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That will probably be what I end up doing every fall also. I have a buddy that is looking at the Tandem tow dollies for hauling his car and trike around behind his MH. We have considered this as a possibility for the future if we end up wanting to shorten our present combination. However, looking inside my enclosed trailer I'm not sure where all my "stuff" would go.

DBenoit, I'm starting to get the impression that you are somewhat of a "city" person and new to this cross country RVing stuff. If you are not comfortable taking the toad then don't. I'm sure you can rent a car at your destination if you end up needing one, and you probably will need one. Maybe this first long adventure will be easier without a toad to worry about. Relax, preplan the route and fuel stops, enjoy the trip. You will be fine.

Just like with the appliances in your sticknbricks, they are not built to last. The days of having the same washer/dryer for 30 years is over, or the same frig for 25 years. That is part of the reason we negotiated an extended coach warranty when we bought this rolling turd. I'm thinking we have about $5,000 to $6,000 worth of appliances not counting 3 air conditioners plus the Oasis to worry about failing in the first five years.

My coach of course has a FL chassis. Maybe it is the comfort drive system, don't know. But if any of you drove my coach "wallow or sway" would never be in your description of how it handled. I don't know, maybe if I climbed behind the wheel of a Newmar on a Spartan chassis I would wet my pants because it drove so nice. My only experience with a DP is that mine goes down the road like a heavy Cady in all road conditions with very little effort from me.

We are stationary for 30 days up here in SW Alabama. You can only visit New Orleans and Mobile so much, so I have numerous days to fill in. After only 4.5 months of full timing it is time to weed some things out and lighten the load. I started going through tools and equipment today. Anything I haven't used in a few months, or I have more than one of, is gone. So far in just a couple of hours I was able to empty an entire trailer cabinet of extra "junk" My point is I want to be prepared and have most of the tools and supplies I will probably need. However, I am determined not to haul around 200 or 300 pounds of extra stuff that I may not use for years and years.

I will have to agree with Carl on a 40'+ coach that seats that many folks inside. We can seat 9 in our floor plan but that would be a little too cozy for me. We just went through our DP search last fall. My only suggestion would be to locate a Tiffin, Entegra, and Newmar in floor plans you like, and ones that have tags. Then take a test drive in each one. Generally speaking that is what we did and there was no way I wasn't buying the Newmar. But that's just me, and this is my first DP. I think if you are looking at 20 years on the note you may be able to get around 5% or 5.2%. As far as trade in goes we only had appraisals from Lazy Days in Tampa and North Trail in Ft. Myers. Lazy Days offered below "low retail" and North Trail gave us over $10,000 above high retail for our trade in coach. In addition Lazy Days wouldn't reduce the price of their unit nearly as much as North Trail did. This was just our recent experience between these two large Florida dealerships, you may not get the same results.

Very nice model. When you have a 40' plus model with a tag, plus Newmar's comfort drive system, you will have a hard time staying awake while driving! Keep us informed.

Wow Carl, taking the plunge at North Trail? Be careful when you get there because when I left they were pretty well stocked. While waiting on service on my coach last month I did my morning walk in their display lots. There are a ton of Essex's and Mountain Air's with your name on them!

Never been around NYC traffic on a Friday night, or any other night for that matter. I assume you are thinking of driving straight through the whole 15 hours? Unless you are young (25 to 40 yoa) and are a third shift worker, I certainly would not suggest you drive all night. Even if there are two drivers it can be a safety issue IMHO. Tired driver's probably cause about as many accidents as drunk drivers, plus it is much easier to hit something on the road at night (animals, re-treads, debris) and damage tires.

We are currently in Azalea Acres RV Park, Robertsdale AL. We picked it based on a recommendation from friends. They had evacuated Florida before Irma hit and landed up here. It is 30 miles east of Mobile and 154 miles east of New Orleans. There are other nice size towns all around and the rural roads in this area is great for motorcycle riding/exploring. The CG is very well maintained and clean. There is no pool but it has a extremely nice laundry and bath house. Many of the sites are pull thru and over 100' long, some with concrete and some without. All interior roads are gravel but flat and smooth. Staff is very helpful and friendly. This park has probably the fastest internet we have ever found. It is much faster than our Verizon MiFi and is just as fast as our old service in our sticknbrick when we had it. For some this may be a little too far out for visiting New Orleans and Mobile. For us it is just right. We booked a month and will drive our car into those cities and do our sightseeing. The rest of the time we can enjoy this rural part of Alabama. Oh, I almost forgot the best part, their current rate is $300 a month plus electric.

We mainly stay in SW Florida for the winter, so can't help you with recommendations. Your timing is good though. Folks that start trying to find a site in November are usually out of luck.

The only way I would ever buy another Class A gas (assuming it was on a F53 chassis) is if it was going to be parked in one CG all summer and then driven less than 20 miles and stored. In other words, I would never own another one to actually travel in. We had a Thor Challenger (2014) 37GT. Did front end alignment, Safe T Plus, Sumos all around, and it was still a pain to drive down the interstate. If the thing even saw a 2% grade a mile ahead it would start screaming! If we ever get rid of our present DP we will be going back to a fiver, lots of room and good drivability.

