Keeping the Lance

There has been much debate in our house lately. Upgrade the Lance to a bigger trailer? Upgrade the truck & get a 5th? Upgrade completely to a class A?

After many discussions about what our ultimate plans are, we've decided to keep the Lance for now. We love it & just need to change a few things in it to make it more "us" and functional.

Upgrades we're thinking about:
Backsplash in kitchen

We'd like something a little lighter & more "tile" like.

Cabinets in kitchen - Maybe paint them?
Add shelving in bathroom
Cover for the water heater buttons

Right above the blue towel are the buttons. Too easy to hit.

Papertowel holder
Add real shelves to the pantry closet
Expandable shower curtain - Need to order from Lance
Upholstery changes - Still need to decide on a fabric to lighten the trailer up!
New flooring?


Upgrades we've recently done:
New vacuum - We got a Dyson
Add internet boosters - We went with the WiFi Ranger (below) & flag pole for mounting
Move the pantry items to one of the larger closets - We moved it all to the closet next to the door. We'll see if I'm still happy with it as next season goes on.
Move the other items to above the kitchen - I do like this!


Internet/WiFi Booster:
https://www.wifiranger.com/solutions-mobileti/rv-wifi-mobileti

Flag pole for mounting WiFi booster:
http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/resources/flagpole-buddy-ubiquiti-nanostation-gaining-altitude-directional-antennas/

Misty Mountain Halloween Trip, Charlottesville, VA - October 31 through November 2

This is long overdue!

Since I've already done a pretty detailed review of Misty Mountain Campground, I'll just blog what we did.

Upon arrival, we checked in & were directed up the hill. There's now a passcode & gate to get up the hill. I'm guessing they were having some issues with non-paying guests going up there, but it's just a suspicion that I never asked about.

The sites at this campground are definitely not level. We haven't really had to worry about leveling (too much) all season. We had some disagreements on where to put the trailer on the site because of how tight the sites are at the top of the hill. We'd definitely prefer the bottom area if we were going to stay here again.

Lil Lance all tucked in for the weekend

After we got the trailer put where we wanted it, we discovered a bolt on the weight distribution hitch was completely cut off. That side of the hitch has been giving us problems for a while, so it's not super surprising, but it scared the daylights out of us. We took a trip to Home Depot and got new nuts & bolts for that side of the hitch. We also got 2 extra sets of them, in case this happens again and we're not near a Home Depot/Lowes/hardware store.

Once we were done with our side trip, Jon was doing stuff outside & I started prepping dinner. We had friends of ours coming over (they were staying in the lower section of the campground). I had pre-made most of dinner, but needed to make the salad & heat up the main entree. In order to do the main entree, we had to use the oven. I made Jon light the pilot light. I was impressed about how well it worked!

After dinner, we made a campfire & did s'mores. Yum! I also gave the kids a Halloween present, especially since trick-or-treating was taking place the next day (the day after Halloween).

The next day, we took David down to watch the agility dog event that was going on. After that, he got a "bath" in our shower. That was an adventure! Then on to the awesome grocery store near the campground to grab lunch and then head over to Afton Mountain.

We did a wine tasting at Afton Mountain & then had lunch. Thank goodness they had just put up the "tent" coverings in their picnic area. It was WINDY and pretty cold.

We headed back to the campground & chilled out a bit before heading down to our friends' site for dinner.  Jess kept telling me I was paranoid about the dogs being in the trailer. I decided it was too quiet for 2 dogs to be in there. Their oldest daughter checked & sure enough... I was paranoid for good reason! Ah well, it was easily taken care of.  David decided to make himself at home, so we ended up washing their comforter for them.

After dinner, we headed back up to our site & headed to bed. The next morning, we got up, cleaned the trailer, winterized it (sad!), and headed home.

Hershey RV Show, Sept 12-14

We were originally supposed to go to the Hershey RV Show Sept 10-14. We decided to change it so that we were only there for the weekend. Glad we did!

