minor cost of installing those power Disco's is far more cost effective than your time to Disco and restore all sources of power when working on your electrical and mechanical systems. Finally on this point, I consider end of season parasitic loss elimination and power source isolations just another maintenance task that is a lot easier with such switches. #2 EMERGENCY USE: If you are handy and you smell a major electrical acrid burning smell, it is possible that you manually disco the various systems. In the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to get the tools and do so, the problem may have spread from a simple electrical issue to a major one. But it is possible that you can deal with it. But what if you are out fishing/hiking/or flying hang gliders; Are your guests capable of doing the above? Not likely for most owners. With no discos, for the vast majority of spouses or guests, they should exit the trailer and call 911 and summon help if there are knowledgeable campers around. Either way, they get to watch what happens next from a safe distance. Most important part is they are safe. On the other hand if you or they feel it is safe to do so: Turn off the Battery Master Switch and Solar breaker, and unplug the exterior power port. Air out the trailer and then figure what was burning..... IN SUMMARY: Our OTT electrical and mechanical systems are exceptionally well designed and carefully manufactured. Over time their systems age very well compared to the SOB's. As a result we don't see many of our OTT units burning to the ground. But fires do happen and to me, having basic measures in place make sense as the cost could be so very high if you don't. MANY owners, especially the Master Level Contributors, are fully capable of doing significant DIY efforts. Everything from A/C and Refrigerator replacements DC to DC chargers, transition to Lithium, adding solar, springs, axles. hitches, fans and other really great projects. We take great pride in helping other owners to join the DIY group. But first start with a DEEP dive in this forum on the topic. Take pictures of your system and download the posts and pictures of others who have done the effort. You than can intelligently talk to OTT or other qualified firms to have the mod done. Or, to start asking question and help on our forum if you want to DIY it. Our owners are scattered out all across the USA. Likely one will be in your location or willing to meet should the paths cross during the season. GJ

@mossemi Thanks for the link to the Solar Panel Disconnect Tutorial video. I'm going to have to spend some time watching his other videos. @Snackchaser Thanks for the photo of your switch. The switch looks like it's flush mounted since I don't see any wires. Nice clean install and much more convenient than inside the marine hatch. Installing a switch will have to wait until I can bring the Oliver back to my house but that will give me time to order parts and tools. Thanks all! Tony

Here’s some observations in using the Cielo Breez Max phone app, the phone’s Bluetooth must be turned on to pair the device and Wi-Fi is initially required to operate the A/C via the app. Once the A/C is powered up and set to run at a desired mode of operation and Wi-Fi is discontinued, the A\C will continue to run as set, but changes cannot be made. However, to make changes or when it comes time to turn off the A/C Wi-Fi is once again needed. I know this based on my experience a couple weeks ago, wherein I started the A/C using the phone app while at my house in order to run the Atmos via the inverter while in transit to the COW Barn for storage. Once stowed and ready to leave, I was unable to turn off the Atmos and found it necessary to use my wife’s cell hotspot in order to do so. Fast forward to yesterday, when I activated a recently acquired Starlink Mini and went back to the COW Barn to check on the Oliver and perform some tests. To no surprise, the SLM worked flawlessly, as well as the Cielo/Almos. It wasn’t a terribly hot day for Texas due to pending inclement weather, outside temp was 88°/relative humidity 77%; the Oliver registered 89°/72%. Yep, the dehumidifier was shutdown with a full reservoir and thus, the high humidity condition within! Not to worry, the SLM/Cielo phone app started and ran the Atmos for 45 minutes, at which time it powered off on Confy Mode at the set temp of 75°/humidity was 45%. In approximately 20 minutes, the Atmos turned back on when the temp rose to 77°/humidity was 47%. It then ran 17 minutes before total shutdown again, humidity was 45%; no humidity spike whatsoever, YAHOO! Loving the Cielo Breez Max and the SLM is proving to be a worthy addition as well, as many of you already know. Hopefully other owners will try out the Cielo Breez Max on their respective A/Cs, and report on subsequent findings and experiences.

