Dan Erickson

Leon, I appreciate your willingness to share your TM experience with us as prospective future TM owners. We've gone the full gammit of travel/camper vehicles too. Believe it or not we started out on our Honeymoon with a home-built PM fold-up cartop sleeper designed for the top of a station wagon, but all we had was a '65 VW Bug, so that's where the 4' x 8' roof-top camper went. We had a section of windmill ladder to climb in from the rear bumper. We got lots of smiles in that one! We went to tents, Starcraft fold-downs (3), a 20' travel trailer, conversion van camping, and now with 4 kids raised and on their own, we were seriously considering a Class B camper van like Pleasureway, Roadtrek, Great West, or Sportsmobile. Right now we have a 2000 Chevy Explorer hi-top conversion van with a complete towing package (2" receiver, 6-way plug, brake control, extra cooling, etc. and after seeing the TM at the RV Show, we've decided to keep the van (instead of trading it for a Class B) and look for a good used TM to tow. We'd like the extra sleeping capacity of the 3023 or 3124KB so we could take our married kids and grandkids camping and traveling from time to time, but then also have more inside space when the two of us would go on longer trips by ourselves.

I appreciated the detailed winterizing steps you shared. That will be particularly handy for us living in Northern Illinois if we travel South in mid-winter and return home while we're still experiencing sub-freezing temps.

Is your AC on the front roof section? I think I'd like to locate one set-up that way so the AC unit is directly above the day-time living area. Do you know what model year the roof AC was moved to the front roof section? The '98 I was inquiring into still had the AC on the rear roof.

As to sleeping comfort, the rear bed area seems to have very adequate ventilation with opening windows on 3 walls. I was also considering an additional Fantastic ceiling vent/fan at the rear portion of the rear roof to help pull/push air through the sleeping area on very still/calm nights.

Do you have either/or or both an oven and microwave. With our travel trailer I appreciated being able to use the propane oven (even while towing in some cases) when we weren't plugged in to AC power. It was nice to sit down to a pot roast or baked chicken and baked potatoes at the end of a day on the road. I realize I'll need to give up that ability with a fold-down TM though.

Again, thanks for your previous reply to my inquiries and thanks in advance for any additional input and insights you bring our way.

Dan Erickson