SeaDawg

Chaco looks beautiful. I looked at the Facebook page. About 30 posts in the last six months, of which 5 were road closures or warnings, and three or four were soliciting help. I see what you mean about the road, @Overland and boondocking airstream.

So, the falling iguanas warning has been issued again... Don't pick them up! Above 40 degrees, they come back to life. And can be aggressive. It's not been chamber of commerce weather in most of Florida this week.

The moving blankets would be my advice, too. Dark ones. Then, get a switch installed. I wonder why there isn't one? It's not often that we need it, but its still important to us.

Here's a shortcut to Oliver University. A wealth of knowledge is in there. Study as much as you can, and pickup lessons will make much more sense. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/oliver-university/ The lovely new campsites at Oliver have been discussed in a few threads. You should reserve a spot for your pickup date. Give your rep a call. Also, it's been very helpful for a lot of people to stay somewhere close to hohenwald a few nights after pickup. Test and use absolutely every system, in case you need to return to the factory for adjustments. Davy Crockett and a few other state parks are within a few hours' drive, and Tennessee parks are quite nice. Congratulations. Your wait is almost over.

Easily five days. I have stored food for two for much longer. A lot of produce doesn't require refrigeration. We often carry a cooler for drinks. Saves opening the door all the time.

@Mainiac, as a long time member, you can still edit your posts. The 24 hour limit is for newer members. This helps us, as moderators, with spammers. It helps keep our site sp@m free. We appreciate your understanding, and a pm to a mod will get the newer members' posts edited. We don't mind, as it's a relatively rare occurrence, anyway.

And, it's another " concept " vehicle. We'll see how it goes . With Thor, there has to be a big demand to make it work. Witness early demise of the Nest.

I'll just add a link Thanks, @Ralph Mawyer

Well, I'm interested. I didn't get the email, so thanks, @John E Davies Then again, most Oliver communications go to my husband's email.. I'll look. Would we like a quiet ac? At what cost increment, for those of us who rarely use ac?

Reminds me of beta vs vhs. And the winner is.....? We'll continue to see advancements in battery tech. I'm sure of that. I'm not a huge fan of traditional hybrids, because of the necessity to maintain two systems. But, they've definitely made headway, and reduced emissions. We're still in baby step stages, imo. Even with major advances in the last decade. Our kids and grandkids will see a very different way of powering vehicles. My money is on electric.

If I felt a draft, I would seal around the fridge opening inside the trailer. Duct tape is fine, wherever you feel a draft. I wouldn't mess with outside venting. As others have said. Open a service ticket.

You should fill the tanks, 1/2 to 3/4, and work from them. Disconnect the hose before the temperature drops below 30. Keep propane heat on a setting that's comfy for you. For us, at night, sleeping, it's around 55 to 60. Daytime, 65 to 68. We have nice quilts. I don't love sleeping bags, but others do. Temps forecast for Hohenwald aren't really too bad. It's the rain and freezing temps at night, and resulting black ice (invisible) that you need to watch for. Don't try to travel early in the day, imo. Wait til the sun melts the ice. Probably 11 to 1. Especially, be careful in shaded areas, and any bridges. They ice earlier, and it lasts longer. I grew up in southern Minnesota. Same crap there, just much longer season, and more frequent icing and snow... Most dangerous times were early season storms. By midwinter, most people had regained awareness, and good driving habits. Not to be counted on in Tennessee or the Carolinas, where this is much more infrequent. Many drivers don't know how to drive in ice and snow, in the south, in my experience. Good news is, it rarely stays cold in middle Tennessee. Wait it out. We've been in Florida a long time, but I still have cold weather clothes. My most important, smart wool socks, in various levels. And long underwear. Cuddleduds and 32 degrees are great in pretty much mild temps, to me. If you don't have those, it's not a big deal. Just know that jeans aren't really warm below 20 degrees or so. I used to wear just a pair of tights,, under jeans, in Minnesota. It worked, til jeans got wet. Wet jeans are miserable. Synthetics, wool, and blends are seriously your friends in crappy rainy/sleety/wintry mix weather.

