Our Shake Down trip

We took our 2005 27 TM out on our Shake Down Ru. We took it up over 10,000 ft Kenosha pass and were boon docking to boot. Every night the temperature was in the 20's and the wind was 20-30 mph during 6-8 hours each day.

Here what we learned:

- The tires and wheels never got more than even warm to the touch.
- Our tandem bike rode safe and sound, only bouncing when the road was rough.
- We only have 20 gallons of fresh water, not 40 like we were told. The dimensions are 13X22X12.
- The upper door outside latch is broken and the little latch at the bottom of the door did not keep the door from popping open on the road.
- The four inch memory foam pads we put on the beds made the beds acceptable for sleeping.
- But introduce another problem, where to store those pads when the TM is folded down.
- Make sure you have everything out (or in) the TM before you fold it up. This is a real PITA
- My old U-Haul door mount mirrors were more than adequate.
- The clip on mirrors I bought from CW Shake badly.
- My new Honda generator eu2000i would only run about 7-8 hours on a tank running the furnace, converter and 1 twin sized elec. blanket.
- Having all the storage below counter tops is even a PITA for my short wife.
- There is inadequate storage for the front bed area. Makes for a cluttered area.
- Wind causes serious air leaks in the rear bedroom area.
- The furnace runs 75% of the time and blows against the opposite wall of the trailer instead of down the length of the trailer, meaning the front is toasty warm while the back bed and bath are cold.
- It is difficult to pre-pack for an early morning departure because all storage space is also required for normal access in the TM. This became evident because our sons have a very large slide in and 5th wheel and were packed and ready to go 1st thing while we spent a hectic hour (or more) getting everything stowed and ready to leave.

While we have not come to any long term conclusions about what the future will bring for us in relation to our TM, we certainly know the bloom is off the rose.