A year ago in July our Aliner camping came to a sudden end when a microburst dropped a big Doug fir on ours. After lots of web shopping over the winter, we settled on the Rpod 176T as our gotta-have. In May we put down a deposit on one with Bretz RV in Missoula. Unfortunately, the 176T is only manufactured in Indiana, but Bretz agreed to eat the freight to get it to Montana.

Things slowly headed south, when Bretz couldn't get a commitment from the factory on a build date, and finally, when the target build date moved to early September, with delivery in October, we pulled the plug and got our deposit back. Our summer was winding down so we went on to other pursuits.

Remember Garth Brook's hit "God's greatest gift is unanswered prayers?" We were on a biking trip, and as we arrived in Spokane, Bonnie spotted an Rpod on a dealer's lot. She said it didn’t have a spare tire, a tell-tale indicator of a possible T model. At the motel that night I Googled for 176T and sure enough, Blue Dog RV had a 2011 in Spokane. That trailer now has a new home here in Montana!

Since we won’t be able to camp around here till maybe May, I’ve got lots of time to re-engineer the 176T to better fit our needs. And since I saved lots of beans going used, I feel justified to spend a little doing the mods.

Anyway, I’ll post some of the things on the Podmods thread.