The Plan: We don't have a fixed agenda for the trip. The overall theme is to see lots of places and people but keep the itinerary flexible and avoid having a schedule that we need to keep to. If we are really enjoying some place and we want to spend more time we want the flexibility to spend more time and if we have bad weather or are not enjoying some place we want the flexibility to move on without having to stop and "kill time" so we don't get ahead of the “schedule”. Our rough agenda is as follows. We plan to start by spending a few days in Glacier National Park in MT, then head east across MT, ND, SD, MN, WI, and through the upper peninsula of MI. We will then enter Canada at Sault Ste. Marie, and continue east across Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces. We will then drop down into ME, head down through New England, and then gradually zig-zag our way back west. We will probably limit ourselves to roughly the northern half of the US on the way back. With a little luck we will be back home by the end of the 11th week. At least that is our plan, unless we drive each other crazy, or run out of money for fuel first. If you happen to have some favorite place somewhere along that route that you think we should not miss please send us an email with your recommendation. We can be reached at bryan.vacation@gmail.com
The hardware: We purchased a 33’ Savoy 31BHD fifth wheel travel trailer manufactured by Holiday Rambler. The trailer has a separate room w/slide out for the kids in the back with a sofa that converts into a bed along with a fold down bunk. There is also a half bath in the back of the trailer. The living area also has a slide out and consists of a dinette, sofa, and kitchen with 8 cu ft refrigerator/freezer, gas range with oven and 3 burner cooktop, double sink, and microwave. The “master suite” includes a full bath and queen bed. We bought the trailer at Wagers Trailer Sales in Salem and had a very pleasant and fair experience dealing with Wayne Cox at Wagers. My parents have dealt with Wayne in the past and he not only produced the best price that we could get but was also friendly and easy to deal with and there were no surprises. Overall RV sales people seem to be equal or worse than car sales people, and Wayne is the pleasant exception. If you are thinking about buying an RV, talk to Wayne. And no, Wayne didn’t give us a discount to say that!
RV Links:
rvguysalem@yahoo.com, http://www.wagerstrailersales.com/
http://www.holidayrambler.com/models/hr.aspx?content=index&model=savoyslfw
We also bought a Chevy Silverado 2500HD crew cab truck with the Duramax diesel engine. Have done limited pulling with the truck so far and it seems to have more than enough power to get the job done – 360 HP and 650 ft-lb of torque. Will provide an update later on how the truck does pulling the trailer over some serious mountains. We bought the truck at Miles Chevrolet in Woodburn. The experience there could be at best described as OK. The sales guy was very knowledgeable about the product, much better than other dealerships in that regard. However, the rest was the typical car buying experience where they made you wait and kept trying to sell you add-ons or telling you there were extra fees even though we had agreed on an “all inclusive” price over email before I went back to the dealership. Ultimately I got what I had been promised (and nothing more), but it took work to get them to follow through. If I had to do it over again I would probably start and end with Wilsonville Chevrolet's Internet sales dept. They quickly gave me the best price I could find anywhere. I tried a couple of other dealerships Internet sales departments that promised fast no hassle quotes, and I either got back an offer to sell me a truck at MSRP which was very uncompetitive, or no quote and an offer to come into their dealership and talk. While I don’t know if the whole experience would have been the same, at least Wilsonville met my upfront expectations. Ultimately we bought the truck at Miles since they had the only 2007 Silverado Classic in stock within a 100 mile radius that had all the features we wanted (including color), and Chevy was done shipping Silverado Classics as they were switching to their new model midyear and the new ones were not available yet and were at least initially significantly more expensive. Miles ultimately met the price that Wilsonville Chevrolet had quoted us and since they had the truck in stock we went with them.
http://www.holidayrambler.com/models/hr.aspx?content=index&model=savoyslfw
We also bought a Chevy Silverado 2500HD crew cab truck with the Duramax diesel engine. Have done limited pulling with the truck so far and it seems to have more than enough power to get the job done – 360 HP and 650 ft-lb of torque. Will provide an update later on how the truck does pulling the trailer over some serious mountains. We bought the truck at Miles Chevrolet in Woodburn. The experience there could be at best described as OK. The sales guy was very knowledgeable about the product, much better than other dealerships in that regard. However, the rest was the typical car buying experience where they made you wait and kept trying to sell you add-ons or telling you there were extra fees even though we had agreed on an “all inclusive” price over email before I went back to the dealership. Ultimately I got what I had been promised (and nothing more), but it took work to get them to follow through. If I had to do it over again I would probably start and end with Wilsonville Chevrolet's Internet sales dept. They quickly gave me the best price I could find anywhere. I tried a couple of other dealerships Internet sales departments that promised fast no hassle quotes, and I either got back an offer to sell me a truck at MSRP which was very uncompetitive, or no quote and an offer to come into their dealership and talk. While I don’t know if the whole experience would have been the same, at least Wilsonville met my upfront expectations. Ultimately we bought the truck at Miles since they had the only 2007 Silverado Classic in stock within a 100 mile radius that had all the features we wanted (including color), and Chevy was done shipping Silverado Classics as they were switching to their new model midyear and the new ones were not available yet and were at least initially significantly more expensive. Miles ultimately met the price that Wilsonville Chevrolet had quoted us and since they had the truck in stock we went with them.
