Announcement Serenity Is On The Road!!!

Executive Summary: Were not to stay when heading to the nest, where to eat when you get there too early and a great place for dinner. Driving impressions, and fuel economy are better than expected overall. VERY cool coincidence.

November 11'th, we started our trip north, staying at the Baymont on the west side of Madison. Worst...Hotel....Ever. The rooms where clean, but the first floor smelled what I would anticipate an indian restaurant built in a former morgue would smell like. Fabreeze just made it angry. The place stunk. The management didn't seem concerned.

The 12'th was pickup day arrived! We checked out of the hotel, we left as soon as we woke up. Making a quick pass through the dells (I had never been there) and were still about an hour early. Sadly, the local restaurants were either still closed, or closed for the season. We found ourselves at "The Family Affair" restaurant in Friendship....simple menu, but everyone was friendly. Kind of the typical greek/armenian place. Simple, Good, and friendly.

Arriving at CampInn, our delivery went pretty much as expected --- Carry and I spent as much time discussing airplanes and flying as we did the camper. But, everything was fine...as expected.

They allowed us to linger in the delivery area with 2 cans of Collenite 885 paste wax....It took 2 of us about 2 hours (we didn't time it) to put on a coat, haze , and wipe it down --- the wax went on easy and was a little hard to remove if it dried too long, just as has been reporeted. A buffer would have been awesome --- but a half dozen microfiber towels did the trick...and when it was done it looked great!!!

It was raining, and about 35 degrees,with flurries....We didn't even try to cook . The last time I was in Necedah, I found a great pizza joint --- Chicago style thin crust. I thought it was "The dirty turtle" -- it wasn't. But, we still had a really good pizza. Not exactly "on plan" in our diet...but some times, you have to say "What the heck" Dirty Turtle --- you'll have a great yelp/google review coming soon.

The Furnace was a great winter addition. While awake, it could easily toast us out. Overnight, we had to play with the temperature setting a little bit to find the 'sweet spot' -- but I am glad we have it in the winter but suspect I will miss the storage in the summer. Pick your poison wisely

November 13'th -- we departed early -- hovering right at freezing we decided to just pack up, hook up, and make a run for it. We were gone before the neighbors who were there overnight as well were moving. Too bad, I wanted to see his "Foamie"

For the drive part:

1] 70mph wasn't a problem, I could do it --- but it started to feel a little 'heavy' - 65 seems to be the sweet spot with this towing combination. How I determine that is by turning off the cruise and not looking at the spedo --and I wait a few miles...seeing where I naturally find myself. 65. Perfectly acceptable for travel in my opinion.

2] Economy -- the Rav4 shows only tank averages or trip averages -- it doesn't look like a huge difference in economy between 65 and 70. 1-2 mpg maybe? But there was a small drop. Hard to tell until you do a fulll "test loop". My economy was better than I expected....around 26.

3] Feel -- except for the weight, which you will feel in "sluggishness" in acceleration, I never felt the trailer behind me. Hill climbing, I slowed down a bit just to lessen the stress on the drive train. But, being passed by trucks felt no different than when I was driving without the camper. I didn't feel any side sway or instability of any kind.

Saving what I think the best for last. I've stated in this forum a number of times, I have owned a camp inn before. Currently, it is in Louisiana after we sold it. Serial Number 518. While doing the walk through, we checked the serial number on the new model 1038. For those who are opposed to doing math in your head...1038/2 = 518. Cary swears it is wierd coincidence. I'm not 100% sure...but its still a cool coincidence, or shows an amazing attention to detail by a company. I'll take either one, but suspect a little of both.

In the nest, I saw several of your campers I can't recall but I saw the Tuesday delivery ... you're going to love it

 

Awesome! I literally just sent a PM asking you about your delivery date….lo and behold, here she is. Beautiful! I suspect you saw mine “in the nest” while you were there. She is just now starting to get her aluminum.

I’m thrilled for you and am looking forward to seeing you out on the road in the future.

 

Congratulations on finally taking delivery!
Glad you were able to spend those couple hours in the delivery area getting her waxed up good for the drive home. Not sure if you got caught up in the snow system that swept through the mid-west last night, but hopefully the salt exposure was kept to a minimum if you did.
Enjoy the second time around!!

 

Congratulations from #1006

 

Congrats

 

Bad typo's Sweeney! Bad!

 

Yah, I know -- it was "close" -- The friday evening in Necedah treated us to a little snow.....overnight, it went back and forth a few times. But by morning it was cold and dry-ish. We came home from Necedah to South Bend Indiana, then south to Indianapolis. The snow chased us, we caught a few showers. After we got home the snow started in earnest....

This morning we had heavy snow but no accumulation due to the warm ground....its still a little early here for anything to stick.

