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Old 08-26-2015, 02:43 PM   #1
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Five-month trip in an Escape 21 -- summary

I left home in mid-March and returned in late August, so I was livinin my Escape 21 for a bit over five months. I won't write a detailed report this time, but I'll summarize my impressions of the trailer and its systems during this trip:

Towing -- I still believe that the Escape 21's best feature is its
towability, and the Toyota Tacoma makes a perfect tow vehicle for it, as long as you aren't going over high mountain passes on a daily basis. That might wear out a Tacoma's engine prematurely.

Livability -- I was comfortable with the trailer's space and storage, and never felt cramped. I used the trailer's bathroom and avoided campground facilities, and I dumped the holding tanks about once per week.

Stability when parked -- Our trailers are light enough so that the wind can push them around when they are parked, potentially causing a hazard. Make sure your trailer is well-chocked, and use sturdy chocks. The X-Chock is not a chock.

Refrigerator -- I had my fridge replaced with the Dometic two-door model. It seems to work better than the single-door model, but it still gets too warm sometimes. It is possible that its fans aren't working correctly. I learned to keep only three days' of food in the fridge/freezer, and eat out on Saturdays (yay!).

Furnace -- The Atwood 8012-II that was used until recently in Escape 21 trailers has an unusual sail switch that RV dealers do not stock. Carry a spare. Also, problems with this sail switch seem to be hard to diagnose.

Water heater -- I finally decided to leave the water heater on all the time. It doesn't use much propane, and I had hot water when I needed it.

Solar power -- 355W of solar panels will run the fridge when towing and keep the batteries charged. This is true for August when it is sunny; on a cloudy day when towing the battery charge will go below 90%, still good. I don't know about fall/winter yet. I have the two six-volt batteries.

For details of any of the above subjects please ask. Also, for details of the trip itself I've included a spreadsheet listing the places I visited. I started the spreadsheet for myself to track trailer mileage, but then added info to make it useful to others. So look it over and ask me anything, as they say on Reddit.
~
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Old 08-26-2015, 02:58 PM   #2
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Were you by yourself on the trip?
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Old 08-26-2015, 03:32 PM   #3
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I believe he was, at least in Osoyoos he was.....nice meeting you Mike!!
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Old 08-26-2015, 03:40 PM   #4
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Mike,
Some headings were not shown, confuse over mileage difference, also what about your gas,food expenses and other, just to get an idea on what the total costs were.
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Old 08-26-2015, 06:05 PM   #5
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Jim, it was good to meet you as well. I'm having a multiple-tech-failure-day (MTFD) so I didn't get the headings in. They are:

Date, Trip Leg Destination, Trip Leg Miles, Cumulative Trip Miles, Cumulative Trailer Mileage, Nights (at campsite), Cost / Night, Total Cost, Campground Facilities, Comments. If I manage to successfully export the spreadsheet to a PDF again, I'll post it again. Apparently I get only one shot, though.

I was traveling alone. Furthermore, I did not find a wife on this trip. :-)
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Old 08-26-2015, 06:33 PM   #6
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Quite an interesting trip, Mike. Any good shots at Big Bend? Mt Rainier? Great Basin? Favored spots on WA->OR Coasts?
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Old 08-26-2015, 06:57 PM   #7
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Jim, it was good to meet you as well. I'm having a multiple-tech-failure-day (MTFD) so I didn't get the headings in. They are:

Date, Trip Leg Destination, Trip Leg Miles, Cumulative Trip Miles, Cumulative Trailer Mileage, Nights (at campsite), Cost / Night, Total Cost, Campground Facilities, Comments. If I manage to successfully export the spreadsheet to a PDF again, I'll post it again. Apparently I get only one shot, though.

I was traveling alone. Furthermore, I did not find a wife on this trip. :-)
Mike:
To be clear, we have a 21' on order for April delivery and this is my first post. So I am no expert on the Escape. Thank you for the five month review, especially the comment on how the new two door Fridge performed. We live in Las Vegas, NV with the high heat and hope the Frig will be acceptable.

