This isn't really build-thread-related, but I figured some of you would enjoy to see a sort of "conclusion" (we're not totally done with the trailer yet), to give some meaning to the whole thing.
So we spent late last week trying to decide on a place to go. We ended up pointing our GPS to a forest road in Vermont. We haven't had a good opportunity to move our gear into the trailer yet, which meant we were packing late Friday night. So, we left Saturday mid-morning. We cruised about 160 miles of highway with no issues. We got into more hills than our previous outing, which tested the truck. The truck handled the load just fine on up hills and down hills. I probably should have down shifted on the up hills a few times, but I was lazy and also curious to see how much it would slow. It wasn't bad at all. I could certainly tell the trailer was there, but at times it became easy to forget, too. I don't know if that's good or bad.
The whole story is that we couldn't locate Forest Road 35 on our GPS, so we navigated to the town of Pittsfield, VT, and found it from there. We turned onto Lower Michigan Rd. and cruised along until...a gate. Crap! We hopped out to investigate, and confirmed that it was locked. We discussed how to proceed, and agreed to make lunch, since it was about that time. This also gave the pups an opportunity to blow off some energy.
It took them approximately 3 seconds to find the river.
Jenny got left hanging on some high fives.
Mandy worked the kitchen to make us all some brats.
Shaun and I looked over the map and confirmed our error. We actually wanted to take Upper Michigan Road, which runs parallel about .1 mile away. We found that we only had to backtrack about halfway to the main road and could take a bridge across the river to Upper Michigan. So after we cleaned up from lunch, we flipped around and went back out. We crossed the bridge and turned onto Upper Michigan Rd., which was a very steep, sharp turn with a sheer drop on the driver's side. It felt like I was losing a little traction at the rear, so I engaged 4WD and crawled up out of it. No issues. We bounced along down the road mostly in first gear, as it was fairly rutted, and I've still got that nagging fear of the hitch separating. We passed several campsites that were occupied, until we reached the end of the marked road (which is not the actual end of the road). Here there was a tiny clearing on each side of the road next to a bridge. We dropped the trailer on the hilly side, since we could level it to compensate.
Shaun and Jenny took a radio and continued up the road to scout other options until communications started to get scratchy.
They didn't find any better options, so they circled back to the site and setup their tent on the flat ground across the street. The pups explored while we got settled in, and we all just enjoyed a relaxing afternoon with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere with zero cell service. Like, not even if you stand in the bed of the truck on one foot pointing your phone to the sky. It was exactly what we were looking for.
The ladies took the Jeep back down the road to pickup a little bit of firewood from a neighbor who was selling some at the end of their driveway. Shaun and I sat across the road and threw a frisbee at each other. Each time we'd miss, Sydney would fetch it for us, which was perfect because we didn't have to get out of our chairs. When they got back, Shaun set to work making some kindling from kinda-damp wood.
NOAA said there was about a 30% chance of rain overnight, so we put up the awning preemptively. Mandy went to the kitchen to make us dinner.
Her shirt doesn't even lie!
We cleaned up and gathered around the fire, which was tough to get going. Shaun made it work, though, per usual. We made smores and told ****ty jokes. We got rained on briefly, so we moved to under the awning. Then back to the fire. Then again.
We were all getting pretty tired, so we decided to call it a night when it seemed like it was going to continue raining for a while, and the fire had died down to a small bed of coals.
The next morning was so weird for us. We spent most of it just hanging out doing next to nothing while Shaun and Jenny packed up all their stuff. Mandy played with the dogs and I played with cameras; as we were packing to go, I realized I have 5 unused rolls of film, which was a neat surprise, so I shot some of that. I checked on the trailer battery, as it was the longest we'd gone running the rock lights and the fridge with the trailer disconnected from the truck, and we had very little, if any, sun once we parked the afternoon before. We were still sitting pretty around 12.5V or thereabouts. After the ride home, charging in the sun and from the tow vehicle, the trailer battery was around 13.8V if I remember correctly.
We're gradually gaining more and more confidence, and getting more comfortable with everything. It's still a little weird if I'm honest. We talked about how crazy it is that you can essentially build whatever you want and you can throw plates on it and drag it down the highway with no training, licensing, or inspection. I like to think that I researched enough, but sometimes it also feels like I only know enough to realize that I know next to nothing. I tested a lot of my work, especially when I had to undo some welds, back when we were still putting the frame together. Everything seemed to hold quite well. I still find myself inspecting everything over and over. Second-guessing everything I did. "What if it just disintegrates at 65mph?" "What if the roof tears off, unannounced?" Well, it hasn't happened yet, so that's a plus. Our friends were jealous of our setup and teardown times. I laughed because, "yeah, it only took us about 2 years" so that's pretty reasonable. But it was really nice to be able to just chill all morning. It was doubly-nice when we got home and didn't need to setup a tent to dry out. I haven't got an accurate measure yet because of an EVAP issue with the truck causing issues at the gas pump (it's like the breather tube is clogged, so if I pump at full speed, it triggers the auto-shutoff in the pump), but I think the fuel mileage is somewhere around 13-14mpg. All points considered, I think the trailer is the way to go for us, for most outings. We really love it. We'll still hang onto our tent, and I'm sure it will still get used on occasion. We'll see.
