Gorgeous night camped out in the desert, sipping a Lagunitas and munching on this year’s elk sausage.
Gorgeous night camped out in the desert, sipping a Lagunitas and munching on this year’s elk sausage.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
We posted up with some friends at a rum distillery that is also a Harvest Host. If you’re not familiar, and you own a self-contained camping apparatus (gotta have your own internal shitter, basically) Harvest Host is a thing you join for $80 and then get to stay for free at various work Erie’s, distilleries, breweries, restaurants, farms, golf courses, etc. it is customary to also (over?) spend at the business.
The distillery we stayed at happened to be playing host to a redneck Xmas parade after party the night we were there, which the owner had warned us about, and which was frankly right up our alley.
Our friends had a Storyteller Mode, and while it’s great for its purpose it totally reinforced to us that we made the right choice with our Pleasureway.
We left from there and spent the next night in the parking lot of a restaurant in Sebring, which also turned out to be a great experience.
Two nights in the van with no kids was quite the nice experience.
View of the vans just before the parade people showed up (us on the left, friends on the right)
View of the distillery from the vans, before the madness
View of the madness in full swing, looking out from the vans
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We are going to attend the Tampa RV Super Show next week, probably Thursday.
Our goal in going to the show this year is because we are kicking around the possibility of getting "something" (maybe) in future, and we want to see where the market options are at this point. Not sure if Class B, Travel Trailer, or what. We sold the truck (Ram 2500) with the Airstream, so we don't really have a tow vehicle anymore. I'm also interested in the application of smart lithium (LiFePO4) batteries at 200 Ah size or greater, recharged by 300W+ Solar arrays on the roof, in combination with these new 12VDC powered Air Conditioning units I am hearing about. Ideally I'd like to go without a gennie and AC powered air conditioner; those two items are a genuine PITA in a Class B, especially in hot weather.
My wife and I spent 2+ years full time in 2016-2018 on the road, first with a 22' MBZ Sprinter conversion (Roadtrek), and then two Airstream Travel Trailers, the last one being a 30' Flying Cloud. We've not been out much since, but our sense is that 2020 was a boom year in RVs, as the pandemic drove sales and waits from order deposit to delivery stretched out. We are looking forward to seeing what's available these days.
Reading the FB page for Storyteller, I know that their units are very hard to obtain since COVID arrived. We sold our one year old Storyteller in a week for what we paid for it, based on a single mention on FB. If you don’t need one today or very soon, I would think prices will normalize as COVID wanes.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
I towed about 25,000 miles a year including some cross country drives when we were racing cars.
We took the morning and toured the Tampa RV Supershow today. Very enjoyable day.
Several big-name suppliers were notably absent this year, notably Airstream and Pleasureway (or at least, we never noticed them.) Which, both of us thought was kinda weird.
Anyway, I did succeed in taking a look at the Coachmen "Beyond" Class B. Show price for a rig with the Li3 batteries and DC air conditioner was $126K. It listed at $160K, IIRC.
I asked the sales guy to fire up the 20K BTU AC on battery power. It was very impressively quiet. This rig has an optional 600 Ah of capacity with the Lithiums, and a standard solar capacity of 2x110W. It's on the 3500 Ford Transit chassis, but only 22' long. Gas powered, it could go through Costco to get fuel. No more searching for Diesel pumps. They have a floor plan with the wet bath in the rear, and twins. It makes a lot of sense. If we "had" to buy a Class B, I'd probably seriously look at one of these.
Mrs. RJ also picked out this one.
Awe dang, I was thinking of going to that show.
The Beyond was on my short list but dropped off pretty quickly due to no 4-passenger capability (defining a "passenger" as needing a 3-point belt).
Does the above offend? If you have paid to be here, you can click here to put it in context.
Damn that Beyond sounds nice. Part of me wants to call up my renters and have them measure the height of the garage doors in my retirement house. The other part of me is calculating how many nights lodging at nice hotels that are ok with German shepherds you can get for $160K.Originally Posted by RJ
We took the morning and toured the Tampa RV Supershow today. Very enjoyable day.
Several big-name suppliers were notably absent this year, notably Airstream and Pleasureway (or at least, we never noticed them.) Which, both of us thought was kinda weird.
Anyway, I did succeed in taking a look at the Coachmen "Beyond" Class B. Show price for a rig with the Li3 batteries and DC air conditioner was $126K. It listed at $160K, IIRC.
I asked the sales guy to fire up the 20K BTU AC on battery power. It was very impressively quiet. This rig has an optional 600 Ah of capacity with the Lithiums, and a standard solar capacity of 2x110W. It's on the 3500 Ford Transit chassis, but only 22' long. Gas powered, it could go through Costco to get fuel. No more searching for Diesel pumps. They have a floor plan with the wet bath in the rear, and twins. It makes a lot of sense. If we "had" to buy a Class B, I'd probably seriously look at one of these.
Mrs. RJ also picked out this one.
Probably quite a few.
See, this is the calculus you have to work out. "For us", we've done the whole "see the USA in a Class B" thing, twice. Plus a couple years in an Airstream. It was fun, but I don't really want to do that again, right now. Plus we are closing on the new house in Venice FL in May, hopefully.
If we had a family, or contemplating a van for everyday, as a second car, I can see one of the non-box Class Bs, especially a Promaster or Transit, in gas, making a lot of sense. You can stuff the kids in and take off for the weekend. Or in our case, to the Florida Keys. It's a very compact, drivable, space efficient mini "Class A" RV in 22-24' length, that (just about) fits in a parking spot at Wally World.
Thing is, with COVID, literally everyone has figured out that these are popular, so now you see upfitters like Tiffin (generally a mega-coach maker) at the show, with small Class B+ coaches for sale. And thus the prices have gone up. We were musing that we were at the Tampa show in 2013, looking at LTV Unity Murphy beds, at a show price around $105K. We were this " " close to buying one. Today, the same LTV coach (if you can wait 10-12 months or longer for it to be built) sells in the region of $160-180K. It's nuts.
Yeah, To the extent my interest is real, I’d be hoping for a post-Covid sell off that would crash the prices on nice used ones. No way I’d be buying in the next 18 months in any case.Probably quite a few.
See, this is the calculus you have to work out. "For us", we've done the whole "see the USA in a Class B" thing, twice. Plus a couple years in an Airstream. It was fun, but I don't really want to do that again, right now. Plus we are closing on the new house in Venice FL in May, hopefully.
If we had a family, or contemplating a van for everyday, as a second car, I can see one of the non-box Class Bs, especially a Promaster or Transit, in gas, making a lot of sense. You can stuff the kids in and take off for the weekend. Or in our case, to the Florida Keys. It's a very compact, drivable, space efficient mini "Class A" RV in 22-24' length, that (just about) fits in a parking spot at Wally World.
Thing is, with COVID, literally everyone has figured out that these are popular, so now you see upfitters like Tiffin (generally a mega-coach maker) at the show, with small Class B+ coaches for sale. And thus the prices have gone up. We were musing that we were at the Tampa show in 2013, looking at LTV Unity Murphy beds, at a show price around $105K. We were this " " close to buying one. Today, the same LTV coach (if you can wait 10-12 months or longer for it to be built) sells in the region of $160-180K. It's nuts.
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