Jim_Oker

I've had somewhat better luck, but also have spent time testing even worse speech reco software and learning how to adapt myself to its foibles w/o dumping too much of my cognitive capacity into the task (again, years of training from work in the software industry I'm afraid). But yes at least on my Garmin unit it's not fantastic quality reco - it's fairly typical of mid-late-oughts second tier speech reco. And unlike Siri it has no cloud processing assistance (with the cloud you can use more modern tools such as deep neural nets or their variants, which have helped drive some significant improvements in things like speech recognition, image understanding, and language translation, but these require a LOT of both memory and processing power...). And on top of the reco quality, you have to understand the speech command hierarchy the device is expecting - very early-oughts again. When we were using it regularly my wife and I did have fun experimenting with which other phrases might be reco'd as the "voice command" start phrase

I've just downloaded the TomTom Go app to my iPhone. It offers downloading of maps for what appears to be solid offline use and they're continuing to funnel features from their dedicated units into the app (things like heads ups on approaching things like gas stations in a sidebar etc.). I haven't used it yet so can't give a review but from specs it looks like it may be a good phone based option for navigation while in cell dead zones (which gets tough any time you are even diverting from a route that you set while connected, let alone when you're starting up in the morning w/o signal. I like Waze when connected as it has nice crowdsourced alerts, knows sneaky back routes around traffic jams, and does half decent predictive routing taking into account typical traffic volumes ahead of you in space and time (one of the nice things about leaning heavily on massive cloud computing capability). I have a very old Garmin that is still useful when offline but I'm hoping that TomTom Go will make it irrelevant as anything other than backup in case of hardware failure. The Garmin is still a pretty decent unit - one of their first forays into multitouch screen interface with half decent voice control. I've found the voice control to be moderately useful particularly when driving alone.

I would think you'd need something like a Sailrite machine for that fabric!

Have you since gotten this kit, and if so how has it worked out in the field?

That's interesting input and makes sense. For lithium batteries, I've read in a few places (including I think here from the LifeBlue rep) that it's best to store the batteries with roughly a 50% charge on them, and that if they're disconnected from any phantom loads that will maintain fairly well for quite a long time. It would be nice to be able to simply leave them connected with the charge controller set to "dormant/storage" such that it simply tops them off as needed to keep them at roughly that level of charge.

Thanks for all the contributions - there's a nice set of options above and super helpful voices of experience. Yes, it was an eye opener for me to browse this 3M publication on all the uses of the various types of VHB tape they make. There are some very demanding and can't-fail type applications!

Thanks - those are an interesting option I hadn't seen mentioned much across threads here. Do you leave them stuck on while traveling, and if so will they even tend to stay put on bumpy dirt roads and such?

Is there good thread covering various approaches to fastening various types of modification items (mounted photos/prints, paper towel holders, clotheslines, etc. etc.) to different parts of the trailer? I've done a few stabs at searching and may just not be using the right search terms to turn an existing thread up. If there isn't such a thread, perhaps folks can post strategies and products here. Bolts/washers/nylock nuts, 3M VHB tape (so many VHB types to choose from!), velcro tape, 3M Dual Lock tape, 3M tape primer, etc. etc. I can make some pretty good guesses but I know some of you have seen what does and perhaps doesn't work (worth mentioning too!) and have opinions on all this!

Sounds like you already have the van? If so then this is likely moot. But fwiw we've had good luck thus far with our 2004 Ford E250 based conversion van. We had one issue early on which put a kink into the first few days of a trip but a very nearby Ford service place dealt with it fairly quickly. Now at 120K and counting, I expect to be dealing with some bigger maintenance issues somewhere between soon and 200K (the range I've been told is typical for seeing engine and/or transmission problems requiring fairly affordable and easy to obtain replacements, and also things like ball joints etc which again are not hard to get done with this ubiquitous van platform). The newer Transit looks interesting particularly now that they have factory-done AWD (versus the super expensive aftermarket 4WD that can be added to my van, which also kills fuel mileage and sucks some of the payload capacity), but they don't seem to have quite the same towing capacity despite a fairly good payload capacity. For an Elite 1 they seem like they'd certainly suffice though. I don't know what ground clearance is for the Transit but fwiw it's pretty decent on our RWD E250, which has gotten me/us out some fairly rough rutted and rocky mountain roads, albeit slowly and bumpily (especially for anyone who happens to be in the back seat!).

