Well we took our new Sightseer out for a trip the day after Christmas and loved it. It was a pretty big change for us. We sold our F350 and 39' Toy Hauler for the new Winnebago. One of the biggest reasons for the change was so my wife would be willing to drive on our trips as well as being able to use it on the summers off (teacher) with our two boys.
I'd spent several days packing all of our camping supplies, and ridding myself of items just needed for a trailer. Since the TV was bad and on order I installed one of our 19" TVs up front and strapped it down good. I also installed a 13" TV in the back cabinet, I like that it has the cabinet doors, but I figure if I can get a frame from Winnebago someday I could slip in the 19" in the whole, but with the doors on there was no way it would fit.
We hit the road late morning of the 26th roads were wet most of the way to Portland, and often had some pretty heavy rain. I drove for the first hour then got my wife behind the wheel, yahoo it was nice to be able to take a break, she felt good about driving it too. We really didn't feel much push from the trucks passing us, but the busses seemed to give more of a push. We didn't feel any major wandering on the road and the steering felt solid too.
We made a stop at Costco to pick up a King memory foam mattress topper, top off the tanks and headed down I205. We had checked road conditions, and all looked fine. But the road construction they were doing caused a backup that took us nearly 2 hours to get through, should have taken us about 30 minutes. The next stop was at Camping World. Picked up a surge suppressor based on the comments I've read here, and some other odds & ends. Since the layout of the 35J with the 2nd A/C doesn't give a bedroom roof vent I bought one of the Fantastic Fan Endless Breeze Fans. We normally dry camp and I knew I'd want some air movement in the mornings in the desert. I didn't buy vent covers, but on the way back home we made another stop and I bought two covers as well as a tube to hold the waste hose.
The next leg of the trip was pretty wild. We crossed the Oregon Coast Mountains via Highway 34 at Corvallis. Calling that stretch of road a Highway is an insult to other Highways. Mind you it was at night, so it was dark and the rain was back. But the twisty windy roads, which were riddled with tree limbs and a big stretch of road construction, made for some white knuckle driving for me. Might not have been so bad during the day and if it wasn't our first trip, but by the time I reached Newport I was counting my blessings. We'll avoid Highway 34 from now on when going to the Coast.
Pulling in to camp was a breeze, no way would I have attempted this campground with our previous F350 and Raptor, we had been there a few years before with our Outback trailer. After turning around we backed quickly into our sight. Barely any time for my wife and I to argue, the review camera with the microphone made it easy and since I couldn't talk back to her probably more enjoyable for her too. It was then that I realized that I had managed to leave all three of my Mag flashlights at home go figure. Once we knew the landing gear wasn't going to hit the rear block set up was a breeze. Now I know why I was always jealous when those Class A guys pulled in and were enjoying a cold one while I was still leveling and chocking the trailer. Kudos to Winnebago for the connection area, sure was nice to have all the connections in one spot and being a bit of a Type A I liked that it wasn't all exposed or doors left hanging open.
That night we did find out the difference between a Fiberglass Roof and a Rubber Roof. It rained hard most the night; the roof seemed to be a lot louder with the rain drops hitting us. But after I crawled into that new king size memory foam bed it didn't take me to long to forget the noise and fall asleep. Did I say how much I loved having a King bed? The boys loved having their own bunks too, and the dogs loved the King Bed since there is room for them with us too.
The next few days we just hung out, going to the beach, riding bikes and watching bowl games. I do miss my 20' awning, the 14' one on the 35J is adequate but I figure we'll be using our tents more often for more shade. Its size did make me ponder about putting an awning on the large slide out though. Can that even be done with the slide out toppers? Humm might be a future mod.
We really had no issues with the coach the whole trip. Without the vent covers I couldn't keep the vents open without rain coming in. With two adults, two boys and two dogs we had some pretty good condensation build up on the windows, that Endless Breeze fan did a great job clearing that off though I do think I'll add the dash fans at some point. Any other dips for dealing with the condensation? I wasn't running the LP heater much, we have 3 ceramic heaters we mostly ran on low to keep us warm and save my LP.
I had picked up a 4 place bike rack from etrailer.com for $99 looked like a good deal and worked out great. Price was right too. After reading about some of the rear cameras that look down then scan back to traffic I was wondering if that can be replaced its not a huge deal but with our ATV trailer I can see the advantage of it.
On the trip home we solved the problem we had with the lack of high beams at one point. I hadn't realized that the coach had daytime running lamps not sure how I missed that though. Well on the way back my wife was driving and noted that the high beams were not working again. I began searching the coach, checking every breaker and switch that I could. They had worked fine for me on the way down so something was up. Well I stood behind my wife looking at all the switched when I noticed something. The light switch was only on the parking/marker lights setting. Bingo, flipped it to headlight mode and the lights got brighter and high beams worked. Yep that was one of those head slap "duh" type of moments.
At home we unpacked and I rewinterized the coach and let it rest in storage until the replacement TV arrives. We're already planning to go out on our next trip in a few weeks up to the mountains, this time with our ATVs and probably dry camping.
Our new rig at camp
Will report back in on Monday to update the first outing.
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