Merry Christmas!

I'll be honest... This online community played a huge role in why my wife and I purchased a Redwood.
So thank you!

My name is Daniel and my wife is Briana. We've been married for 10 years now, no children or animals. For the last 2 1/2 years we have been full time living in a camper. Before purchasing our new 2017 Redwood 3401RL we had a Cougar 337FLS fifth wheel (front living room).

So how did we get started as full timers? For many years I traveled the country as a motocross photographer either staying in my 17' Jay Feather travel trailer or with professional athletes in their "amazing" coaches. When our home sold faster than we had expected we temporarily stayed in our camper. Truly experiencing how simple life can be we decided to become full timers and not purchase or rent a home.

Now life has me gearing up to work for the National Park Service and we are looking forward to traveling the US!

We have a 2013 Ram 2500 6.7L with AirLift airbags on the rear suspension.
In the new Redwood we trimmed the base board for our bed from a King-size width to a Queen to give us more walk-around room... And so we didn't have to purchase all new bedding. 😉
This past weekend I installed a composting toilet by AirHeads. (most of the time we boondock)
This week I will attempt to install our Garmin back-up camera.

Check out my profile gallery to see pictures of our new RW 3401RL interior. 😉

Daniel,

Welcome aboard. I'm so glad you are taking advantage of the photo gallery feature of the profile page. Your coach looks great!

So I'm curious, what's your plan with the residential fridge when you are boon docking? Will you have solar, generator? How's that going to work.

Also I'm curious what National Parks you'll be working in. We really like to stay in National and State parks.

Again welcome aboard and safe travels.

Hey Ken,

We have a 3000watt Yamaha Inverter/Generator that we use. I plan on selling it soon than getting the Onan 5.5 installed since the RW came with the gen prep. I haven't looked into solar yet only because I've used generators so much.

January 9th I start the Law Enforcement training for the NPS. At this time I am unsure which National Park I will be working at. For this position I have to start out as a Seasonal Law Enforcement Officer which allows me to change parks every 6 months.

Of course my wife and I would like to see as many parks as possible but at some point we'd like to settle down at our favorite which is the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Welcome to this great group and congrats on your new rig

Believe it or not the Great Smoky Mountain National Park was our 2nd campground ever with our Redwood. It was a bit of a squeeze for our 38FL, especially being new to backing in, but we made it work.

Great park, enjoy and please be safe!

Congratulations fellow RAM'r and Redwood RV'r! And a very Merry Christmas to you!

We look forward to hearing about your adventures and you'll be glad you picked the Redwood.

Every year, there is a Rally in Shipshewana, Indiana. If you are able to make it this year (July 2017), we'll see you there!

And if you ever need support, we're all here for that as well.

Congratulations on the new rig. May you have a Happy and prosperous new year.

Congratulations and welcome. If you are going to boondock a lot, you might explore the idea of putting one of the diesel or gasoline generators in rather than the propane 5500. It uses a bunch of propane.

Congratulations and welcome. If you are going to boondock a lot, you might explore the idea of putting one of the diesel or gasoline generators in rather than the propane 5500. It uses a bunch of propane.

With the diesel generator, you can add a 100+ gallon tank to your truck bed to fill the generator AND truck. Diesel is not as labor intensive as constantly filling propane tanks. Diesel can be purchased at a discount in one state and used to cross the country or power up the generator. Buy cheap...Burn high! :woohoo:

One thing to consider though (and I discussed this at length with Redwood)...

The Propane models are 280 lbs. The Diesel units are 420 lbs. Redwood states that they have not ever installed a Diesel in their units. They suggested beefing up the frame under the generator to compensate for the extra weight. Sounds like it was doable...I am opting for the Diesel in the near future. (8000 W - Its the same weight as the 6000 W). I can ALWAYS use more watts!

And if someone wanted to "borrow" it from you, it will take a LOT more time and energy to remove...They would have to want it REAL bad! :angry:

The other option would be to mount the gen set in the truck. If you put another 50 a socket in the nose near the pinbox, wired into the transfer switch. That gets all the vibration out of the rig and also makes fuel hookup much easier. Only drawback would be not having generator when the truck isn't there.

Like Vaughan said, the LP consumes some fuel !!

I just had an Onan 6500 LP added to my RW last June and love it, but MOST of my camping is full hook up. The occasional stop in a rest stop for a few hours, and the 2-3 NASCAR races a year is what it will be used for.
Last September it was HOT in Richmond for the race, I started the Onan an 2pm Friday, ran 2 ac's for 4 hours to get it nice and cool... then dropped it to just one... on Saturday we stayed on 1 ac till around 11am, at that time we switched to both till about 4pm when we dropped it back to 1... ran until 6 am Sunday morning when we headed home...

I ended up using 3 of the 40# bottles for the entire stay...with the genny running from 2pm Friday straight till 6 am Sunday with 1 ac min..and 2 ac's for about 8-10 hrs

I installed my Onan 5500 LP myself, and I was nervous about that cheesy floor in the cabinet of the Redwood with 280 lbs. The other two 5ers I installed that generator in had a braced floor. For anything close to a diesel weight, that cabinet would need reinforced.

Thanks everyone for all the tips!

Daniel,
Hi, I'm just outside of Asheville myself so we're practically neighbors.
I got a back up camera for Christmas and am trying to figure out how to get power to it. Would love some suggestions. And maybe some pictures of yours.

Welcome Daniel and Briana. You picked winners... Ram and Redwood!

Thanks for sharing your pictures.

Daniel,
Hi, I'm just outside of Asheville myself so we're practically neighbors.
I got a back up camera for Christmas and am trying to figure out how to get power to it. Would love some suggestions. And maybe some pictures of yours.

What backup camera did you get?