Looks sweet, once you get over the experience of paying for it. If I were collecting campers, I'd be quite tempted by the combo of a Four Wheel Camper slid onto a Toyota Tacoma, particularly for solo camping in the Southwest where the crawl control on the truck reportedly handles the sandy 4wd roads quite well. I see the added values that this design offers, but for the price the Four Wheel Campers are pretty nice. I know multiple folks who are very happy with theirs. Though clearly not the same as this Nimbl camper, it does have some of the same core benefits.

Yeah, at least from the photo and description those look remarkably similar to what I have. I had to do a double take as at first I wondered if they were the same exact chains but just branded differently.

You probably know this, but it's not a good plan to skip the chains based on planning to simply sit out any snow events. There are some roadways where they're required to be in the vehicle all season long whether they're required to be on the tires at the moment or not, and you never know when you might get caught in an unexpected snow squall. You sound like a cautious and well informed individual so this is likely not necessary input 🙂 but it seems worth mentioning in any thread like this for folks who may not have spent much time in western states...

I've used these on my Ford E250 camper van in very slick hard snow and ice conditions and they've performed well (I also put on good "snowflake" symbol snow tires with soft rubber and siping for the winter season). I used then this past winter after not having used them for a few years and it took about 5 minutes on each end for install and removal. Keep a big trash bag or some such handy to kneel/lay on while doing the deed, and perhaps some garden gloves or similar as well. These are easier and seem to perform better than the prior chains I used, which were actual chains (rather than cables) also with a rubber tensioner. Chains are no fun - no one loves dealing with them and they're noisy and you have to drive very slowly when they're on, but when you need them you need them! https://www.peerlesschain.com/brands/traction-product-choices/super-z/

This thread reminds me of a question - has anyone worked out a good two-stage filtration setup at the kitchen sink? When I looked at a local Elite II unit, I didn't see what the space was like under/behind the sink to see if a small unit could be installed there with perhaps a separate water spigot. I know many folks us a Britta or some such filtering pitcher or canister/dispenser which is of course another option. Bearing in mind my comments about state park water systems being a sweet spot for trouble, I have to imagine the same will be true of my own water tank/lines in the Olly, even if I always filter with setups like the ones discussed here. I can continue my habit of carrying clean containers of distilled water which is how we now roll in our camper van, but it would be sweet to have a simple seamless way of drawing reliable drinking water from the on board tank (w/o a pitcher style setup).

I'll relate a short (true) story. We were camped for some nights at the Tumalo State Park Campground near Bend for some nights some years back. We'd been there for two nights and had been drinking some of the campground's water. In the wee hours of the second morning I woke up with some of the most intense cramps I'd ever felt. I won't go into any further detail about that morning but you can likely fill in the blanks if you so choose. By 10AM that morning, a sign had appeared on all the bathroom doors and at the water spigots warning that testing had shown e coli in their water system. Thankfully this sort of e coli isn't as dangerous as some of what appears in the food supply chain from time to time, but I can assure you it's no fun and that while the acute state for me tapered fairly quickly over the next week or so, that the effects lingered for a long time which the GI doc I eventually consulted told me was typical (and if this ever happens to you, something like Pedialyte can be quite helpful in the acute stage and a good probiotic taken regularly can be helpful with getting your gut flora eventually back on track...). BTW I asked one of the park staff how often the water was tested, after mentioning the fun I was having and she replied "oh, monthly, but this couldn't be what caused your stomach trouble as we just tested it this morning!" (not really thinking through that I'd been at the park for a few days and their problem could have been happening for the better part of the past month...) I mentioned this fun to a friend who works as a groundwater specialist for WA state (she's a hydrogeologist). She replied "Yeah I would not trust state park water - their water supply systems are often right the sweet spot for this sort of thing. They are real water systems but they aren't staffed sufficiently to have anyone with solid expertise on running such systems, and thus there are lots of this sort of problem." I have no reason to think that this is only an issue in WA or OR, nor that this problem only exists at state park campgrounds. Some places are on municipal water supplies which one would hope are in better shape, though even there it can be a "do you feel lucky, punk?" sort of deal.

