Steve Morris

At lunch, deciding yes, no, or decide later…

Today’s the day!!! To say we are excited would be an understatement. 🤪 2-1/2 hours left until we meet Anita for our plant tour. Then time to examine the floor models and get down to business! I’m feeling positive as to whether we leave with one less check than when we arrived. 😉

Thanks, John. They didn’t work quite as well as expected. I was going to use them right side up, but figured with their crowned shape and knobs, the A/C might slip off. So, we flipped them over, which created another problem. The A/C unit has screw adjustable feet, which didn’t coincide with the hollow spacing on the back of the MaxTrax, so it slipped one way or the other. So we used four leveling blocks for a stable footprint. Now we’ll know for the next time. It also filled with water, as you might expect. (Writing this from a motel in Lexington Kentucky. Makers Mark tour tomorrow, Mammoth Cave Thursday, Oliver Travel Trailers on Fridayyyyyy!!! 🤗 )

What great timing! We camped at Geneva State Park, on Lake Erie east of Cleveland from Thursday through Sunday. No wind, temps in the mid to high 80s, and humidity to match. Walking to the bathroom resulted in a soaked shirt! We had the external A/C running in dehumidify mode each night, and it pumped out gallons of water. Why great timing? Because we leave tomorrow, heading to Kentucky to use Deb's Golden Ticket at Makers Mark, and then further south to visit a little shop in Hohenwald, Tennessee. After four days of sultry, stuffy, stifling, suffocating, oppressive, muggy, sticky, sweltering, tropical, torrid, steamy conditions, writing a deposit check before leaving might be all that much easier! 😁 (That Thesaurus sure comes in handy sometimes.) A few photos of the weekend for anyone interested. You can see the 5000 BTU A/C on sawhorses straddling the trailer's tongue. The new kitchen setup was used for the first time, and is really nice! Versatile and modular make cooking options endless.

Thank you, Jim! Even more good information to absorb. When visiting our daughter at Seattle Pacific University, we’d stay out in Bothell. So we were in your neighborhood when we had our first ever MOD Pizza, and went to the Molback Garden Center. Plus another restaurant that I can’t recall. One really shocking surprise in Bothell was pulling up at a drive through coffee shop and seeing a mostly naked barista!! 😳 we don’t have those in the Cleveland area. 🤷‍♂️

Thank you! All I really see needing is an Oliver hat, and then only if it isn't mesh. I was mostly curious what else they offer. We'll see for ourselves in eight days!

Thanks! Yep, the external propane connections are on the list. And, having played with various option combinations, it definitely adds up fast. Sue and Matt's trailer that wee looked at on Saturday had a lot of the options, yet their 2021 price was not much more than the base price today!! Here's where we're at right now: Elite II Twin Bed Upgraded Mattresses Fabric Upgrade - Undecided until we see the standard in person Hypervent Omnidirectional Antenna (local weather etc. if we don't have cell service) Street Side Awning Frosted Doors Convection Microwave - Undecided - More research needed 20 Gallon Propane (to keep tongue weight down) Front/Rear Propane Quick-Connects Toilet - Undecided Full Truma Package - AC, Furnace, Water Heater - Antifreeze kit undecided Lithium Backup Camera - Probably have Oliver install system of our cloosing Anderson Hitch - I see no reason to spend $350 more for the 2-5/16 version Aluminum Storage Basket - Undecided - I see using it the last miles for firewood or wet gear after a rainy night. Not for a generator or water storage Basement Door No Graphics Thanks for everyone's input!! We are heading out today for four days camping in our 5X8 squaredrop and it is in the high 80s with 80-90% humidity with some rain forecast each day. Right after we get home, we'll have one day to catch up, and then head south (motels) to go to Makers Mark and then Oliver on Friday. The recent memory of those conditions might have a lot to do with placing an order. 🙂

Thank you! Good information to help us understand.

Thank you!

Great info. Thanks!

Thank you, Craig! That's exactly the sort of info I was after.

We are going to call Anita today and arrange a plant tour next Friday. Before the tour, we plan to see all of the trailers in the showroom and hopefully decide place an order when we're done! I'm sure the ordering process is documented somewhere, but for my clarification, a couple of questions: IF we decide to order, we put down a deposit. Is our order locked in then, or will there be a period of time where we can change the options? Are there the equivalent of accessories available, such as branded clothing (I'm bald, so never without a hat), bedding, camp furniture, etc? I know a fire pit and gas grill are available in a package option, so I'm guessing other items are also available. Tank size understanding: We currently use a Cleanwaste Portable Toilet beside our Hiker, inside a separate shower/changing room, as well as campground bathrooms. We do our business in a bag with anti-stink powder in them, and then take them to a dumpster. Anything will be an improvement on that! So we have no experience whatsoever with traditional trailer toilets and showers or composting toilets. For two people with well functioning digestive system, about how many days does the 15 gallon black tank last without using other bathrooms (campground, rest area while travelling, etc.) or without going to extremes like watering the flowers or not flushing TP? I think people with 5 gallon cassette toilets say about two days, so does six days for 15 gallons sound typical? Ignoring which toilet we would chose, how many days does the gray tank typically last, again assuming not using other washing/showering options? Figure a shower for each of us on two out of three days, with Deb washing her hair every third day. I'm just guessing at ballpark numbers here, as we use body wipes and public showers with the Hiker. The hotter and more humid, the more we shower. And I'm guessing that the shower is the major water user, with dishes, washing hands, and flushing the toilet being lesser use? Maybe I'm completely wrong... Those questions come back to the ordering question. If we order now, but have until November to finalize the build, we might rent a trailer locally to help answer some of these questions ourselves. Thanks for any input!

