# Across The Continent With 2016 240Urs - 1St Long Trip



## Parrothead (Jul 17, 2015)

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I thought I should post about our recent, and very positive, experience of towing our camper across the continent. When I was researching, bits of info like this helped me make decisions about how to approach this camping trailer thing. As I think I've noted elsewhere, we have decades of camping behind us but primarily in tents, in pickup beds, and on my motorcycle, with a few years using a tent camper. This is stepping way up for us!

We traveled from the California Central Coast to Western Pennsylvania, and back. The stats: 29 days, 7700 miles, 22 states, all sorts of roads, many many mountain passes (anywhere from 7,000 to about 11,000 feet), 50°-105°F, wind, rainstorms, and a lot of gloriously beautiful traveling weather.

Synopsis: this is a great camper for us. Meets our needs very well. Problems were absolutely minimal (note we had a year of short trips prior to this to shakedown the camper: problems were found, and the dealer fixed them long before this trip. I've posted those elsewhere on this forum). Fun was max'ed out!

Problems: 
- at approx 5,000 miles had to re-caulk a front corner where the roof meets the sidewall and front cap; 
- vertical plastic beading in one of the seams between front cap and sidewall has cracked open for several feet;
- getting the black water tank to fully empty, per the level indicator, was annoyingly difficult. We had`no problems with this on earlier short trips, nor during the first half of the trip, so I'm thinking my teenage granddaughters may have had an impact here. Or, it's part of my learning curve!

Lessons Learned:
- the Equalizer hitch is noisy, and awesome. We`ve named the camper "Screech" because of it. With the new-to-us 2500HD truck, the camper towed great.
- learned my 2 Yamaha 2000i generators will run the rig just fine EXCEPT for simultaneously running the AC and the electric water heater. Not really a problem!
- the 24ft camper is really all I want considering where and how we camp; if it were longer it could have really restricted where we traveled and camped. Total rig length is 50ft.
- I worried about the stock Class C tires but time & budget prevented me from upgrading before the trip... they were fine and not once did they get too warm or cause problems. I kept the traveling speeds to around 63mph almout the entire trip.
- my wife made the screen for the garage door... a must have, IMO!
- if I'm offloading the motorcycle, check the site for levelness and access first! Occasionally off/onloading had to be done before disconnecting & setting up.
- given a reasonably level site, this camper is very easy to set up. It manuevers very well also.

So, there it is. I hope this helps someone. We are quite pleased with the whole setup and look forward to more trips to lonely, beautiful places.

Regards,
Parrothead


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