We drove up on Friday, Sept 12 and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn in Hershey. It was about 2 miles from the show and not on Rt 39 or 322, which was great. Once checked in, we drove over to the Giant Center to figure out how to get over there. We got a little lost going around the circle, but figured it out.

On Saturday morning, we woke up around 6am & got ready. The website had said that parking would open at approximately 7am & that the parking attendants would advise on where to go. This was probably the only hiccup of the day. Around 7:15, there were no parking attendants out. We drove around a few hundred times and then decided to try the normal parking lot. Thankfully, we were able to park in there.

Around 8:20 or so, we decided to head over to the tent to get our tickets and check about a bathroom. Turns out the closest bathroom was next to the car. So, back there we went. Then we got our Camelbacks (smartest decision ever!) and headed back to stand in line for tickets. We were a bit early and were 3rd in line. Here's what we could see from inside the holding area:

Once they let us in, we made a beeline for the Winnebago section. We knew we wanted to see the Brave/Tribute. I had read that they had the newly introduced 31c (not even on the website yet!). We walked into the 27B first. We liked it. Then we walked into the 26A. We knew it's definitely not the floorplan for us. We walked through the Moody Blue with the blue interior. It's beautiful. We finally went into the 31C. It felt perfect. Sigh.

27B

27B

27B

Moody Blue (26A)

26A

26A

31C (Kind bed standard - short at 75" long)

31C (Cherry Cola cabinets in bedroom)

31C bathroom

31C shower

31C (residential fridge standard)

31C dinette - tv moves up & down

31C kitchen

31C

31C

We went through a huge list of other units before lunch, but apparently I stopped taking pictures. Lunch was inside the Giant Center to get out of the rain & off our feet for a bit. The number of vendors inside was crazy! These were just the ones on the floor of the arena.

We spent the rest of the day narrowing down options & crossing things off our list. We also had a couple of things added to our list! As much as we like the idea of a 5th wheel, they're huge and by the time we bought a new truck & the 5th we'd really want, we might as well get a class A. (Hello Tribute!!!) We saw the Cruiser RV Enterra travel trailer and really liked it. We also liked the Tiffin Allegro Open Road class A.

After we got back to the hotel, we started going through the brochures again and got everything down to what we really liked. It was amazing how many brochures we took because we liked units and then decided later that we JUST liked them and didn't LOVE them.

After day 1:
Travel trailer: Kodiak Express Ultimate & Cruiser RV Enterra
5th Wheel: Winnebago Latitude
Class A: Winnebago Brave/Itasca Tribute & Tiffin Allegro Open Range

Day 2
On Sunday, we went back & took pictures of everything we liked. We decided that we liked the Enterra over the Kodiak. Mostly because of the white leather and when you walk out of the bathroom into the bed (quite literally) in the Kodiak.

Kodiak

Kodiak

Kodiak

Kodiak

Kodiak

Enterra (316RKS)

Enterra (316RKS)

Enterra (316RKS)

Enterra (316RKS)(though, it looks like you may walk into the bed here too!)

Enterra (316RKS)

Enterra (316RKS)

Enterra (317RES)

Enterra (317RES)

Enterra (317RES)

Enterra (317RES)

Enterra (317RES)

We didn't bother to go back to the 5th wheel. We like it, but figured that the cost will be able the same, or more, than a Class A, so we decided to nix it.

I already gave pictures of the Brave/Tribute, so I won't do that again. We headed over to the Tiffin area again to get some pictures of the Open Range.

After visiting the Tiffin, we visited Winnebago one last time. We felt the urge to buy, but decided we needed to sleep on it and really talk about what we want over the next few years. I think the Brave/Tribute will be wonderful for us in about 2 years. Right now, we're still in travel trailer territory.

Overall, it was a super productive trip. We learned a lot, saw a lot, and had a great time! I highly recommend a trip to the show - unless you can't resist the urge to buy... then don't go!