The Maiden Voyage - Event Date: 10 Jun 2016 - 25 Jun 2016

Wife and I took the new R-Pod 180 on its maiden voyage recently, starting out in Eastern PA and working our way out to the Rocky Mountains.  We'd only had it about a month and we're new to the entire concept of RVing, so it was quite an adventure for us.    After driving all day thru the Pennsylvania mountains and onto the Ohio turnpike, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that several of the service plazas on the OH turnpike have an RV lot for overnighters, complete with hookups and a dump station.    We drove across the prairie over the next couple days on I-80, boring for most people but since I grew up in Iowa, it was refreshing for me.  As we climbed out of Nebraska and into Colorado, I was keeping an eye on an ominous looking storm brewing to the south, when all of a sudden a large tornado takes shape right before my eyes, just as the "shelter in place" alerts started going off on our phones.    Although I'm not recommending it, I now know that the R-Pod can do about 90 mph in case it becomes necessary for any reason.    We spent time in Rocky Mountain National Park, then on to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and finally up to Glacier in Montana before we pointed it back towards the east and worked our way home.  We had a great time and the Lilly Pod  --as we sometimes call it because of the Frog and Lilly Pad emblem on the side-- did great generally speaking.  Our only pod issue was the Jensen TV screen.  It seemed to have a mind of its own and only worked intermittently.   The 19 inchers are pretty cheap nowadays (less than $100), so I'll probably just replace it with something better for the next voyage.  Everything else on the R-Pod worked as good or better than expected.  For finding campgrounds, we used several resources including a phone app (android) called RV Parks that was pretty useful.  Of the many lessons learned, we decided we'd try to avoid campgrounds that are mostly permanent residents.  It's not that they are bad places, or bad people, but it just wasn't the experience we were looking for.  (We enjoy meeting other travelers and things like that.)  We also found that checklists were pretty useful (after pulling onto a highway and noticing that the hand rail was still deployed.)    To sum it up, we had a blast and are already planning our next trip in September.  

Congratulations on your successful maiden voyage and welcome to the forum. We have a 179 that we picked up in December. Our maiden voyage was from North Carolina to Las Vegas (older daughter and family) and San Tan Valley, AZ (younger daughter and family.) We stayed mostly at truck stops on that trip. Most of the rest areas we saw did not have hookups and some specifically prohibited overnight stays. It is good to know Ohio is an exception.

Enjoyed your post. We are leaving Saturday for a 3 week trip out west to Tetons, Badlands, Custer State Park, Frontier Days in Cheyenne Wy. I have been researching fior campgrounds that are in parks so will not have to pay much for campsites. Most of them say first come first served and I am concerned about having a camp site each night. Did you have any problems finding places? I also have 116 R 180 and love it!!

Thanks for advice. Maybe we will meet on the road one day ☺️

I'm with you on the camp grounds with permanent residents, most of them seem to have golf carts and I hate golf carts!  For me it ruins the camping atmosphere when there is a steady stream of golf carts flying past my camp site making noise and stiring up clouds of dust.