Patriot

Following.

We took delivery June 16th, spent 6.5 hrs on our delivery day going over everything we had on our long pre delivery check list. It was a long list and a drinking from the fire hose day 😄😳. We live 7 hrs from Oliver and driving home was just not a safe option for us given how tired we were from delivery day. We spent an extra 3 nights at David Crockett which looking back we’re really glad we did. You are correct, skipping the overnight stay Is not prudent. As stated driving back to Atlanta tired, possible rush hour, and stormy weather is a bad combo. As Overland already wisely stated and I completely agree, I would not recommend skipping your overnight shakedown at David Crockett.

Spoke to a Clam rep and asked if it was alright to treat our new shelter with Kiwi Camp Dry. The rep said that is the best water repellent to use. One 10.5 oz can will treat the (5) sided clam and the optional (4) sides. So it was a fairly cool 69 degree Western NC morning and I was the man for the job. 😁 It took about 20 min and a step ladder was needed to spray the top center of the roof. We will let it dry/cure for 24 hrs.

Our Clam Venture (5) sided shelter arrived this afternoon. It appears well made, it deployed and came down and packed up fast. I bought a few cans of Kiwi Camp Dry to treat the optional (4) sides and roof at some point. The carry bag is actually quite well made and up for the task. The shelter appears to be well constructed and this particular size as Mike mentioned will lay in the back of a our TV bed. The above YouTube reviewer was accurate in his description. I will try and stage a photo with our camping chairs and table at some point in the future. Based on my initial review out of the box, fast set up and the fit and finish, I would recommend this shelter.

Rhino tough! How appropriate! Great colors and a great photo! Hope our paths cross someday! Stay safe, Patriot

Matt, Thank you, and we completely understand and support Oliver’s decision and concern for everyone’s safety and health. We are planning to keep our reservations at Lake Guntersville at least for now. We’ll see. Everyone Stay healthy and Stay Safe!

Thanks Garry for the heads up, will do the same.

A few photos from Topgun this afternoon...WOW factor for sure! That’s a nice catch!

Welcome Jordan, Like Mike said there maybe someone not living too far from you who might be willing to show you their Ollie. This forum has a lot of experienced owners that you will find are very helpful and patient with questions. The search window and Oliver University are also excellent tools that help as well. Oliver has also provided pretty awesome videos on how to maintain different your areas of your Oliver. -Patriot

Great point the red light capability I forgot to mention....agreed it’s a nice night vision feature. Hopefully it will hold up well.

We took delivery this past June 16th, our Ollie was spotless inside, super clean.

Ordered this camp light for our Clam shelter arriving this week. It’s USB chargeable, high and low setting and overall a really decent light. It comes with an S hook so you can hang it on the Clam shelter light loop. Thought I would pass it on, a decent LED camp light with strong reviews.

✅ During our predelivery inspection I asked our delivery specialist to remove the small water filter near the pump. It did have a tiny amount of plastic shavings in the filter cup which we naturally had him clean out. After a (4) day stay at David Crocket we drained our fresh water tank the night before we left. I will check the filter and braided hose for plastic shavings and monitor our water pressure and see how things go. Thanks thirddoor.

RB, Glad to hear your growing berries, like you our season has been pretty amazing. And we have had lots of nice size rabbit eye variety berries. We have to net for deer and birds...a lot of work but it really helps. We had lots of honey bees in our blueberries this past spring. It was great to just listen to them and watch em work the blooms. No late frost helped us out a lot and a fair amount of rain. We use drip irrigation which helps a lot. As for the Traeger they are expensive..,ours is 5 yrs old now and it’s been a good one.

Thank you Sherry! Wow we will have to give this a try on ribs someday. We made homemade blueberry waffles Friday morning....oh..the carb overload was rough.😴 We toughed it out. Still working on the amount of waffle batter as you can tell. 😄 We also enjoy blueberry smoothies especially when it’s warm outside.

Thank you for the nice compliments! Just a work in progress. A few pics of of the finished brisket....Kathy made homemade warm potato salad and baked beans with a little local mule kick chipotle bbcue sauce. We don’t eat this way every day...but I gotta say we are pleased with how tender it turned out. I even managed to get a nice little smoke ring going on. We do like brisket with breakfast. No room for blueberry cobbler...huh? it should be illegal to say that...😄 Gotta have a little bark.

Every now and then we enjoy beef brisket and we really miss our Texas - Rudy’s barbecue days. One of my other hobbies and always a work in progress is smoking meat, fish and chicken on our a Traeger LiL Texas pellet grill. We picked up a nice 9# brisket the other day and decided to let it slow and go roll in hickory smoke for 6-7 hrs @225d or until the internal temp hits 180-190d. I dry rubbed this one early this morning and will post up a few pics when it’s done. We are celebrating/giving thanks for a successful blueberry harvest finishing out with 42.5 gallons of berries this year. We are truly grateful as it’s our best yield in the 11 yrs we have been growing them. Yes we eat a lot of blueberries, this harvest will take us well into 2021/22. In an effort to keep this post Ollie related I made sure Hull 634 was captured in my pic.😁 We use the igrill mini for accurate internal meat temp..it’s been a great tool/app. It works flawlessly.

We have the Honda Handi and really like it- whisper quiet. Here is a neat video- Ours-

What air conditioner noise? 😄 just set thermostat to comfortable temp🥶, AC on low fan setting...hibernation time.😴 We just adapt and overcome. 👍🏻

I think the weep hole is going to remedy the real issue of water collecting in the hollow rear bumper. The amount of water was minimal. I will wait and see if I need to (2) additional weep holes, noted.

Yukon, thanks for posting, I checked ours and discovered a tiny amount of water which I drained out of the the bumper. I drilled a small weep hole in the bottom (pic) and caulked around the mounting bracket area holes (hard to see in pic) with silicone. ✅ Maybe the production line can add a small weep hole to eliminate the bumper holding water. Added a bead of silicone around the 7pin to keep moisture out.

We asked about the battery disconnect during our delivery day inspection. We were told our 2020 Oliver does not have a battery disconnect.

Topgun shared this photo with me last evening. Looks like a bit of a hike to the Trout.

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your Ollie purchase. That is a great looking rig you have there. Admittedly partial to Toyota’s having owned them since 1989. Maybe we’ll get to meet you at the September Oliver Rally at Lake Guntersville, Alabama. -Patriot

We decided on this one based on your suggestion of it fitting in the bed of our TV. We also ordered the (4) privacy walls. 👍🏻 It’s all we need. Thanks Mike!