We have owned three different RV's with Dometic Fridge's and all have cooled OK. The last being a Casita. We have always traveled with the propane on, and I believe this allowed the Fridge to stay cooler. Your post indicates you travel with your Fridge in DC mode not propane.

Have you tried the Fridge on propane while traveling? Any additional comments are appreciated.

Thank you Mike and everyone else for all the great information you have provided, We can't wait for hockey to start and April to come.
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Old 08-26-2015, 07:52 PM   #8
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Quite an interesting trip, Mike. Any good shots at Big Bend? Mt Rainier? Great Basin? Favored spots on WA->OR Coasts?
That looks like a nice campground, Myron. I thought about trying for it or Whidbey Island, but I didn't on this trip.

I'll post some photos in a few days. I didn't really take a lot of photographs on this trip. Among other things the wildfires out West caused a lot of haze, the least of their bad effects, I know.
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Old 08-26-2015, 07:57 PM   #9
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Mike:
Have you tried the Fridge on propane while traveling? Any additional comments are appreciated.

Thank you Mike and everyone else for all the great information you have provided, We can't wait for hockey to start and April to come.
I have traveled and camped with the fridge on propane, and in general it does pretty well, but at times it has gotten too warm using propane. There is another thread where folks have posted fridge temps. I'm recording a spreadsheet and I'll post August temps at the end of the month.

Right now, among other things, the freezer door is jammed shut. I've no idea what to do and haven't yet really investigated. I discovered the jammed door this morning.
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Old 08-26-2015, 10:13 PM   #10
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Quite an interesting trip, Mike. Any good shots at Big Bend? Mt Rainier? Great Basin? Favored spots on WA->OR Coasts?
As for campgrounds / locations, I liked:

- The Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park campground in Fredericksburg, TX. The town was built out of limestone by German immigrants. I'd like to spend more time there.

- Chisos Basin campground in Big Bend National Park.

- Most of the state parks I stayed at in New Mexico are scenic, but I was hampered by bad weather.

- Sedro-Woolley, Washington city park is inexpensive and convenient to a nice area.

- Nk'Mip Resort was nice; I'd like to spend more time in that area.

- The campgrounds in the more remote national parks like Great Basin are sometimes bargains, but beware of national park campgrounds that are run by concessionaires. They tend to be overpriced. $32 for a site with no hookups is a ripoff imho. The national parks themselves are very popular with U.S. and foreign tourists, so they are frequently crowded. Serious nature-lovers probably enjoy them more than I did; I'm more of a "traveler" than a "camper".
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Old 08-27-2015, 06:05 AM   #11
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I have traveled and camped with the fridge on propane, and in general it does pretty well, but at times it has gotten too warm using propane. There is another thread where folks have posted fridge temps. I'm recording a spreadsheet and I'll post August temps at the end of the month.

Right now, among other things, the freezer door is jammed shut. I've no idea what to do and haven't yet really investigated. I discovered the jammed door this morning.
Mike,
My experience with the two-door fridge is that 12v holds cold temp less well compared to either propane or 120v. Dometic (Australia) literature shows less wattage used in 12v, versus 120v/240v. We have started on travel days with 12v (solar and 2 6v), and then switched to propane in the afternoon as ambient and fridge temps went up. Remote read-out in the tow car. Overall, very happy with two-door fridge/freezer results--have had to reduce settings to avoid freezing in the fridge, sometimes.

We had a freezer upper left hinge pin problem. I can explain, if that is part of your door problem.

Agree with your "traveler" definition.
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Old 08-27-2015, 07:20 AM   #12
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Mike,
Overall, very happy with two-door fridge/freezer results--have had to reduce settings to avoid freezing in the fridge, sometimes.

We had a freezer upper left hinge pin problem. I can explain, if that is part of your door problem.
Bill
I'm not getting as good results, even on propane. It's possible the fridge's fan is not working; I still have to check this out.

