Overland

I assume that you’ve checked for any obviously loose bolts or screws. If no one can provide you with a quick fix, I’d give Oliver a call on Monday. I’m certain that they’ll take care of it.

Yeah, the lines around the West Yellowstone/Geyser area were pretty bad when we went through a few years ago in mid to late may. The north entrance was bad as well. I wondered at the time if the best way to tackle the park would be to stay at Teton and drive up each morning.

Problem is that a lot of the connections in the Ollie are in too tight of a space to get a full sized crimping tool in there to use. I've got a crimping vice that you can use with a pair of vice grips that gives a bit of flexibility, but it's a pita in its own special way. Plus there's far more room for user error with crimps - I'll leave those to the guys who use them every day - PTC fittings are just so much easier. I've got a few connections on my water heater though that are too close together for PTCs to work. And naturally, those are the only ones I've had fail on me. I keep telling myself that I'm going to make up a pre assembled piece of that whole assembly for a spare, but...someday.

Looking at this thread - - if I'm understanding, the account with all the numbers should be named Kenny & Penny, and the one that's currently named Kenny & Penny should really be named kenwade13? Whichever it is, I'm sure that Jason can sort it out. 😅

At least in KS you're only a day away from the slopes. We have quite a few skiers on the forum and one or two pros.

I personally found that the custom sized sheets from AB Lifestyles were too narrow and so the sheets tended to twist up at night. So we had better luck with regular twin sheets, just tucked in more at the back. Of course they may have changed their sizing since then. But like the others who posted above, it wasn't long before we switched to just a bottom sheet and sleeping bags, and then later we ditched the mattresses all together in favor of cushions. We just didn't have the patience to make beds every morning, and the cushions seem just as comfortable to us. So in the morning now we just stuff the sleeping bags in the closet and that's it.

That looks really nice. It would be nice if Oliver had a choice of material for these curtains for owners to choose from.

Don't know. They have a price list on their website that says ~$5 per fitting, but Fergusson may have it cheaper.

It doesn't look like moderators have the power to change user names, so I've sent a PM to Jason at Oliver. Hopefully he'll be able to get it fixed for you.

Funny, we’re Costco members but it’s never occurred to me to look for one when we’re out on the road. Of course, I always drive until my gas gauge is on empty and my wife is filing divorce papers from the passenger seat, so I usually get gas at whatever place I see first. Usually a Pilot or Loves, which we have a card for that saves us a bit. Amazon and IKEA definitely benefitted when we were first kitting our our trailer. IKEA stuff is hit or miss with us - about half the stuff we got there ended up in the attic or trash, but the other half we find indispensable. But the stuff we didn’t like was all cheap enough that it was worth the experiment.

Looking at Oliver’s current option list, I don’t think that there’s anything on there that would be impossible to add later, but of course that depends largely on how handy you are, and how much time you might want to spend on your own adding options. That, or how much you’re willing to pay Oliver to add them later. Certainly if you’re capable of doing the work, then you can do them for a good bit less than what Oliver charges, and depending on your skill and your product choice, maybe even end up with something nicer - just factor in the cost of your time and the loss of any warranty related to your additions. As far as my personal biases go, I’d say the easiest option to forgo would be the WiFi or cell boosters. Those are a pretty easy DIY and personally I think there are better options than what Oliver sells. Plus we’ll all probably be using satellite service in a few years anyway. One thing I’m very glad I had Oliver add was our second awning. That’s something that I’d be unlikely to try to tackle on my own and its one of those things that you don’t really appreciate until you’ve experienced it.

All the push to connect fittings that I’ve ever dealt with are pretty hard to pull loose, even with the right tool to do so. What can easily happen though is that the fittings haven’t been pushed in all the way to begin with. Plumbers will tell you to mark the pipe before pushing in the fitting to make sure that you get it on all the way. I don’t recall seeing any marks on the plumbing in my Ollie so it may be that the fittings just need to be pushed in a bit more and probably isn’t something to really worry too much about unless you have a leak. And frankly, if you do have a leak, a fitting that just needed to be pushed in more would be a welcome find. The outer ring on the fittings that Oliver uses will be loose and will spin. I’ve never run across those fittings anywhere else but my Ollie, but the fact that the outer ring is loose doesn’t seem to indicate anything. I suspect that the outer ring is used to remove the fittings, but I’ve never tried. Speaking of PTC fittings, if you ever need to replace one or just want some spares, maybe check out this product - http://www.legendvalve.com/pws1/smartclick-connection-system I haven’t seen them in person - just the literature they sent - but it looks like a good alternative to Shark Bite. Light weight, doesn’t require tools, and gives a nice positive click when it’s installed correctly.

Susan, you might also check out this thread. There are a lot of good posts there about what people carry and how they store it all.

No, that's the namesake peak of Guadeloupe NP. It's a fun hike, but the only time we've gotten lost on a trail. Only for a bit though towards the very top.

O.K., got it. You black tankers are weird, lol. 💩

But wait, there's more! Just down the highway from Malpais is the Acoma Pueblo. They've kind of broken with pueblo tradition now and are giving guided tours. Well worth a visit.

One more place that many people pass by are the lava tubes at El Malpais, which is right off I-40. Grab a helmet and headlamp at the visitors center and head down the tubes. Venture into dangerous caves completely unsupervised! See underground moss gardens and weird ice!

