RV Video-Walkthrough Drinking Game

On By JohnIn amusing, beer, tiny house, travelLeave a comment

If you happen to find yourself watching video walkthroughs of assorted RVs, perhaps this will kick up the entertainment factor a bit. Select a suitable beverage, start up a walkthrough video, and immediately prepare yourself to take a swig every time somebody:

  • pounds their fist on any part of the RV
  • makes any sexist remarks — for example, “mom will love this kitchen.”
  • refers to a water heater as a “hot water heater”
  • makes any reference to watching “the game”

Oh, there are more, but we’ll just start with those.

Narrowing the Choices

On By JohnIn travelLeave a comment

We’ve been rather undecided about either a fifth wheel or a travel trailer for several months.

Long-term full-timers tend to swear by a FW. “You’ll want one later!”

Maybe. Maybe not. For now, we’re going the TT route. Our primary reasoning is that we wish to maintain some mobile, weather-resistant cargo space in the truck without removing a hitch. Secondarily, it’s a coach-size issue: I’d rather not push UPGRAYEDD to its manufacturer’s towing limits.

Our short list is now narrowed to four (but really just two) travel trailers:

  1. Open Range, Mesa Ridge 310BHS or Roamer 310BHS
  2. Forest River, Salem Hemisphere 300BH or Heritage Glen 300BH

Besides, we’re looking for the next RV, not the only RV. If we were looking at the only one that we’d ever own then it would imply that money were no object — in which case my preference would be for one that doesn’t have wheels, but instead a 60 to 65-foot long, ocean-going hull.

Tiny House-ish

On By JohnIn tiny houseLeave a comment

I’m sure everyone’s seen variations on the tiny-house movement. We, too, love the Tumbleweed series (oh, the 24′ Elm or Cypress Horizon, yes, please) and, in fact, are planning on building one each for the youngest kids’ 16th birthdays.

Here’s one that popped up in the RSS feed, or maybe Facebook (don’t recall the source just yet) where the builder added a simple set of cabinets in the sleeping loft:

See all the photos here.

A couple of features that I’ve seen over the past few years tweaked my interest-o-meter — things I might add to such a house on wheels:

  • dual sleeping lofts, with dormers over each. One queen-sized, the other possibly full-sized.
  • the cabinet/partition wall in the loft for the queen space.
  • the apartment refrigerators are neat, but I’d probably go with a nice dual-mode RV fridge to leverage propane.
  • instead of a simple vent-hood over a cooktop, a combination microwave/convection oven with vent hood
  • the storage stairs to a loft
  • undecided on an RV-type furnace or an alternative intended for marine use. The RV furnaces tend to be rather noisy.
  • a split-AC unit
  • a compact washer/dryer unit

Oh, there’s more, but those are some of the details that interest me.

One big decision that I’ll need to make at some point is whether I should plan on making them Park models, requiring hookups at all times? Or instead make them RV models capable of fully self-contained use with fresh, grey, and black tanks; batteries; RV appliances and fixtures?

Keystone Sprinter

On By JohnIn travelLeave a comment

We saw a Sprinter at an RV show last year (or the year before?) and were really impressed with the feature-set. Stumbled on a “dealer training video” on YouTube:

While Daisy isn’t entirely sold on the Sprinter, I’m leaning very much toward this for the simple reasons that it’s four-season equipped and has double-pane windows as an option.

Then there’s Keystone’s faux-newscast type of walkthrough of the Sprinter:

Yup, UPGRAYEDD will pull it without too much effort.