One of the first projects was to add 580 watts of solar to the roof with a Rgnogy 60A controller in the cabinet above the driver. The good news is the coach was pre-wired for solar from the roof (dome in 1st picture) to the cabinet and down to the battery bay making it a much simpler project…thank you Tiffin! Interesting fact, the panels are fastened to the roof with 3M double sided tape…no screws in the roof.
Then there was the fact that there were 4 TVs on the coach when we bought it, 2 in the living room, one in the bedroom and one outside. So we replaced the one over the driver’s seat with a picture Tom took on the Great Loop. But wait, the other TV in the living room was mounted flat to the wall, making watching it neck-wrenching. So it had to be replaced (right) with a thinner one so a pivoting wall mount would fit behind it and not be taken out when the slide came in.
Before
To address our internet connection, we installed both an Insty Connect cellular extender and a Starlink satellite high-speed internet system. The Insty is great because it is a small antenna/receiver permanently mounted to the roof and is usable anytime we have cell service, even when we are on the move. And if out of cell service, the Starlink is an easy setup and takes over most anywhere.
Before
As she did on Life’s TraVails, Paula added a homey touch, with Whisper’s help of course, by making an NP quilt for the bed – very fitting as our plan is to visit as many National Parks as we can. We also cut the bed down from a king to a queen by removing the entire bed frame, cutting 6″ off each side, then reinstalling. Now it was actually a “real” walk-around bed.
Before
When we bought WOW, it had a very nice couch that folded out with an air-bed mattress and a swiveling lounge chair. Nice, but not a good fit for our needs. On Life’s TraVails, we had bought a really comfortable double reclining love seat and then another one for The Secret, so we went for a third to replace both the couch and the chair. Tom then found a desk which was just the right size to fill the rest of the space, just not in the right configuration. So he cut it apart, using part as a desk with a filing cabinet drawer, and the other piece as an end table, cutting it down to a lower more appropriate height. An exercise ball is our desk chair.
We had a little scooter on Life’s TraVails which we carried on the upper deck and really enjoyed, so we thought,”Why not?” But where would we put it? So Tom built a rack for the front of the coach to hold our new-to-us 150 cc Piaggio Liberty scooter. Great way to get around in the National Parks.
Then we needed a “toad” (a euphemism for “towed” and RV talk for “dinghy”) to tow and enable us to go where the coach could not. And we needed a place to carry our electric bikes. After looking all over the country for a Jeep Grand Cherokee with other than black seats, one became available 10 miles from our house. With the help of our good friend Jeff, the tow brackets were mounted on the front and it was complete. (The mounting sounds simple, but we had to remove the entire front bumper and grill, mount the brackets, cut holes in the bumper for the brackets, and replace it.) Tom added a bike rack to the back (which can also fit on the back of the coach when not towing the toad), a rack on top, and were set.
Some of the little things we did:
- Added a circulating pump under the galley sink so while waiting for hot water to get to the sink from the other side of the coach, water is pumped back into the fresh water tank
- Bought a portable water softener to process our water as we filled our freshwater, and, of course, added a 3-stage filter for our drinking water
- Replaced the residential shower with an RV low-flow unit to save water
- Installed soap pumps by the sinks to eliminate bottles rolling around and leaking while on the road
- Installed permanently-mounted charging cables on the desk and end table
- Installed a light strip on the floor next to the bed (The bedroom had a step on one side (Tom’s) because of the engine – a hazard in the dark. Mark, a friend of ours, felt sure Tom would injure himself in the middle of the night tripping over the step. So he made a small 3-LED light strip to mount by the floor next to the bed. A small switch turns it on, creating just enough light to see the step. Tom uses it every night. Thanks, Mark!)
- Mounted an expandable ladder to the inside of the pull-out generator service door in front in case we need to access the slide outs where the ladder on the back would be of no use
Oh, and then there were the bad things:
- On one of our first outings, we needed to turn around on a dirt road, sort of a 6-point turn. Well neither of us saw the stump on the side until we had dented 2 bay doors.
- And then we learned the hard way that the turning radius to the right is shorter than to the left because the ladder will/did hit the Jeep, bending the ladder and dinging the Jeep bumper. An 18″ hitch extension mostly fixed that problem.
All said and done, from stem to stern (scooter on the front to bikes on the back) our rig has an LOA of 60′.
Parked on the shore of Lake Powell at Lone Rock