technomadia

Thank you so much for putting this all together, Sherry! We actually need to replace the outside Euro sprayer - as our got busted when we got into a single digit freeze while in Kansas, and weren't prepared. - Cherie

Looking less likely that we'll make it We're probably going down to Miami this weekend to the big boat show.

We're a maybe at this point. We hardly know what we're doing tomorrow yet

Since I know some of you wanted to be here.. here's our video from the last planned night launch of the shuttle program. We've been camped right along the Indian River in Titusville with a direct view of the launch pad! http://www.technomadia.com/2010/02/vide ... endeavour/ - Cherie

We could likely make those dates work. And looks like there's are about 7 sites available for those dates.

We're currently staying in Titusville, in spitting distance of the shuttle. If anyone is coming over this way for the launch, that would be a no-brainer for us. Of course, where we're at.. we already have a great view For other parks in the area - there's a county park called 'Manatee' and Jetty Park at Cape Canaveral is beachside at the port. As far as planning out into March - it's a wild guess for us at this point. We don't know yet how long we'll be in Florida, and are thus far only committed through late February. Weekdays work great for us.. we prefer public parks during the week anyway, much more relaxing. - Cherie

A Florida gathering would be awesome. We just arrived to the east coast of Florida this week. Currently parked in Titusville and likely hanging out on this coast for a couple weeks - then heading to Orlando. Would love to get west coast too. A meetup would certainly get us there - Cherie

Brrr.... so very not Florida-like. Heck, the whole country seems to be extra special chilly. Here in St. Louis we're lucky to get into double digit temps this week. If it weren't for house and dog sitting, we'd be so on our way south to join y'all! Enjoy! - Cherie

Our current plans have us in Florida in at least most of February... haven't decided beyond that yet. Would be awesome to have an Olly rally while we're in the area - Cherie

Pictures.. we want pictures

Keeping our fingers crossed for a quick fix for your fridge!

Currently, Oliver owns and runs these forums - and hires an IT company to host and maintain them. I don't know what the actual risk is of them shutting down the forums. Probably the same as them shutting down their website. All depends on how serious they are about sticking around and getting back into the trailer business. The software to run a forum like this is fairly easy to come by, and it's not all that expensive to re-set it up. For instance,the hosting company that Chris & I use to run our own blog also provides a similar forum software for free. The real cost is the labor intensity of keeping spammers out - which is being done by some of our wonderful moderators on a volunteer basis. If the forums where to ever go down - it would be best to look into other group management options. Either creating our own self-hosted one somewhere,or utilizing a free resource like YahooGroups, Ning, GoogleGroups, Facebook,etc. We can only hope that if such a scenario were to arise, that the folks at Oliver would be kind enough to give us some advanced warning so that we can reorganize. If they weren't to, I'm sure that those of us with public blogs would be the go-to sources for disseminating information on where to find our community. As would be places like fiberglassrv.com or Casita Club. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to have a contact list that is not hosted here that would be used in the case of the forums going away. Perhaps a GoogleDoc form to collect and store the information to be accessible to the moderators? If that's desired, I'd be happy to set one up. -Cherie

Wise decision to bug out early, guys! Seeing the weather forecast played a big part in our decision to get out of there early too. Just not worth it for the regular pay we'd get for pushing long hours this week. By the way, Gizmodo interviewed us for an article about our workamping experience at Amazon. Oliver also got featured http://gizmodo.com/5433487/the-secret-l ... zons-elves Happy holidays to all.. be warm, be safe and be full of love and joy. - Cherie