Tony and Rhonda, From your photo, it looks like you removed the round marine hatch to see the back of the ZAMP charger. My solar disconnect switch is mounted right next to that hatch. From what I can see from your wiring, there isn’t one there. This would be an easy, and recommended, install. A higher priority than a master battery switch. Let me know if you need a wiring sketch. Now on the other hand, I’m of a different opinion than some of the good folks about main battery switches. I think they're unnecessary. The only reason you’d need one is to disconnect the parasite loads while the trailer is in storage. But you can do that by simply switching-off the main DC panel circuit breaker. It's probably that one there in your picture. Just flip it off and see if it kills the lights. I did some measurements of the Oliver's parasite loads that you might find interesting. Individually they were mere milli amp values, but collectively they added up to almost 1/2 an amp. That could run your 300AH battery down in about a month! So you'd definitely want to open that breaker when storing. I posted those values in a post by @Dave and Kimberly Battery depletion rate 3% or more per day... with EVERYTHING off? https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10258-battery-depletion-rate-3-or-more-per-day-with-everything-off/ Cheers! Geoff

I had a 2005 Sequoia with the 4.7L. It worked pretty well on the flat lands. But in the hills not so well. In fact, my son and I got passed by the US Olympic Cycling time seven times north of Denver when we were goin up-hill (Not mountain, hills). My son was handing out free ice cold waters to the Cycling Team as they passed, we picked up their empties on subsequent down-hill runs. We all were laughing our heads off. That 4.7 will work, but just not enough power for even hills let alone mountains. Once we finally got to flat lands we were fine and smoked them all! But my son said, "Dad, you need a truck". It would have been ok (Not OK) if I had he 5.7. But in the mountains it was sketchy. The next year I bought a F-150 Crew Cab 4x4 FX tow package. With the addition of Bilstein 5500s shocks on the back and Firestone airbags I could not be happier. Since we USE our truck off road hauling free flying (No motors) glider pilots up to mountain launches, for us, getting a F250 or larger was not practical. Besides we use our TV as a daily driver as well. So the F-150 SuperCrew was and is out ticket. PS: By the time you get decked out, your OE2 will most likely be around 6,000 pounds. With your mountain use, I am with the above owners. Get a truck. In your case one with four wheel drive and off road package (Something like the Ford FX4). Then there is the tire swap on the TV to meet your style of travel. I have Nitto Recon's on mine.

You are wise to avoid the snow and stay really weather aware in the shoulder months, weather can change quickly. In 23 we camped right outside Rocky Mountain NP at Spruce Lake CG in Estes Park. (Super close to RMNP) We got to know the couple running the CG and they told us that in 2022 in the last week of Sept they had 6” of snow. As @routlaw said “anything is possible”. Last fall on our 48 day trip out west we had amazing weather in Sept and Oct. I recall we only had 2 days of rain and perfectly cool temps. We will likely only travel out west in the shoulder months. Winter certainly has its beauty and totally changes the landscape. I am in the crowd that has zero desire to camp in snow or pull our Oliver in winter conditions for sooooo many reasons. Sodium chloride aka rock salt on icy roads being the biggest one. One of many great advantages of living here in the south aka the “land of cotton” are long summers and short winters and very little rust on our vehicles. Wishing you safe travels!!🇺🇸 Patriot

Couple of thoughts. Just for the record your trip locations are not really the NW but rather should be considered the Northern Rockies. Have not been to CN in a long time so will leave those areas out of the comments. As for chains, I have lived in MT for almost half a century and never owned them nor used them. The likelihood of needing them this time of year is unlikely too but anything is possible. You might see some triple digits temps in SD and ND that time of year and certainly well into the 90's. I did photoshoot in TRNP once in the summer and it was brutal. At least 110º perhaps more, but at least the assignment was with horses. Cameras got so hot it was difficult to hold them at times. Two Medicine is awesome and will be quite a bit cooler, days will be getting much shorter too by then. Same for East Glacier of course. Autumn colors start quite a bit earlier up in this neck of the woods compared to the SW but you should be hitting it at a good time. Expect cool to downright cold nights and with some frost on the later part. I have seen bitter cold temps and near blizzard conditions in Sept but it is rare and certainly not every year. Normally, the roads would not freeze up this time of year, but again anything is possible. Early winter snows tend to melt fairly quick on the roads and Montana has a great road crew system for clearing. I would imagine CN to be no different. Have a great trip

I do like our manual awning. Zero issues.

More important than number of nights is $/night. I’m finally under $1000! 🤪