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New Member Introduction and Hello to the Community
Truth be told I have been using this forum for research for a while and finally decided to join to make full use of the community. I have been interested in owning a travel trailer for many years and finally decided to purchase one. Not having an endless supply of money and being a research fanatic, I gave myself a crash course on the industry in the Fall of 2020. Having experienced staying in everything from a basic tent trailer to a $100K+ motorhome, I knew more of what i did not want than what I did. There was also one major caveat in the search, figure out the right trailer the first time! Definitely not what most people do...
After extensive research the field was narrowed to four manufacturers, Grand Design, Lance, Northwood Manufacturing (Nash/Arctic Fox) and Outdoors RV. Not to bore everyone with too many details, that was the order I went to look at representative models of each manufacturer starting around Thanksgiving 2020. With Covid in full swing and supply chains already messed up, there was not much variety to see, but there was enough.
Ultimately I settled on Outdoors RV as the manufacturer of choice. Now the question was what model to focus on. The dealer in Sacramento only had two models, a Mountain Series Timber Ridge 24RKS and a Mountain Series Blackstone 270RLS, quite a difference. The 24 was a little smaller than what I wanted, the 270 bigger.
In late December the dealer received an assortment of ORV's which provided the opportunity to compare and contrast various models. For some reason I kept coming back to the 270, it just felt right but I was not ready to purchase. In early January the 270 sold, then came back into inventory a couple weeks later. Back to the dealer to take another look. You already know what happened, we made a deal and I purchased my first trailer.
Yes, it is on the large side (34' 8") and will not fit in a lot of the older campgrounds (see, I do research!) but when you add the wife and two or three medium sized dogs it is probably going to seem small. It will also be relatively long going down the road behind a 3/4 ton truck. However, years ago I worked for a building supply company and drove everything up to and including a tractor trailer; I think I will be fine.
There is one other wrinkle to the story...the cart was purchased before the horse! My old horse, a 2004 GMC 1500 5.3l, is not big enough to tow the trailer legally or safely. Four orders, three dealers, two states and 20 months later, I am still waiting on a GMC 2500HD AT4 diesel. Good thing I am a reasonably patient person. In the meantime I have been outfitting the trailer (boy, does that get expensive the first time around) prior to the first outing.
The last reason for finally joining your forum is that I refuse to join Facebook and there is an Outdoors RV Owners Group here. That is all for now.
Hello Everybody!
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