So we spent late last week trying to decide on a place to go. We ended up pointing our GPS to a forest road in Vermont. We haven't had a good opportunity to move our gear into the trailer yet, which meant we were packing late Friday night. So, we left Saturday mid-morning. We cruised about 160 miles of highway with no issues. We got into more hills than our previous outing, which tested the truck. The truck handled the load just fine on up hills and down hills. I probably should have down shifted on the up hills a few times, but I was lazy and also curious to see how much it would slow. It wasn't bad at all. I could certainly tell the trailer was there, but at times it became easy to forget, too. I don't know if that's good or bad.
The whole story is that we couldn't locate Forest Road 35 on our GPS, so we navigated to the town of Pittsfield, VT, and found it from there. We turned onto Lower Michigan Rd. and cruised along until...a gate. Crap! We hopped out to investigate, and confirmed that it was locked. We discussed how to proceed, and agreed to make lunch, since it was about that time. This also gave the pups an opportunity to blow off some energy.
It took them approximately 3 seconds to find the river.
Jenny got left hanging on some high fives.
Mandy worked the kitchen to make us all some brats.
Shaun and I looked over the map and confirmed our error. We actually wanted to take Upper Michigan Road, which runs parallel about .1 mile away. We found that we only had to backtrack about halfway to the main road and could take a bridge across the river to Upper Michigan. So after we cleaned up from lunch, we flipped around and went back out. We crossed the bridge and turned onto Upper Michigan Rd., which was a very steep, sharp turn with a sheer drop on the driver's side. It felt like I was losing a little traction at the rear, so I engaged 4WD and crawled up out of it. No issues. We bounced along down the road mostly in first gear, as it was fairly rutted, and I've still got that nagging fear of the hitch separating. We passed several campsites that were occupied, until we reached the end of the marked road (which is not the actual end of the road). Here there was a tiny clearing on each side of the road next to a bridge. We dropped the trailer on the hilly side, since we could level it to compensate.
Shaun and Jenny took a radio and continued up the road to scout other options until communications started to get scratchy.
They didn't find any better options, so they circled back to the site and setup their tent on the flat ground across the street. The pups explored while we got settled in, and we all just enjoyed a relaxing afternoon with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere with zero cell service. Like, not even if you stand in the bed of the truck on one foot pointing your phone to the sky. It was exactly what we were looking for.
The ladies took the Jeep back down the road to pickup a little bit of firewood from a neighbor who was selling some at the end of their driveway. Shaun and I sat across the road and threw a frisbee at each other. Each time we'd miss, Sydney would fetch it for us, which was perfect because we didn't have to get out of our chairs. When they got back, Shaun set to work making some kindling from kinda-damp wood.
NOAA said there was about a 30% chance of rain overnight, so we put up the awning preemptively. Mandy went to the kitchen to make us dinner.
Her shirt doesn't even lie!
We cleaned up and gathered around the fire, which was tough to get going. Shaun made it work, though, per usual. We made smores and told ****ty jokes. We got rained on briefly, so we moved to under the awning. Then back to the fire. Then again.
We were all getting pretty tired, so we decided to call it a night when it seemed like it was going to continue raining for a while, and the fire had died down to a small bed of coals.
The next morning was so weird for us. We spent most of it just hanging out doing next to nothing while Shaun and Jenny packed up all their stuff. Mandy played with the dogs and I played with cameras; as we were packing to go, I realized I have 5 unused rolls of film, which was a neat surprise, so I shot some of that. I checked on the trailer battery, as it was the longest we'd gone running the rock lights and the fridge with the trailer disconnected from the truck, and we had very little, if any, sun once we parked the afternoon before. We were still sitting pretty around 12.5V or thereabouts. After the ride home, charging in the sun and from the tow vehicle, the trailer battery was around 13.8V if I remember correctly.
We're gradually gaining more and more confidence, and getting more comfortable with everything. It's still a little weird if I'm honest. We talked about how crazy it is that you can essentially build whatever you want and you can throw plates on it and drag it down the highway with no training, licensing, or inspection. I like to think that I researched enough, but sometimes it also feels like I only know enough to realize that I know next to nothing. I tested a lot of my work, especially when I had to undo some welds, back when we were still putting the frame together. Everything seemed to hold quite well. I still find myself inspecting everything over and over. Second-guessing everything I did. "What if it just disintegrates at 65mph?" "What if the roof tears off, unannounced?" Well, it hasn't happened yet, so that's a plus. Our friends were jealous of our setup and teardown times. I laughed because, "yeah, it only took us about 2 years" so that's pretty reasonable. But it was really nice to be able to just chill all morning. It was doubly-nice when we got home and didn't need to setup a tent to dry out. I haven't got an accurate measure yet because of an EVAP issue with the truck causing issues at the gas pump (it's like the breather tube is clogged, so if I pump at full speed, it triggers the auto-shutoff in the pump), but I think the fuel mileage is somewhere around 13-14mpg. All points considered, I think the trailer is the way to go for us, for most outings. We really love it. We'll still hang onto our tent, and I'm sure it will still get used on occasion. We'll see.
