Hello All!! We picked up a 2014 178HRE in late March and are really excited!  Taken 3 trips so far; one to our favorite beach camping in San Onofre, a 50 hour 1,000 mile road trip to Mammoth (for 2 days of skiing of course!) and a quick one night in Coronado at our first ever real "RV Park" (no picnic tables, cable hookups etc...blah).  We have a 9 month old and are still in the process of figuring out the best sleeping arrangements and finding a tension rod that is long enough to hold a blackout curtain across the dinette.  We bought a trailer because we are moving this summer and have almost 2 months off...so our goal is from San Diego to north of the Arctic Circle (Prudhoe Bay hopefully) then across Canada, eventually ending up in North Carolina; sounds easy except our son will turn 1 about a month into the trip!

On a whim, we stopped by an RV dealership and was amazed to learn you can actually tow a trailer with our 2013 Explorer 4WD, so the search was on.  Thanks to this page (and that other one), I saw that there are loads of good people and info on what appears to be a quality product so we tracked down our local dealer, saw the 178 and the new 179 and determined the 178 dinette was far superior (ie more suitable for us) and here we are.  The dealer had 2 on the lot, we chose a color and it came with “all the options” since “that’s the way they order them” and upgraded to a dual 6V battery.  I have done 1,500 miles or so with the combination and it held over 50MPH without much trouble clearing the Sherman Grade (to over 7,000ft leaving Bishop in the Eastern Sierras) and managed to pass some other less formidable RVs on a 2 lane road.  So far, gas mileage has been right at 10MPG overall with the cruise at 60MPH, including significant mountains and elevation changes.

There are several podmods forthcoming, first up is going to be 2 additional 12 volt adapters and then a shelf over the bed.  Hope to get time to get in an outdoor shower before leaving in June.  Will post more as we go along!

Three pictures, one “in its home”, another in the parking lot at Mammoth on a beautiful day and the 3^rd at dawn in the hills outside of Bishop.

freezingalaskan, Thanks for the thoughts...was already figuring out where to add 3 jerry cans to the car/pod, maybe now only need one!  Already planning for spare tires on the roof (silly Ford only putting a mini on something as big as the Explorer).  I am used to camping in the desert for days, so no water/pump station/cell/help isn’t really a major concern.  Having a trailer for a hard shell to sleep in is already a luxury!  The silt in the car/trailer is more concerning...my goal is at least to the Arctic Circle and may be to Coldfoot...there is gas there.

This will probably will be my only chance to get up that far north, and north of the Arctic is a strange fascination of mine.  In reality, knocking off that extra couple days to get all the way to Prudhoe Bay and back will provide more time to get other places.  Homer is on my list, the Parks/Richardson Hwy loop, including Denali is as well.  I've got several friends in Kodiak, so I may try and get a ferry down for a couple days (if I can get a reservation).  Regardless of how it works out, it's going to be an adventure!