Let's hope that smoke forecast holds! The NWS Seattle office "forecast discussion" has a hedging bets sort of feel to it. I read a good discussion about the smoke forecast models written by one of the meteorology folks at UW - tl/dr is "the models are not super reliable at this point." It's at least a little bit encouraging to see some low sensor readings moving up along the coast and a teeny bit inland from there. It does seem like we have a few lows that will come through with more strength than anything we've seen since the smoke moved in, but of course the low that came through this past Monday was originally predicted to be of that nature too. Let's also hope we don't get too many dry-ish lightning strikes with this next round or two of weather...

Yeah, we ran into a small group of recumbent bicycle riders who normally have a HUGE post Labor Day rally there but this year due to COVID just had an unofficial gathering of a fairly small group of the more dedicated regulars. They said they love the logistics of the campground for their rally which sounds like tends to use something in the neighborhood of 100 of the over 470 sites (about 170 full hookup sites and about 300 sites with electrical and water, plus a handful of tent only sites, yurts, cabins, and hiker/biker only sites, as well as a large group site that they said they always book for things like booths and other group activities). BTW we learned about the nicer early fall weather there from a captain from the Ilwaco WA coast guard station, and she explained that it has to do with the difference between the air and water temperature not being as conducive to fog as in summer when the two temperatures tend to be closer to each other. The folks from that station have some amazing stories to tell from being out around the sand bars at the mouth of the Columbia in bad winter weather. They do this in boats that can (and sometimes do!) flip upside down and back up again. Yikes!!

Sounds like you are thinking more mountain west than west coast, but in case the latter is in scope, I'll mention that Fort Stevens State Park is claimed to be the largest campground west of the Mississipi. We were just there and the campground is pleasant, and has access to both a nice beach and also nice park grounds including birding opportunities, some great coastal forest, and a historic fort with old gun battery mounts and so forth. It's right next to a few small towns with multiple nice restaurants and stores for supplies, and also quite close to the small and quaint city of Astoria which has yet more food etc. options as well as a very nice museum. Also, late September turns out to be among the nicest times around there, per locals I've talked with, as there's much less of the will-sapping fog that can blanket the area for days at a time during mid summer.

There's a good discussion here of using DIY permethrin spray treatment on clothing (useful for ticks but also mozzies and biting flies! it's a game changer IMO versus DEET on the skin). It includes discussion of buying 10% dilution agricultural permethrin and further diluting it to the appropriate strength for spraying your clothing and daypacks and other gear on which the damn ticks might hitchhike. Daily tick checks are important when in tick country and season. We now keep some of those spoon-shaped tick removers handy just in case as they are just right for removing ticks w/o spurting more of their potential bacterial load into your bloodstream. link: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8017183&highlight=permethrin

The OP started out asking about an Elite I - doesn't it have a GVWR of more like 5,000 lbs?

Yeah I honestly don't quite get the rooftop tents when people are primarily using them in established campgrounds. They seem maybe ideal for overland travel where you're not sure what sort of spot you'll end up sleeping in each night but you are fairly confident that you can at least get your vehicle reasonably level. To be fair, our van is a lot quicker to get ready to roll away with than was our tent/pads/bags etc., and when I'm solo I can move from sleeping to driving in just a few minutes when desired (somehow when it's the two of us that rarely happens 🙂 ). But at least when we were using a regular old tent we didn't need to pack it up daily when staying put in one site for multiple nights but driving around to see sights etc. And we didn't need to climb down a ladder from the second story in the middle of the night if nature called. I think it's important to remember that most replies you'll get here are from people who have decided that for their style of camping, a travel trailer works well - perhaps best. But if you haven't been doing much if any camping you may not really know what style you'll want to evolve for yourself. The advice to rent is excellent, and while you're doing so, be sure to be social with other campers and get their thoughts on how their current camping setups are working for them. You'll likely learn a LOT from having these conversations with people who have various types of equipment.

Sweet - thanks for those campsite tips! Agguire Spring looks like a beautiful spot. I have yet to consult climate charts to sanity check likely weather but in my currently optimistic and ignorant state that looks like a contender!! 🙂

Thanks for sharing your blog. Looks like you had a great trip. I will be hoping to find a route each way that conforms to the weather systems likely moving through around then. I will probably stay pretty far south until in CA on the way home but am hoping to be able to take a more direct route on the way out. I would love to spend 2-3 nights near White Sands NM on the way home so if weather cooperates I will use that to organize homeward journey around.

I've picked homes here like I pick tent sites when backpacking, with an eye to where the water will flow

I couldn't imagine living in Orting where the town alarm would be telling you that you have a very small number of minutes to get out of town alive