I saw photos from Potato Creek (where we planned to stay, but decided just go come home -- we weren't quite packed and "camp ready", so why push it) where grass was visible, but it was a heavy dusting. We made the right decision to come home.

This week we've got a TON of prepping to do to get it ready....I suspect we'll get 1, maybe 2 weekends out of it before it turns too ugly to even think about it.

 

Enjoy!

 

I didn't think it was --- I have a reputation to maintain on typos and misssspelling.s Its what I do

Still a very cool coincidence...

 

Sweeny, CONGRATS!!!! You are now officially back in the clan. I am glad the Rav towed good for you.

Nice to see you got a coat of wax on it because WINTER IS COMING.

As always these Camp Inns are a solidly built, fuel efficient, and reliable way to see the country.

 

Congrats!
I was at Camp-Inn last week dropping off 787 for rooftop solar and saw 1036 in the nest.
Looked great, and nice that its in your hands getting prepped for the road!

 

I didn't get the solar option --- prewired for it, but I don't have the panels. I'll be watching to see how it goes, the panels they are using are different than what I was expecting, whihc are the flexible/rollable panels. They dont' stand up well to UV (ironically) and I suspect getting hot is a problem. I'm curious how the ones CI has selected will work.

I don't mind being leading edge, but not bleeding -- But I can tell from parasitic draw and doing things I want to do, I'm going to have a slight battery problem if I boondock. I think I'll get 1 night + a few hours on the internal battery. We run the fantastic all night and my "media server" project which is changing directions...

I'll resurrect that topic later

 

The solar panels CI uses are much better quality than the typical panels mostly used on teardrops. They are CIGS technology which is not silicon based.

Why are CIGS solar better than Crystalline solar and are they?

I used mine on a recent two week trip and they worked quite well in smoky and cloudy situations. My main draw was the Dometic fridge which was always plugged in. As long as one has access to reasonable sun most days they should have no trouble topping off the house battery. Obviously a week of overcast, rainy, snowy weather will be a problem for any kind of solar.

I would highly recommend adding these panels to any build. No muss, no fuss. No need to babysit portable panels set out during the day. Although portables may still be a worthwhile back up plan if you find yourself in a very shady space with otherwise available sun around you.

 

Unfortunately, like in many decisions, each one seems to have some sort of compromise required to go along with it. If you want your roof top mounted panels to perform well, you will need to find a sunny spot for the TD to sit, which may make the cabin a bit warmer than desired for an afternoon nap, while a shady spot for the camper with an extension cord for the panel to reach a sunny spot may increase the possibility of the panel growing legs, and also the need for repositioning the panel to track the sun may be necessary depending on shade sources. At AirVenture this summer I had my tethered panel out in the adjacent open field on day one, but found it at the wrong angle after being out and about for a few hours, so day 2 I just laid it flat on top of the TD, since there wasn't any shade source in sight anyway. It was a lot less noticeable to would be sticky fingers laying on top, and was more consistently exposed to the sun as well, so performed better, but I still like the idea of having the option of remotely locating the panel if a shady spot is available for the TD. Compromises.....what life is all about. Not many perfect solutions out there.

 

Dustin, I agree with you 1,000%. It truly does come down to compromises. My original fear with a rooftop was not being able to get sun when camped in a given location. While that's always a potential problem, I seem to always get the sites with no trees within a 100 feet of my space.

I always wanted a way to at least be able to plug in a portable panel. Once you commit to investing in that, adding the rooftop is a little less financially painful and it then covers all your solar bases. Although my experience is quite limited so far, I do believe you can get by with less than a full day of brilliant sunshine to keep the battery full. So unless you are truly shaded all day, every day, I'm pretty comfortable that the rooftop will produce adequately. And if not, the portable can still supplement it as needed. As somebody who spends a lot of time away from the trailer during the day, the convenience of the built in rooftop panel is fantastic. To me, it was well worth the cost.

 

My CI 560 Ultra is being constructed with the rooftop solar option. Should take delivery in the Spring. I will keep you all in the loop regarding performance of the panels.

How would you all like me to gather data points? Anecdotal is easy, but I can also nerd out with some hard data voltage readings too.

 

If anybody is interested I have a spreadsheet of data downloaded from my Victron solar controller. It does provide some interesting, daily, technical specs.

 

I'll investigate the solar option -- The discussion about trade offs is true in everything

For my camping style,I'll likely always have a generator --- we are pretty power hungry in general. Fans, phones, stereo, on-board media server.... I want to put a ammeter and calculate my real use -- but its probably one of the highest possible. Solar panels by themselves probably will never fit my need by itself. if 100% isn't achievable, then I plug in the car or start the generator.

I think as long as I am in Indiana/midwest I'm going to nee a generator anyway just to keep my AC running. Its entirely likely its not a great investment for me....there's that trade off.