We made it back from our first trip last night at around 10 PM. Something on the order of 1500-1600 miles total driven. I didn't keep track of the fuel much, but got 5.2 MPG on one segment. That was going about 75 MPH going uphill the whole way. 7-8 was more typical overall, and 70-75 was about my normal pace on the highways, depending on winds.
I would call the trip a success, and so did Laurie and the kids. Yes, kids were kids and... well... that's all I need to say about that. But on the whole they behaved better than I would've thought them to and had a lot of fun, learned a lot. As expected we learned a lot about how to do these trips and how we should plan things as far as making sure we have some fun and relaxing time in there not just go-go-go. Of course time is limited, but we need to have fun on there.
The Black Hills area is definitely worth visiting. Lots to do of all sorts whether you enjoy off-roading, seeing old west history, or just seeing a beautiful area. People were friendly and we did genuinely enjoy our trip. We stayed at an RV camp that was more of a horse camp that could accommodate RVs. We were the only ones without horses but nobody complained about that. Most people bring their horses to ride the trails, but we enjoyed being far off the beaten path ( miles down a twisty USFS dirt road). Driving the RV up that was fun but it handled it just fine. We were really glad to have the Rover as the tow-behind for getting places. Mount Rushmore was fun to see, really just a good area.
One of the girls clogged up the toilet, an event we were thoroughly unprepared for. Now we have the appropriate hardware to fix that in the future.
Otherwise, the RV systems were fine. There's a propane leak around the fridge that developed on the drive home, I need to look into that. It seems to be after the valve so I'm really hoping that leak isn't one in the fridge itself and thus requiring replacement of the whole thing. I suppose I'll find out.
I made a small list of tweaks for the RV I want, but it worked well.
Big things we learned were spacing of things we did, and also that 450 miles is about as much as we should try to drive in a day with the kids, less than that is preferable. 450 is a pretty full day between the relatively low speed and the amount of time it takes to get packed up and going then set up in the evening, plus figuring food on either end. But the RV itself makes the travel much, much nicer. Kids can move around, use the bathroom, get food. Laurie can sit at the table and teach them things, and one can sit up front with me and look out the window and just chat. You can only really do those things going down the highway but that's what we're doing most of the time anyway so it works out.
Set up and take down really is pretty quick now that we've gotten the hang of it, probably 10-15 minutes on either end for me to get the jacks down/up and slides in/out as appropriate. We've got the hang of the various systems. Flat towing the Land Rover worked great.
The only real issue that popped up that I have to figure out is doing a better job of keeping the rocks from getting kicked up. On the way to the first stop we had a gravel road to drive on. While driving on that road the RV kicked up enough rocks that it broke the headlights on the Land Rover (both of them). Now the headlights were full of water and already bad, but now I need to do something besides drain the water. The RV already has a full width mudflap across the back but apparently that's not enough on its own, so I have to figure out something else there.
So now I have my list of things to do on the RV during the 3 weeks until the next trip. The main one is figure out the propane leak on the fridge first, and hopefully that's not too huge of a deal.
The next trip will be longer, probably 3-4k miles total round trip. So I'm thinking a bit further about what I want to do. The oil pressure on the engine is within spec, but barely. Not sure if I should try to look into that or not, but it is running fine and no temperature issues. Could just be a weak sensor. The oil only has about 2,000-2,500 miles on it, but I may change it anyway especially if decide to do the service bulletin on the oil filter housing gasket which might not be a bad idea. The old one can blow out (maybe that's the cause of my lower oil pressure?) and let unfiltered oil get into where filtered oil should be.
The turbo supply line is very rusty. It's not leaking or causing problems but makes me a bit nervous. The drain line I'm sure is also original, as is the oil supply line for the high pressure oil pump. Of course that's a low pressure oil line so less concerning, but it is 20 years old.
The airbags on the RV itself have some age and cracks in them, so I may consider replacing those as well as they're not too expensive and shouldn't be too bad to change.
I've considered changing the differential and transmission fluids simply because those are likely original. However they're working fine and the interval hasn't been hit yet as far as miles go (can't find a year interval).
I could come up with more items to consider on the RV but really that's about it.
The RV itself could be better if it had 400 HP. However upping the 330 from the 3126B to 400 sounds like a good way to blow things up. Not worth it and I can just live with the stock power.
The transmission is terribly designed. Ratios are all wrong, the shift points are terrible. You can manually hold the max gear it's in but it still just doesn't do what you want it to. I really am disappointed, I had thought Allison made a good transmission. I know it's durable but it is definitely not good from a user perspective. It needs to be an 8 or 9 speed and be a proper manual in my opinion. But, not worth changing. Just live with it as-is.
The new headlights I put in were very worthwhile. They're aimed a bit low so I need to adjust them a hair higher, and I'm also thinking of putting an LED light bar on front to aid with high beams. But nothing too huge there.
So yes, a successful trip. Now to plan the next one in October headed to the southwest.
