Hi All-
Added some more photos to the photo page with shower, cat box, folding
dinette table, and more electric stuff.
My wife and I travel often to music conventions - she is a college
music professor - and this is our "motel" for that. Summers we take
long trips from here in southern California to points east and north,
visiting family and friends. The last 3 1/2 years we have been to all
the lower tier of Canadian provinces, from BC to NF, as well as many
of the east coast states and most of those between here and there.
On the road we tend to travel 400-600 miles a day, usually not
stopping until about 8-9PM, so we set up in the dark mostly. We seek
out remote camping areas if we can, and try to be really quiet when
setting up. The Chalet takes only about 3 minutes to set up,
stabilize, and light water heater and 'fridge. Guess we're not the
"sit around the campfire" types. After we retire, this may change...
Our '94 Plymouth Grand Voyager AWD 3.8L gets about 17-18 MPG towing
our somewhat bloated Chalet (must weigh it sometime), has 113,000
miles on it and is still going strong.
In making the modifications, I made many drawings to fit things in, as
well as weight and balance calculations. The battery bank (as close to
the axle as I could manage and directly over a spring hanger) may look
out of place but its 260 pounds is mostly offset by the fresh water
tank (125 lbs), water heater (70 lbs), and 'fridge (50lbs) on the
opposite side of the trailer. The front A/C unit offsets the removed
original battery weight (was forward of toilet). The gray water tank
and fresh water tank are next to each other so moving water from one
to the other doesn't affect the tongue weight. The tongue is still a
little heavy from dual LP tanks but mounting a Honda EU2000i in an
enclosure on the back bumper should help. We'll see.
I'm not sure what I would do if the Chalet project list ever reached
an end.
-Jay (and Anita) Hanawalt
18 lb Lewis and 9 lb "bell", our travel cats
1998 Chalet Alpine ++
