We spent the week of June 16th at the Cape Cod Campresort in East Falmouth, MA.  We were very lucky to have almost perfect weather all week.  What a beautiful campground!  The rPod got a lot of attention from other campers and campground staff.

 

We are very pleased.  The rPod towed like a dream behind our Honda Odyssey. I towed mostly between 55 and 60 mph over some windy bridges (Tappan-Zee) and no problems.  Not sure I would recommend an 8 hour drive for the maiden voyage, but we lived.

 

Everything seemed to work as it should once we figured it out.  Some observations.

 

1.  We had a puddle of water in front of the galley one day before we left.  We had the rPod set up in the driveway with the slideout out and we had a severe T-Storm with torrential rain.  What's up with this?

 

2.  We ran the fridge on RV battery only to find at our first stop that it was beeping and the RV battery was exhausted.  I switched it over to propane for the rest of the trip.

 

3.  When we arrived I switched the fridge over to A/C power, but it just started beeping like crazy.  Turned out the GFCI (sp?) safety switch was tripped on the outlet and had been since we bought it....it never got switched on.  Oopsie.

 

4.  Not happy with the rDome.  It does not fit the rPod at all.  The two sides closest to the rPod were about a foot from the ground (meaning the black part that lays on the ground) and it just overall seemed like a poor fit.  The suction cups are a joke.  I called the dealer (Stoltzfus in Adamstown, PA) but they offered nothing constructive other than it was the correct (and only) model for the 178.   Not sure what to do about this.

 

5.  Cook in the microwave/convection oven?  Expect the smoke detector to go off!  I had to pull the 9-volt battery to get some peace.

 

6.  Only turned it on for a minute, but the A/C unit is the noisiest A/C I have ever heard.

 

It sure was nice camping in a travel trailer as opposed to the pop-up.  I never realized how great those fantastic fans are in the bathroom....turn it on and the air comes flowing through the opened windows....what a great sleep!  It sure was nice to have hot water and a shower.

 

 

 

 

 

Glad you enjoyed your first trip out overall!

With risers domes just don't fit and a lot of times our smoke detector goes off.

Just the nature of the beast.

For the r-dome:  we don't camp without it for more than one night.  I made the following mods after several frustrating tries:

1). Made a pair of blocks from 4x4 about 8" long (essentially square) by splinting together two pieces with a 1x and lots of glue.  Drilled a 1/4" hole in the center for the end of the support pole and another hole all the way through at a corner to stake it down.  This brings the front of the dome to the same level as the pod side.  The flaps at the bottom still can be staked down or held down ( we use firewood hunks around the base).

2) On the pod side, we bit the bullet and attached 2" industrial white Velcro to the pod (hook side) and the loop side Chris sewed to the edge of the flap with our 40 year old sewing machine.  There are some aesthetic questions here tho, if you don't like the idea of a white or dirty grey strip down the side of the pod, or the 'decals' (actually stickers) are not done right, they can peel off, which happened on the hatch door of our 171. We also put a short section on the roof to hold the flap up (it goes at an angle).  

So far we haven't had a leak or the wind blow the dome off the side of the trailer.

Our experience with attaching the dome through the channel led me to copy another mod and make a metal end to the vinyl attachment cord and a rope pull. After replacing the screws with flathead ones, and lots of silicone spray, I can install the dome alone using a two step kitchen stool in about 7 minutes.

Good luck and enjoy! Walt