O.K., I'll bite - what is a honey wagon?

That's the great thing about Ollies - they have wheels!

That was our first Ollie trip as well. There's plenty to fill three weeks or more on that route. We started by making our way to Carlsbad/Guadeloupe. You could start with Big Bend as well if you want. We're hikers, so we spent maybe five nights there and could have spent two more. Be absolutely sure to watch the bats at dawn or dusk at the cave entrance. You could do a quick day trip from there to Roswell if you want to do something hokey. There's BLM land nearby - we camped here the entire time and there are more campsites further down the road, but I'll warn you that the road up the hill to these sites is punishing. It's an oil service road, but we couldn't see nor hear the pumps from our campsite. From there I think we spent two nights at Cloudcroft. There's a campground there, but it may not be open yet when you go. There's an outdoors store in town that you can ask for locations in the national forest to camp. We camped here. That spot was a bit steep, but the better ones along the road were occupied - just be careful that the south end of that road might be closed and it's a difficult turn around. It's a beautiful area, the town is nice, and if you time your trip right, you can get a tour of the Sunspot Observatory. From there we made quick stops at White Sands NP and then the Missile Range Museum, on the way to Saguaro. I think we must have stayed a night somewhere before Tuscon, but I can't remember where. In Tuscon, we camped in the forrest up near Mt. Lemmon, which is a great drive. We camped here, and it was a pretty nice spot. You can walk up the hill from there for some nice sunsets. From Tuscon, we went down to Tumacocori for one night. There's a USFS office on the highway just before town, and they can tell you some spots to camp. We ended up on some BLM pasture land - it was actually pretty nice, but you had to watch where you stepped. If you go there, ask at the park gift shop if they have any home made Membrillo. When we went, one of the rangers was making it from quince that they grow on the grounds. Bring me some. Also stop at the San Xavier Mission if you're into architecture. Next stop was Organ Pipe NP. When we went, we were the only people there besides the border patrol, so it was pretty nice. Watch out for africanized bees - we were chased down a trail by some. The visitors center will tell you where they are, so don't ignore their warnings like we did. The park has a nice campground and we stayed there. There are some good driving trails in the park but its not much for hiking. The park now comes with less cacti. Then we went up to Phoenix to see Taliesin, with a brief stop in Ajo where they have a nice town square. I think we stayed at a KOA in Phoenix - I'm sure you could do better with some research. From Phoenix we went up to Sedona, staying west of town on one of the few roads that allow dispersed camping, here. It's a long, corrugated road, but not too harsh for the trailer. It was a nice, quiet spot. Then we headed back east to Canyon de Chelly, staying at the campground there. Don't ask Siri for directions there - you can stop at the entrance gate and she'll tell you that you're still three hours away. May include unpaved roads, lol. They have a warning on their website now to not try to follow Siri's directions. Anyway, Canyon de Chelley is O.K. for a quick visit, but I think the real way to see it is via a tour of the bottom, which we didn't have time to do. Alternatively, you could keep going north to the Grand Canyon, or farther east to Chaco, which is one of my favorites. You could also stop at Petrified Forest NP. Mesa is then just a hop away, etc. So much to see in that area. Another fun thing to see is the Very Large Array, which you might be able to shoehorn in there somewhere. I don't think I'd try getting up into Utah unless you add another week - it's really a separate trip. We've done four 3-week trips so far to the four corners area, still haven't seen everything, and are itching to go back to the places we've already seen. Finally, whenever we're out there, we spend a few nights in Santa Fe before heading back home, which is sort of a tradition with us.

Depending on the time of year, weather, and where I park, I sometimes have trouble with 200w of panels keeping up with our fridge. That's only when the truck is sitting at home - we have zero issues when traveling, and could probably (?) get away with 100w. We just use a 120Ah Lifeline battery and let the truck's electronics take care of the charging, with a relay to prevent charging when the truck isn't running. The drawback to that arrangement is that you have to run heavy cables to the battery to prevent voltage drop.

Took me forever to find any sort of specs or price on that web site. Looks like it's a 60 Ah battery and a 100w portable panel for $2500. You can get the same thing, but better quality and more capacity from the much more reputable Goal Zero for about $1,000 less. Personally, while I think that the battery packs have their place, I don't consider them alternatives for a generator. If you're trying to do without a generator, then better to just spend that money on more batteries for your trailer. The only advantage of the battery packs is their portability, so unless you plan to use it away from the trailer, then I wouldn't even be considering one.

Like Andrew said, you can fit 4 BBs in the tray if you stand them on end. They're a pain to wire up that way, but that's the only problem. You can get the replacement converter section for the power center, and it will shorten your charge time plus probably (?) give you a more ideal charge curve, but before that module was available, BB used to say that it was no problem using the standard PD charger. Think hard before investing in them. For those who need them, they're awesome; but in most cases for most owners, I'd argue that your money is more wisely spent elsewhere.

Depends on what else you have in there. We keep a door mat inside by the front door which is where dirty shoes and boots get left. I also installed a long net under the street side bed and we keep camp shoes there. It keeps them convenient and off the floor.

Service told me that it was possible to repair road rash, but they can’t guarantee that they can match the color just right. Apparently each batch of the gel coat is just slightly different. So prevention is definitely the best strategy.