Exploring America's Beauty: Our 4,000-Mile Shakeout Journey in 20 Days

Coyote Keith RV Park

Love's Travel Stop

No Man's Land Beef Jerky

Meow Wolf

Yosemite Upper Pines CG

Grand Canyon Mather CG

Alpaca Ranch Harvest Host

Alpacas

Embark on a 4,000-mile RV/Airstream shakeout trip with us! Join our journey across nine states, as we share our trials and triumphs on the open road.

Avid travelers, we've been blessed with many opportunities to travel abroad throughout Europe, East Asia, the Indo-Pacific region, Africa, and the Middle East.  International travel is a wonderful experience, but all the post-pandemic pent-up demand has made international traveling a bit less enjoyable these days.  Airports, planes, and venues remain packed even during off-peak times.  Our recent (2023) travels to England, Germany, and Italy confirmed as much.

Even though we've seen a fair amount of our amazingly beautiful country, we are constantly amazed at how much more there is to see and experience.  Therefore, at the beginning of 2023, we started entertaining the idea of getting a travel trailer, using our Pacific Northwest (PNW) brick and mortar home as a base of operations for domestic exploration during off-peak times.  Committed to winter camping at or near ski resorts, we were keen on finding the right all-season travel trailer.

PREPURCHASE

​In February 2023, we spent a full day at the annual Seattle RV Show, touring various models and speaking with vendors.  Prior to the show, after some exhaustive research, we knew the specific models we wanted to inspect.  This turned out to be a great educational experience with little sales pressure to purchase.  Airstream was not present at the show, instead hosting their own event simultaneously at the locally based dealership. This was also a good opportunity to explore the various Airstream models and lengths but not as inconspicuous as we would have liked. A sales associate tracked us down in short order and the whole experience began to feel more like a typical car dealership visit with some of the traditional and seemingly harmless sales pressure. We left having only surrendered an email address with no immediate commitments to purchase .  

Our four main criteria for a travel trailer or RV: four-season rated, quality construction, dry bath, and under 25' total length - an accommodating length for 90% of national parks.  After looking at several brands of trailers and off-grid Class C coaches, Airstream seemed to be the best option for the type of year round camping we were planning.  Novices to the whole RV/Travel Trailer experience, we were not willing to pull the trigger on a new model especially at those price points. Therefore, we slowly began the hunt for a used trailer looking to capitalize on pre-owned upgrades. We also needed a suitable towing vehicle that would comfortably pull 4000-5000 lbs through mountain passes for access to ski resorts.

TOW VEHICLE

In February 2023, we found a really good deal on a Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew Cab-Standard Bed, several $K under MSRP with the following build parameters.

Parameters

The truck was sitting at a dealership in another state but the price point easily justified the 200 mile drive. With the truck and our 2021 22FB Caravel fully loaded, the GCWR weighed in at 11,340 lbs –› 76.5% of the vehicle's designed useful load.   

Bottom line, the Silverado has made easy work of towing our 22FB Caravel.  Rarely has the tachometer climbed above 3K revolutions while maintaining our momentum between 55-75 mph on grades and when encountering stout headwinds ranging from 35-50 mph.  For the total shakeout trip, the vehicle averaged 11.76 mpg. So far we are really satisfied with the truck and the only minor criticism, the side mirrors do not extend for better viewing of approaching traffic.

THE RIGHT TRAILER

Our preference was for a 2021 model due to the factory improvements, mainly the integrated seamless composite flooring. Airstream's new flooring is made from TransCore™, a proprietary composite of 100% waterproof material (inert recycled glass and polypropylene) with superior screw retention. The floor material itself is also 100% recyclable, supposedly.🤨 The other significant upgrade for 2021, the tankless on-demand water heater, seems like a good idea in theory but in practical application contributes to a lot of wasted fresh water and needless grey tank storage.

RVTrader turned out to be a good central repository for discovering available inventory not only locally, but nationally.  We selected the Caravel model over the Bambi due to the many mechanical, performance, and aesthetic differences between the models. Prices for used trailers started to tumble at the beginning of fall with seller motivation increasing to offload before the holidays arrived.  Plus, the weather this time of year is still decent enough to make a long road trip to purchase the right trailer.  By early November, we had verbal price agreements on three 2021 22FB Caravels, all by private sellers and within a $500 price difference of each other.  