noneoftheabove - I am still disappointed in the way Oliver handled canceling you order. In my humble opinion, they should have never had you make the trip to the factory unless they were committed to building your trailer. I also know that was a decision well out of Robert's control, and I'm sure he did his very best to keep you in the loop. As far as the factory - even when the factory was cranking out trailers, it was just about as nearly empty as it was in the May/June time frame of this year. The 7 acre building is simply way overkill in size for the line - they got a good deal on the building, which gave them the option to run multiple lines if they needed to scale up. We've been there three times (and camped overnight twice in the factory building, having full access to explore it with a golf cart on our own) - twice when there were several trailers being build, and once when the last sold 22' was being completed and the focus was on the tub line. There really aren't many differences, other than the absence of about half a dozen partially built trailers. To the best of my understanding, Oliver will not switch focus to building trailers until they feel confident they can get into and keep full production. It does cost quite a bit to get the lines started up and switch their manpower there. And additionally, it is substantially better for build quality to be building several at a time, instead of a couple here and there. I totally respect Oliver for their focus on being able to build a top quality trailer even if it means building none until the time is right, and am glad they have the tub line continuing to keep their craftsman employed and productive. Oliver is also a large family, with a lot of individual interests and innovation brought to the table. They've used their facility to build showers, tubs, deer stands, stepcases and more. It wouldn't surprise me at all that folks within Oliver have explored dozens of interesting ideas, including horse trailers (actually, I think I remember that conversation when we were there in May). - Cherie

Only supposed to get down in the upper 20s tonight.. so not much of a test as the previous lows in the single digits would have been

Woohoo... we made it last night with a dip down to 8 degree without any significant freezing damage. We did however have the outdoor showerhead burst, as we totally forgot to drain the line before the freeze. Not a big deal for us.. we hardly use the thing, and it'll be easy enough to replace. Once we shut off the water to the outside shower, all systems inside were functional and had just enough time before work to take a quick warm rinse. What a night tho.. I don't think we got much sleep as we were frantically trying to stay ahead of it and isolate which lines were freezing up - which involved the bed being torn apart most of the night. We left the bedside dinette seat chamber totally open, as well as the bathroom door this evening while we worked our nightshift - and no problems. Of course, we're only getting down in the low 20s tonight, so not nearly as bad. I agree Larry... something for extended long term cold camping would be an awesome feature. I always thought that a small heat system between the shells would significantly help with keeping the interior warm as well. Leaving the trailer insides so open isn't an optimal solution. It's not like we have lots of spare room to toss cushions and such aside, and normally we have Kiki who would be getting into way too much mischief Hope winter is treating everyone well! - Cherie

We're currently in Kansas, workamping at amazon.com's distribution center. Tonight, the projected lows are supposed to be 7 degrees. We must be crazy to be here instead of somewhere warmer, I know. This is our first time being in really cold weather in our Oliver (last winter we were in San Francisco, where it barely got below freezing). Previously, we thought that the trailer would be fine if we were living in it and keeping it warm enough to be comfortable for ourselves. That is apparently not true when the temps drops much below about 20 for any length of time. Tonight we experienced the cold water line to the bathroom - both the sink and toilet - freezing up enough to stop the flow of water (outside temps reading at 17 at the time). The hot water (currently heated on electric, thanks to amazon.com) has been flowing fine. After much experimenting we discovered that we have to open the hatch underneath the double dinette seat closest to the bed (four person dinette) to warm the line. We're currently alternating placing our fan forced space heater in the chamber and in the living area to keep both us and lines warm enough. Thankfully, we haven't burst any pipes. As we won't be here tomorrow evening while we're packing boxes to keep the alternating going, we'll likely keep the hatch open so that warm air is at least getting in there and keeping the space between the shells above freezing. Any other suggestions are much appreciated.. but thought we'd pass this bit of info on incase you haven't yet gone through really cold temps yet in your Oliver. - Cherie

Ah-hah! Now I know whose those were that I packaged the other day ! *grin* - Cherie

Even at full price.. federal campgrounds tend to be significantly cheaper than other alternatives. We don't qualify for any of the current discounts, and still favor public campgrounds for both the lower costs and generally more scenic and peaceful surroundings. There's always the option on most federal forest and BLM lands to stay for free if you don't mind boondocking in undesignated areas (and don't need hookups of any sort.) That said, this proposed change will affect a lot folks who currently qualify for the discount and who depend on it to make their lives affordable. 50% to 10% is a steep increase in cost for those currently budgeting otherwise, especially for those part and/or full timing on the road. Seems a lot of public campgrounds are trying to survive the economy by increasing fees - such as state parks across the country. Some of California's state parks are more costly now than private campgrounds, and they generally don't even offer hookups. We're all in favor of charges based on actual consumption of resources as opposed to flat fees for a 13' trailer or a 40' bus. We'd also love to see an annual pass of sorts that anyone could purchase for discounted and/or free camping at federal campgrounds. - Cherie