My freezer door is loose on its hinges, so I may be having the upper hinge pin problem. Please elaborate.

thanks,
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Old 08-27-2015, 07:47 AM   #13
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Mike,
Some headings were not shown, confuse over mileage difference, also what about your gas,food expenses and other, just to get an idea on what the total costs were.
It appears that I drove 18,825 miles on the trip and spent $3,189.86 on gasoline. I'm rather dismayed by this, as I assumed camping fees would be my biggest challenge. But there it is. Spread out over more than five months it doesn't look so bad.

As for food, my spending was roughly analogous to what I spend at home, which is too much because I don't cook enough. I was careful not to eat out all the time, but I did buy frozen dinners.

My original intent was to go to New Mexico and stay for 2-3 months. I had purchased their annual camping pass for $225, so add that to my camping fees. But after six weeks of wind and rain, and having enough of a surplus in my "gasoline" account to get me to Canada, I decided to attend the Osoyoos rally. Then, while I was in the area, I had ETI replace my fridge. Then I had another solar panel put on the trailer in Oregon. Then I had friends in Oregon and California I wanted to visit, and so on. So I ended up in California, by way of Canada.

I will not be making a long trip like this in 2016.
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Old 08-27-2015, 07:51 AM   #14
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Gotcha, thanks for the clarification....I purposely did not get the microwave to avoid the frozen dinner convenience, bad calories, and hope to use the oven in the cooler times. I enjoyed stopping at local markets, both in/out Canada for fresh food. Particularly in Osoyoos.
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Old 08-27-2015, 08:49 AM   #15
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I'm not getting as good results, even on propane. It's possible the fridge's fan is not working; I still have to check this out.

My freezer door is loose on its hinges, so I may be having the upper hinge pin problem. Please elaborate.

thanks,
The RMD upper left freezer pin came loose in ours, but is an easy fix. See if you can identify the pin itself. It is about .75 inch long and appears to have been press fit into the chromed plate attached to the housing. If the pin comes loose, it can fall an inch or so into the plastic corner of the freezer door, and you get it out by turning the door upside down, assuming the door comes off like ours did.

The pin itself is splined, and what I did was push it into its former location in the chrome bracket from above, this time. The splines keep it from going all the way down into the bracket, (which is good) but it seems to be permanently located. Free fix, and permanent. Many thousands of miles of happy fridge use.
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Old 08-27-2015, 09:24 AM   #16
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Propane

Oh, yeah-- how could I forget my favorite substance?

I filled propane bottles eleven times, for a total cost of $131.59. I would have used more if my furnace had been working during the first several weeks of my trip. Prices varied greatly-- cheapest was in Sedro-Woolley, WA, at $1.29 / gallon in late June; highest was $3.50 / gallon at a Pilot near Spokane in early June. Two places charged a flat fee per tankful, but it was lower than $3.50 / gallon in Spokane.

The furnace uses the most propane by far. The fridge and water heater don't use that much, even when I left the water heater on all the time. And I didn't cook enough for the stove to use a significant amount of propane.
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Old 08-27-2015, 09:30 AM   #17
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Gotcha, thanks for the clarification....I purposely did not get the microwave to avoid the frozen dinner convenience, bad calories, and hope to use the oven in the cooler times. I enjoyed stopping at local markets, both in/out Canada for fresh food. Particularly in Osoyoos.
Yeah, I resolved to cook more on this trip, but continued problems with the fridge put me off. I'm having issues with the new one as well. In Osoyoos I asked Reace about retrofitting an oven into my trailer. He said it was impractical as the cabinetry is different.
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Old 08-27-2015, 10:04 AM   #18
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Mike,
check out the Fridge Guard thread as well as putting your fans on a switch as the thermistor is too high a setting. You have been on the road so you may not have seen these See here http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f3...tats-5501.html
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8...uard-6144.html
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Old 08-27-2015, 10:46 AM   #19
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So I ended up in California, by way of Canada.

I will not be making a long trip like this in 2016.

That happens to many Canadians too.


Glad you had a great time.
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Old 08-27-2015, 11:32 AM   #20
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Where is your report there, Bruce, were you not on the road awhile yourself? Still lovin my Hemi....
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