Thanks, @Rivernerd I'd never heard of those before. Learn something every day! I avoid wire nuts whenever possible, too. And I can't think of any time I've used them with stranded wire, which is what should have been used in the trailer. That's why I used crimped terminals with heat shrink insulation in all of the above connections, and anchored them to fixed terminals. I'll look into the Wago lever nuts for possible home use. Thank you.

😮 That’s the connectors they use in the factory?? That can’t be to any kind of code. Yikes! Even wiring the simple AC electrical system I adde to my tiny squaredrop I used terminal blocks! Same with the DC side.

It was wonderful talking to you, too! Thank you so much for the information and thoughts. We look forward to meeting you (and all the folks here) on the road somewhere.

Thanks! There seem to be a lot of us here in Ohio. Gonna need a mini-meet some time next summer. 😉

You might check with this guy on the Facebook group. I don't know what awning they have, but he recently posted this photo here: https://www.facebook.com/stephen.cobb.92/posts/pfbid02PsM2NAX9S2WtxuJ934KEpYWijTiKn7CkN73UbuS2wjEJWJnSnpEGLMLXiddunZ4fl?__cft__[0]=AZXPEQlFt-MMZITryQd62UgjhS2Q3UCqmZ4DDApsEg7QCDTtSrkFvM2A9H8SF5PJQUeYS2zxr8ZWfVrrN5RLUtva4YTI3XeVz7DQHLMdgr2cfLG4-choHpoGNqlpF-4micQwn30A_omv2uqPnBVLCWEXNGL18qrXiCgiE81Cdlm_W1p99ML41mhFgOmj-4YPypZvkBDo1XgW1lFmBsuIMEi8&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-R

Back on topic for an update. 😉 After several delays due to some health concerns (all okay) we finally saw our first Oliver trailer yesterday. Sue and Matt, hull #944, invited us for a visit to see their 2021 Elite II that they picked up last fall. We spent over three hours with them, both exploring the trailer, and sitting beside their lake talking about actual use and travel in general. it was everything we were hoping for, and then some! 😍 Much roomier than we expected in the twin configuration. No concern about the 30” bed width. So bright and airy feeling inside, and quality that’s on par with very expensive boats we’ve been in before. Absolutely nothing that we didn’t like, and so much we loved. So, we’re still heading to Hohenwald mid-August, and have a pretty good idea of what options we’d select. The only thing that will keep us from placing an order is indecision on actually making the commitment. No other trailer will do, so it’s either the Oliver or continue with the tiny squaredrop and motel travel. Thank you so much Sue and Matt, and to everyone else here sharing their knowledge and experiences!

Wow, that brought back memories! Youngest daughter had her own Flat Stanley, like your grand nephew. But our eldest daughter had a similar project where they sent around a stuffed animal with photos of it in different places. That one ended up on a float with our daughter and John Glenn for a facility naming ceremony, and then onto the International Space Station. That was the highlight of her year, and made the local news and then AP affiliates covered it. Thanks for the flashback!

Welcome! If you are on Facebook, there's an "Oliver Travel Trailer for Sale" Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/OliverforSale Good luck with your search.

Wow, that's crazy that they've squeezed that much power into such a small package. And fuel injected to boot! We have the EU3000is, which has a slightly larger engine (160cc vs 130), but the whole package is huge by comparison. Here's a random photo I found with a person for scale. It looks like my old one is a tiny bit quieter at 49-58 dB vs 54-58, but I'd trade that for size. We ended up putting the wheel kit on ours, as it takes both of us to move it around when we need to use it. Ours does have the same engine as our snowblower, so that's good for service parts commonality. I added propane as an alternate fuel a couple of years ago using the Hatch Mountain kit. Much easier to maintain, as Honda's carburetors are notorious for clogging with old gas.

I wondered if anyone did with trailers this weight. For decades, over a succession of under 2000 pound sailboats and now my squaredrop trailer, I've used a stainless steel ball and a four layer thick square of waxed paper. Never a squeak, no wear, no mess. A boat dealer told me about this method back in the '70s or '80s.

Following up in this post. I ended up in hospital after posting, and back home yesterday. I'm fine; just a scare, but feeling under the weather a bit. I cross-posted this query on the Facebook group, too, and had responses from several folks. A lady in Akron has theirs at their house this weekend, and then Geneva State Park for the first of next weekend. We were going to try to see it one of those places, but with the medical stuff and a followup midweek next week, I think we'll wait until later next week or the weekend to visit.

We'd planned to visit Hohenwald this week, but that ended up not happening, nor will another opportunity come up for at least a month. @Dave and Kimberly live about three hours SW of us, but I wanted to ask if there is anyone with an Elite II closer, or planning to pass though northern Ohio in the next few weeks? We're 20+ miles west of downtown Cleveland in Avon, and US 2/90 are about a mile north of us. The Ohio Turnpike is maybe 10 miles south. If anyone would like to pull off the highway so that we could take a look at your Elite II, we'd be happy to buy you lunch in exchange. If so, send me a private message and we can make arrangements. Thank you!

Slight delay in our plans. We originally intended to leave for Kentucky yesterday, and then down to Hohenwald later this week. But recovery from some minor surgery on Wednesday isn't going quite as quickly as I'd hoped. Not a big deal, I just thought I'd bounce back immediately. I guess bouncing back takes longer as you get older... Anyway, this week was a nice open gap in our schedule, and it doesn't look like another will occur until at least mid-August. Grrr!!! I know that @Dave and Kimberly are only about three hours SW of us and have offered to let us look at their Elite II. Is there anyone else closer to northern Ohio west of Cleveland with an Elite II? Or someone passing though that we could arrange to meet? That might be enough to convince us to start an order process (or possibly eliminate an Oliver all together) and then take the tour later. Thanks for any input! [EDIT] I'll create a thread looking for someone local in case someone passing though doesn't read this post