Can a minivan really pull a trailmanor?

Hi All,

My wife, myself and two eleven year old twin girls have been camping the last few years by renting pop-ups. We've talked about buying a pop-up in the past, but never had. We went to the RV and Boat show in Denver on Thursday and fell in love with the trailmanors.

My problem is the tow vehicle. We've got a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan mini-van that has a tow rating of 3500 pounds. However, I live in the mountains above Boulder at 8500 feet elevation and we generally camp in the mountains. This leads me to believe there is no way that we'll be able to handle this with a minvan. I've been renting around 2000lb pop-ups and gotten decent performance in the mountains with them fully loaded. However, with the trailmanors we're probably talking close to another 1000 pounds fully loaded with a 2720 which would probably be the one we'd choose.

So my first question is, does anyone use a minivan to tow a trailmanor and if so, have they gone driving at higher elevations or in the mountains? Does it handle ok and what model do you have?

My second question is about the tow vehicle. We have been considering replacing the mini-van with another vehicle. The problem is that we like the amount of space we get in our minivan and hate to give it up for the additional towing capacity. If we replace the tow vehicle, do people have suggestions? Here is what I care about -
1. Tow capacity
2. MPG - Let's face it the majority of the time, we're transporting the family and not towing anything. It'd be nice to get better mileage.
3. Need to transport 6 people (our 4 and 2 extra adults or kids)

Thanks for any and all feedback.

--Jeff