We got adorable little suction cup snowflakes with LED color changing lights for Orion.. perfect Oliver holiday decorations, and just $5 at Target As far as big upgrades, nothing really on our list. However the Hewus battery upgrade was quite impressive and very tempting. Well, I suppose we could consider the new tow vehicle a huge gift to Orion too We probably won't be spending Xmas in the trailer this year however.. as soon as we're done working at amazon.com (we're here workamping in Kansas with mountainborn), we'll be heading up to St. Louis to spend the holidays with Chris' family and staying in their guest room. After the first of the year, it looks like we're heading down to Florida for a few weeks, then off to Texas by early March. - Cherie

We've joined Larry & Betty at Elk City State Park and start at Amazon.com this weekend too! Having a hoot being neighbors to them.. and seeing our two small Olivers next to all these big rigs on our loop. - Cherie

I am trying to figure out if there is any good reason to leave the ground from the tow vehicle not grounded in the trailer. Was ours done this way on purpose, or was grounding this wire just overlooked by the factory? Has anyone else out there traced whether or not their tow vehicle wiring is grounded? - Chris

Well put, Mountainborn! Couldn't agree more. So much of our impression of Oliver has been Robert's voice and personality. He was our first and primary contact with the company, and led us through the customization process. He went out of the way to have a birthday cake & decorations waiting for me when we picked up our Oliver. He went above and beyond to make sure every detail was taken care of, every promise delivered and every issue resolved, helping ease the frustration of having to deal with issues in the first place. He kept in touch after the pick-up. Our experience with everyone else at Oliver tells us we will have no issues without Robert getting advice/service - as they are an all around class act of a company - but we will indeed miss dealing with him. We don't know the circumstances surrounding Robert no longer being with Oliver, but from this customer's point of view, they have let a gem slip by them. - Cherie

With Andrew's help in Lake Havasu City, we were able to track down and fix the trailer light issues this evening. The problem was with the metal plate that supports the lights behind the rear Oliver sign. The lights ground to the metal plate, and the plate is grounded via a ground wire that is riveted into it. The connector on the ground wire was the same size as the head of the rivet, and over time the connection had gone bad and the ground wire had started to slip off of the rivet. Once we tracked this down and re-secured the ground, the trailer lights all worked great again. Thanks Andrew!!! One other issue we discovered... It seems as if the ground wire coming from the tow vehicle is used for grounding all the trailer tow lights (including the upper metal plate), but this ground wire in our trailer is NOT grounded to the trailer frame or tied into any of the other trailer grounds or to the battery negative. I am not sure whether this was intentionally wired this way, whether a ground has gone bad in our trailer, or whether the factory missed wiring up this connection correctly when they built our trailer. We discovered this when we noticed that the trailer battery would not charge from the tow vehicle while the the trailer was raised off the ball, but it would charge when lowered and the trailer and tow vehicle would ground together via the ball. I have already discovered that the frame grounds in the Oliver are rather skimpy - I am tempted to redo all the grounds in a heftier fashion soon, and when I do that I will tie in the ground from the tow vehicle too. A better ground may even improve our solar charging efficiency. We also noticed this evening that we are only getting a 4A - 6A charge current from our new Tundra. We used to get 12A from our Jeep. I haven't figured out yet why this is the case, though I wonder whether the ground wiring may be the cause... - Chris

As you know.. we completely left the kingdome off our unit. We just simply don't watch TV enough to merit the space and much preferred the solar capacity we could get without it. For our occasional TV needs, we got a little USB plug in unit called an elgato eyetv (http://www.elgato.com) that allows us to tune in TV/Radio into our computers. Works great for us, and has hardly any space considerations. For movies and TV shows, we use Netflix to have them shipped into us on DVD. Netflix is great about frequent address changes to keep up with in our travels. I'll also occasionally order a TV series on DVD from Amazon's marketplace (used) - watch it, then sell it back on Amazon. - Cherie