I'm sure you have looked, but I'd run through everything again. Make sure you have no heavy unnecessary loads on batteries. Low angle sun in November might not allow you to bring batteries to 100 per cent with just solar, if it was cold, and you were running furnace fan a lot. Batteries will sulfate if charging too little, not reaching full, even agms. That shortens life. Lead acid batteries of any sort like to be charged to full, and not heavily discharged. Your pd charger runs a mild "equalizer" desulfating charge every 23 to 25 hours, if plugged in consistently, which is short, and doesn't harm agm batteries. I don't think that happens when plugged in and getting power for only a few hours. (NOTE: this is not the same as fla equalization on the Blue Sky, which you should NEVER do on agm batteries. This is ONLY for flooded batteries. ) Could be any number of problems. It may indeed be time to take the batteries out and get them load tested, as miserable as that is, due to weights. It's really the only way to know, short if investing in a load tester. Unplug. Turn off the solar, battery disconnect. Take photos, so you know how to hook them up again. Make sure all battery leads are isolated. Good luck.

For those of you considering using water from streams, etc., here's a link to a discussion about our friend Audrey's system. He used this throughout a trip through Mexico. We also use Purogene vs Clorox to sanitize the onboard tanks in the Ollie and the boat. We don't (yet) have his extensive rv filtration system, though, so we've not used water from streams in the Ollie, even though we don'tdrink that water.

We're among those who carry drinking/cooking water from home, and use the tank for flushing and washing. We supplement or refill with purchased water. At a dollar a day (or less, if you find a machine to refill carried 5 gallon jugs,) it's just one of those safety factors. Some walmarts and other places, have machines with purified water for 20 cents a gallon, or less. We used to refill drinking tanks at parks where we thought the water tasted good. Giardia and other contamination doesn't always affect taste. Many parks test sporadically. As we've gotten older, I'm more careful about drinking water.

That would have been really handy when we worked on the small boat trailer last year.

I have struggled with that, too. Our mpg drops, with the trailer in tow. Offsets? At home, our ac and/or heat in our larger home runs less than when we're home. Though we are very careful with water and power at home, we're even more conscious of our use, with the trailer. We run our trailer primarily on solar. (But that's also true of our home, and our sail boat .) We do some long runs, driving, and typically stay a bit. Sometimes days. Sometimes weeks, or longer. During that time, we rarely "go to town," so those short runs eliminate some of the daily drives we would do at home. Both our current tow vehicles are over 14 years old, and our trailer is now in its 15th season. Boat is 45 years old. Durability/longevity is also part of eco economy. We try very hard to leave a small footprint. We all have to live within our conscience confines. I'm pretty much ok with ours, though I'm sure we could also do better.

Thor is working on a self- powered design, too. https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/12/thor-zf-partner-to-develop-battery-powered-towable-rvs/

Looks like some folks at Lippert may have read your post, and took it to heart, @Overland https://rvbusiness.com/lippert-developing-edison-ev-towable-chassis-prototype/

@Liana, I saw this on the Facebook page, and wondered if it were you? If so, you've been experiencing some charging issues since October? I omitted the full name, but liana was first name.

@John Welte curious. When you do the long distance bicycle trips, do you have a chase vehicle? Do you travel in a group? We've met several bike campers, solo, doing long trips ( a couple trans Canada, one was aanchorage to San Francisco, via the Yukon, etc ), and it seemed to be a long and lonely road . Sherry

Fwiw, in the early days, only Pete got Solar, as original. (Scubarx was a bit later, I think.) We added it 5 or 6 months after picking up our trailer, with Oliver's help, when we realized we actually needed the energy from the solar to camp the way we do. Since then, we've doubled the panels , and changed up other equipment, but stayed with BlueSky. We've used victron on the boat , and had a few issues, a few years later. The Zamp system that Oliver installs is pretty much bulletproof, and easy for new users. I can see the reasons why they chose it. usa built, stout, simple. Those of us who went a different (unwarranteed ) path of choosing, live with our own results and resources. Not everyone has the same skills, nor the same desires to do the research and work, or live without warranty. It's all good, either way. We're still living with agm on the trailer, and making do. Not sure we'll make the upgrade to lithium. My husband wants to build his own lithium battery pack. We'll see. I'm not as enthusiastic. It's really all about your comfort, and skill level, and risk level. We went sailing this weekend on our 45 year old solar powered boat. I hope I'm around to see the results of our 45 year old Oliver. And its experiments. Only 30 years to go...

Welcome to the forum. My husband and I have camped a lot in Alaska, four trips. We loved the experiences. Please ask away with your questions. We're all here to help. Ps, what part of Alaska? Only cree lake i know is in Canada

@Bobber, just curious. What's your tow vehicle? Thanks.

So, you only mount the crane when you plan to use it? Not permanently? It must weigh 50 or 60 pounds, on its own?