Overland

Head to the rear is the right way, and head to the front is the wrong way - seems self evident. 😛

I want to say that someone has done exactly that, with a custom made mattress across the back, but I can't remember for sure. Sounds familiar though. You'd probably want a Lagun-type table top, or something that can use a single pedestal. The fiber granite top can't really be cut down.

Sounds like a plan.

Yes, sorry I didn't read it closely enough. Little House Customs have made window awnings for Oliver owners in the past.

That's the way most people do it. Ideally, you'd run some chlorinated water through each, since whichever port you use will not sanitize the other.

We had our cushions made locally. The foam in them is a good bit stiffer than the factory, which is great for sitting but not so much for sleeping. I think something in between the two would be just right, so we’ll likely get the foam swapped out on the bottoms. We use sleeping bags rather than sheets, so the 24”+ width with the back cushions in place is just about right. I think the same would be true for the king bench without the back cushions. Some people do the cushions with a memory foam topper for sleeping; but for me, the thought of packing them up each day and finding a place to store them makes that not worth the trouble. We were tent campers before our Ollie, so a warm cabin and a nice foam cushion is luxury enough for us. As to the king vs the twins, I think the biggest difference is the nightstand, which we’d really miss. For us, the nightstand plus the versatility of our Lagun table is the perfect combo - it makes for a great lounge area in the day and coverts effortlessly to twin berths at night.

Welcome aboard, John. There have been a number of threads on the forum about toilet alternatives, including one recent one I think about alternative composting toilets. You should be able to find them with a search. There’s also a lot of interest in awning windows but to my knowledge, no one has yet taken the plunge and swapped them out.

No issues with the width of our twins. In fact now that we’ve switched to cushions from a mattress, I don’t even bother to remove the back cushions.

This color? I don’t know, looks pretty hot to me.

Oh, I know a certain moderator who’s got you beat.

I think the taco is the sort of truck you tow with a few times, make some posts about how well it does and how much you love it, then quietly trade in for a half ton.

Since we've had both, I can confirm your suspicion - access to the hatches is much easier with cushions.

Bill, this might help you out - https://olivertraveltrailers.com/oliver-university/ Scroll down until you find the measurement index - that will give you all the dimensions you’ll ever want. Is Oliver doing the twin bed risers (storage) again? I thought that they’d discontinued that option.

Definitely there is. The sales department should know that if they don’t . You don’t need the extra port to use a generator. You can use the standard port on the side of the trailer just the same. The extra port on the front just allows for an easier connection if you have your generator in the front basket or in your truck bed.

Considering they’ve switched from Italian awnings to American to Swedish then back to American, I’m doubting it’s an ideology based decision. Maybe it’s just a world tour. Or, they could just be better awnings.

I believe Girard's plants are in Alabama. Could be that Dometic's relocation was going to cause some product delays, which caused Oliver to look around, or it could just be that Girard's sales department did a good job getting a new client. It does seem like Oliver had been consolidating around Dometic products lately, but that could just be coincidence. I'm curious to see them. Personally, I'm pretty happy with my Carefree.

Yes, I tagged the previous poster as a spammer. Foreign IP address with a cut and paste post advertising a product. You must have posted your reply at about the same time I tagged him.

With more fashionable space suits.

I’m curious - on the electric awnings is it possible to just turn them off and use them manually or does the motor prevent you from opening and closing them with a wand?

The vent hood was a small concern for us as well but in practice it hasn’t been an issue since most things get grilled outside. The max fan does do a great job of keeping moisture out of the trailer when cooking.

The single axle really has plenty of room for two, so I think for one + dog, it should be relatively luxurious. At least it would be for me. But the other advantages of the Elite II are a larger solar array, battery bank, and water tank. I think if you're planing to boondock a good bit, then you should probably weigh those more heavily than the extra square footage - keeping in mind of course that plenty of people boondock just fine with an Elite I.

Or past. 😛

No problem, I got it.

You're both forgetting about voltage and voltage drop, though, which is the problem with getting DC current directly from a vehicle to the trailer. Yes, there's an inefficiency in converting from DC to AC and back, but it's less than what's lost trying to push a high amp DC charge to the trailer. The required cable size alone is enough to make you want to convert to AC - 20 feet of twin 4/0 cable would weigh a ton and take up a load of space. Yeah, you could charge at lower amps, but the advantage of the big generator in the F150, especially when combined with LFP batteries, is quick, shore power charging which keeps you from having to run the truck for hours. I mean, a 400 HP / 300,000 watt engine idling for 10 hours while you take a minuscule 100 watts or so off of it is the definition of inefficient. For my setup, as I mentioned in the other thread about this, I estimate that I'd need 30 minutes or less charging per day. The biggest question for me is how loud is the truck vs a generator? Truck guys like their loud exhausts, because volume equals manliness I guess, so there are a lot of trucks out there that I wouldn't want to idle in a campground - diesels and my Raptor come to mind. Give the truck a decent muffler, though, and I think a lot of camping neighbors might prefer 15 minutes of that twice a day to a generator.

I want to think that Dodge or GM offered a much smaller generator at one point. And we've had inverters for a bit now, too. But I think it's now a matter of having a really large generator/alternator on board already to charge the hybrid battery bank - so I guess that's the answer to your first question. Almost certainly you'll see this option appear on the next generation of competing trucks. The answer to B will depend on if and how you use a generator today. If you're camped in the summer and want the AC on 24 hours, then you probably don't want your truck idling that whole time. I think the smaller version is standard on some models? I could be wrong about that.