{"id":65561,"date":"2018-11-09T05:34:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=65561"},"modified":"2018-11-09T06:26:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T13:26:57","slug":"destinations-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/09\/destinations-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Destinations, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a\u00a0little sooner than I anticipated but\u00a0here’s the sequel to\u00a0yesterday’s post<\/a>. After\u00a0the buildup in Part I hope you’re not disappointed but this is a big deal for me and I’m very excited about it. It’s a big part of the reason I’ve been “dreaming” about next season’s camping and bird photography trips so early this year.<\/p>\n

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This is my camping trailer, a Jayco Jayflight 19BH,\u00a0parked in another favorite dispersed camping spot near Montana’s Centennial Valley. In three months it will be ten years old and it’s served our needs extremely well. The floor plan is perfect for Mia and me, all of our photo gear and our camping\/bird photography\u00a0style\u00a0and I’ve had almost no problems with it in all that time.\u00a0I use it a lot in rough country and despite the abuse it’s taken over primitive, bumpy roads it’s stood the test of time. It’s the perfect size for us, large enough to meet our needs comfortably but not so\u00a0long or heavy\u00a0that it’s a pain in the butt to pull on the highway or to get into relatively tight places. The only significant issues\u00a0I’ve had with it have been flat tires and I certainly can’t blame those flats on the trailer.<\/p>\n

But as I’ve aged and developed the almost inevitable\u00a0infirmities that come with it\u00a0I’ve missed having some of the amenities and labor-saving features of more top of the line units. And I’ve really started to worry about breakdowns in the back country and especially about roof leaks in the wintertime when I’m not using it. Rubberized roof warranties are for 10 years and believe me manufacturers have those warranties figured out almost to the day! After 10 years you’re really taking a chance with an original roof and any leaks during wintertime would be an unmitigated disaster.<\/p>\n

So by now you’ve probably already guessed what I’ve done.<\/p>\n

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Yup, I bought another camping trailer, a Rockwood Mini Lite 2306. This photo was taken within an hour of me getting it parked on my driveway yesterday afternoon (my driveway is sloped so everything looks a little off-kilter). It isn’t new but it’s only a year old so it’s new to me and you can’t even tell it’s ever been used. It’s super clean and pristine inside and out.<\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0a little\u00a0larger than my old one (but only by a foot, rear bumper to tongue)\u00a0and it has many more amenities\u00a0but it’s almost exactly the same weight due to all the aluminum used in construction.\u00a0The quality build is obvious everywhere I look. It isn’t perfect for my needs\u00a0but camping trailers\u00a0never are because RV life is always a game of compromise, but it’s damn close\u00a0 I’ve actually been looking for a new one for over three years now but our needs are fairly unique and I just couldn’t find anything that would work well\u00a0for us, until this week.<\/p>\n

But what a pain in the ass the last two days have been for this old guy with a bad back and nerve problems! I thought getting all of my “stuff” out of the old trailer was going to kill me and it nearly did. I know I’ll be paying that price for days but it’s still fun and exciting and I’m looking forward to using my carpentry skills this winter to “fine-tune” some of the interior features to better suit our specific\u00a0needs.<\/p>\n

For the select few of my readers who may be\u00a0RV junkies like I am or who may be curious about the features and amenities of my new trailer here’s a link to a video walk-through of the Rockwood Mini Lite 2306<\/a>. The featured unit is exactly like mine except for two things I noticed – I have (and prefer)\u00a0an oven instead of the extra cupboard space under the stove and the fabric colors of the dinette are different from mine. Everything else is the same, including the floor plan\u00a0with Murphy\u00a0bed and double bunks\u00a0that I had so very much trouble finding.<\/p>\n

The salesman taking us through the walk-through annoyed me for the first minute or so but after that he grew on me to the point that I ended up\u00a0liking him, though we never see his face.<\/p>\n

I know, in some ways November seems like a crazy time to buy a camping trailer but given the considerations I explained above I felt I had to get it done before winter set in. I just hope my health challenges will allow me to\u00a0actually use it, especially for my trips to Montana’s Centennial Valley. That could go either way.<\/p>\n

But at the moment\u00a0I’m feeling optimistic…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a little sooner than I anticipated but here’s the sequel to yesterday’s post.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,1493,360],"tags":[4301,555,4306,220,4305,4303,4302,4304],"class_list":["post-65561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","tag-camping-trailer-review","tag-centennial-valley","tag-jayco-jayflight-19bh","tag-montana-2","tag-murphy-bed-and-double-bunks","tag-rockwood-mini-lite-2306","tag-roof-warranty","tag-walk-through-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/trailer-and-pickup-9731-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-h3r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}