The trailer we selected was the farthest away but had all the desired upgrades for immediate off-grid winter boondooking.

Upgrades

JOURNEY PREPARATIONs

The purchase went very smoothly.  The trailer was in excellent condition and had been well maintained by both of the previous owners. After completing the purchase, we affectionately christened our newly acquired trailer, Cuz'n Eddie, after the raucous character from National Lampoon's A Christmas Vacation.

The previous owner had already winterized the trailer with RV antifreeze, however, they were super nice and graciously offered the use of their home to flush out the antifreeze and sanitize the fresh water system. Dry camping is not a preferred option, otherwise, we would have stuck with our tent and saved the coin for international traveling. We are committed to the full experience in all seasons ... lol.

Before launching on our trial-by-fire shakeout, we spent the first three nights at two Love's RV Stops.  Conventional wisdom amongst the travel trailer community is to start with short trips close to home. However, since we already over 2,0000 miles away from our PNW home, we reasoned Love's Travel Centers would be a relatively safe and secure campsite while we sorted out our initial orientation to the trailer's systems. Well-lit with full hookup, this turned out to be a good call especially since my better half was wrapping up some personal business in the local area. Love's RV Stops are very good campsites especially if you are looking for a relatively safe and easy overnight stop en route to a final destination.

On day four, we were finally ready to hit the open road where the real learning would begin. Like any new skill in life, the more you do it the better you get at it and our 4,000 mile trip across nine states was a great learning experience for developing and refining our set-up and repacking procedures.

THE TRIP

The shakeout journey home covered: 9 States | 20 Days | 4,000 Miles | 13 Campsites. We typically split duties between driving and real-time trip planning (on the move) for fuel & food stops, lodging, and now campsites. With no pre-determined agenda or timeline, we let Mother Nature dictate our route home. Looking to avoid a significant winter storm with potential for snow and ice passing through the center part of the country, we took a more southerly route home. We and Cuz'n Eddie were not ready to tackle any sort of extreme weather.

Fortunately we did not encounter any major setbacks and we can't say enough about how well the Blue Ox Anti-Sway hitch performed. Likely other brands perform equally well, but the Blue Ox hitch kept the trailer straight and true even when we were being blasted by crosswinds gusting over 50mph. Rarely if ever did we detect any movement with the trailer.

The 3" Dexter Axle Lift is definitely a must for keeping the rear of the trailer from making ground contact when traversing commercial driveways. Very often they have deep cuts for water mitigation and the extra three inches of clearance seems to be the magical height for successfully negotiating through these cuts without making any ground contact. The issues we did encounter with the trailer were manageable during the shakeout. Sadly, the couch wall separation seems to be a common occurrence.

ISSUEs ENCOUNTERED

​Day 3. The couch wall panel located on the entrance side of the trailer fully separated from the couch.  It appeared to have been previously damaged and inadequately repaired.  We temporarily tacked it back together with tape until day six when we completed a more thorough field repair by mounting L-brackets within the interior components.  The couch wall panel is attached at the factory with two support brackets using four pocket screws, staples, and one screw into the sidewall.  This is likely a suitable construction design until one attachment point becomes compromised. The full repair included reinforcing all staple attachments with screws, reusing the small L-brackets between the wall and seat panels, butt joining the bottom of the wall with a reinforced floor support using three slim countersink screws, and adding a new self-tapping screw into the side wall.  I think we have solved this problem from reoccurring and should have no more issues for the life of the trailer.      

Day 11. The track and doors from the galley's overhead cabinet separated from the cabinet while traveling.  The track is installed with staples, no screws, terrible design.  The panels caused minor damage to the vinyl floor, easily repaired with super glue and the track was also easily repaired repurposing some of the leftover screws from the L-brackets. The track is solidly connected now as it should have been from the factory.

Hopefully you found some of the information here interesting and useful. Please stay tuned for our next discussion of Cuz'n Eddie's first ski trip.