The modifications: Buying the “hardware” was just the first step. Next was getting the truck ready to use and making modifications to the trailer to be able to get the most benefit out of it. The truck was relatively easy. While it was usable “as is”, the trailer took a lot more work to customize it, and I injured myself doing some of the work which made it challenging to get everything done before the start of the trip.
For the truck we got a spray in bed liner, running boards, new tailgate, and of course the hitch, brake controller, and wiring. I also built a storage box for the back of the truck. I couldn’t find a ready made box that had I liked so I built a box custom to fit the available space. I purchased and installed the brake controller, the electrical plug in the bed of the truck, and a 5th wheel tailgate. The hitch I negotiated as part of the trailer deal, and Wagers had it installed. The hitch is a Reese 16K tube slider. You can slide the hitch ~12” to the rear for tight maneuvering if required. However, the trailer has an extended kingpin and even with the 6.5’ bed I haven’t needed to move the hitch to the rear position yet. The other two things that we had done were to get a Rhino Linings bed liner, and full length Onki running boards installed. The bed liner was done at Rhino Linings of Tualatin, and the running boards at Northwest Running Boards in Clackamas. The experience at both places was good.
Buying a new trailer is a bit like buying a brand new house. You need to outfit it with everything you need to make the kitchen functional, bedding and linens, supplies for the bathrooms, etc. In addition, the trailer was missing some “essential” built in items like towel rods in the bathrooms. However, the big time consuming items were some of the customizations that I made. Since this was going to be home for 11 weeks we wanted to use the space as efficiently as possible. Both the kids love to read, and there was no space for books other than piling them up in cupboards or putting them in containers under their bed which is not convenient. There was an empty corner in their room so I built them a bookcase w/adjustable shelves. There was also a space in their room for a small TV and a shelf beneath it for a VCR. We wanted to bring their computer along, but unfortunately the opening for the TV was too short for the monitor and there was not enough depth for the computer. To solve this I removed the shelf and lowered it down ~3 inches, allowing enough space below for a keyboard and creating enough space above for the monitor. I mounted the LCD monitor on a swing out arm and located the computer behind the monitor. The other big projects were in the main living space. To the left of the front door there was empty floor space that was only useful for putting shoes. I built a unit with adjustable shelves, ~40” high, 30” wide, and 9” deep. The floor space is still open for shoes, and we use the shelves for travel books & maps, as well as a convenient place to put cameras, and other items that are frequently going in and out of the trailer. I also put in some shaker pegs further up on that same wall as a place to hang hats, coats, etc. The last big modification was in the space for the TV in the living room. The opening was sized for a 4:3 aspect ratio TV. I bought a widescreen HD LCD TV, and hence had more height than I needed in the original opening. To utilize this space I built in some drawers in the bottom ~6” of the TV opening. I also mounted the TV on a swing out arm that allows the TV to pull out ~17” from the opening and swivel to allow a better viewing angle from the TV. Another benefit of the swing out arm is that it also allows access to the space behind the TV since the TV and its mount use less than 7” of the total 18” depth. In addition to these major projects I also added adjustable shelves to several of the cabinets that were originally just a single undivided opening.
TV - before and after modifications
Entry cabinet and bookcase in kids room
About one third of the way into building the projects for the trailer I cut a slice out of my left thumb on the table saw. Fortunately I didn’t cut my thumb off, but the saw blade took a 1/8” wide section out of the thumb and the cut went down to the bone. This put my projects totally on hold for 2 weeks, and then made some of the tasks slow going when I resumed working on the projects as I still couldn’t use my thumb. I ended up working every weekend and late every night of the week until the start of the trip to get everything done. The thumb is mostly healed now, although the end above the cut is basically numb and it still hurts to put any significant pressure on it. Hopefully these remaining side affects will improve over time, but I am fortunate and thankful to still have a thumb. There are a couple of projects I still want to do to the trailer, but I was able to complete the major items that I set out to get done by the start of the trip.
End Part 1
2 comments:
Sounds Great! Never heard of such stories from anyone in India. At least not in this style. Have a great time
Interesting. That seems to be a very nice plan. I guess you really prepared for the expenses for 11 weeks of travel. The vehicle should be tough enough for that, be prepared with spare parts. It’s good to have high quality Chevrolet Pickup Running Board. Nice mods on the truck and the cabinet looks wonderful. But, the cut doesn’t look good. Get us updated about the travel. Enjoy!
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