I agree that the air ride seats are great for taking the "bumps" out. Last spring I drove a brand new Penske with a load to Florida from central Illinois. I'm sure the suspension was a little more stiff on it because it only had about 400 miles on. That seat made all the difference in the world but you glide up and down a lot in them, or at least in a big rig you do. In a DP with our suspensions I can't imagine needing one.

So far this week a 5-ton box truck nudged the front of our Mini. Of course I thought the dumba&& was going to take the whole front end off. The only reason it happened was because he was in a hurry. In heavy 2-lane traffic he pulled out around me into the oncoming narrow lane and side swiped the front of my car. Then yesterday after 4 hours of driving in a storm we were almost out of Florida and into Alabama. The weather was clearing and I had the cruise finally set on 68mph. A flat bed truck-tractor-semi-trailer came flying around me running between 75 and 80 unloaded. He must have just dropped off some equipment that had mud and gravel all over it because dirt and rocks were flying off his trailer. Of course he pulled right back in front of me and I immediately started hearing the "pings" on the front of the coach. Got on the brakes quickly but it was too late, nice 4" crack on the right side of my windshield. Got fuel later and inspected the front of coach. At least he didn't give me any broken lights or paint chips. Another "professional" driver in a big hurry. Why not take a few minutes and either blow or sweep that trailer off before jumping on I-10 and seeing how fast your junk equipment can go!

For everyone north, I have just made it as far as western Alabama (30 miles from Mobile) and had to run heat and diesel burner this morning. I wouldn't break out the shorts for another few weeks yet.....just sayin....

Brian, I have 2 cents I ain't got nothing to use for..... I would get one of these: http://www.valterra.com/product/flush-king-reverse-rv-flush-valve-boxed/ With a Flush King you can back flush from the discharge which may or may not knock some of that bottom junk off the tank. They are not very expensive and usually allow more water faster into a holding tank. Another thing they are good for is back flushing your other tanks.

Carl, that is all true. Another check mark in the "advantages of having a DP" list. Another slight advantage I will experience today is driving in storms/rain. We are leaving St. Augustine around 8am and it looks like we will not get out of rain until after lunch. For me visibility is much better sitting up in my DP as compared to my F350 cab.

I know Carl, when you have a box truck that close to your driver's window and your line of sight is under his cargo box, you realize how small you really are in a Mini Cooper. Then to top it all off, the DP next to us this week was getting ready to leave this morning. There were a couple things I observed this week that made me think he may have just bought that thing. For one, he had his Aqua Hot on diesel burn the whole time he was here (we are not charged electric). Anyway, there was a lot of room for him to pull out of his large pull-thru site but I just felt better moving the Mini anyway. Well he pulled out a few minutes after I moved the Mini and if I would have left it in place he would have taken the front left off! There was no need for him to even cut over into my site but typical of an inexperienced large DP driver he came flying out of the site like he was driving a large SUV instead of a 45' rig.

We probably witness more "idiot" drivers in Florida than anyplace else now. Since we have moved up to St. Augustine last week from North Ft. Myers we have gotten stuck two times on the interstate, once in the coach and once in the Mini, for serious multiple car crashes that have closed the road. It is getting almost commonplace to see cars going over 90mph and some RV getting close to 80-85 anymore. It is like the wild west on these sunshine state interstates at times.

Wow, almost averaging 10,000 miles a year for 42 years! Have you been full timing most of those years? I carry four fire extinguishers and haven't needed the either, but those are more important for saving life and property and don't take up as much room as a case of beer actually. I may need a engine or tranny while out on the road but don't carry those with me. My point was a 22.5 tire is very heavy and large so unless you are blowing one every year or so, why drag one around the let it age out? If you didn't use it in 5 or 6 years it would probably be a throw away. I'm pretty new to this DP stuff though. Who knows maybe after a couple years I'll be trying to figure out how to store a spare.

If we were going to be closer I would certainly help you out eodted. Normally this time of year we would be coming right up through Montgomery. However this year we have reservations south for another month. Have you considered finding a cheap place to temporarily store your rig, get him home, and then make arrangements for someone to come back and get it?

I think you will discover, after looking at different fiver floor plans, there may be slightly more storage inside some fiver than some DPs. On the other hand, there will always be more storage under the DP than in any fiver I have looked at. As far as livability while sitting in Florida for 3 - 4 months, you can find really open floor plans in both fivers and DPs given enough large slides that will accomplish this. We also camp stationary in Florida for about 4 months. We are active down here and are on the go a lot. It is much more enjoyable to run around in a small vehicle as compared to a 1-ton diesel. I guess you are also considering the other obvious advantages and disadvantages of both types of RVs. A couple advantages I enjoyed with the fiver was that if something went wrong with my engine or tranny we still had a place to live. Good luck with sorting it all out.

Our last gas MH was 37' with the Ford V-10 (2014 model). We only towed a aluminum trailer with a 1,200 pounds Harley on it. On a really good day I could get 7mpg. Most days were in the 6+ range. Generally drove 62-66mph.

Ernie and Jack, welcome home! If you don't display the VN campaign ribbon on the back of your RV you should find one and put it on. I have displayed one on my Harley windscreen and the back of my RV now for awhile. You will be shocked at how many vets will stop by and shake your hand and have a chat.

I guess I am shocked that anyone with a 40' MH or larger would carry a spare and/or equipment to change a tire. How often do you have flats? Is this an annual event or maybe happens every 4 or 5 years? I have a cheap compressor to air tires to 125psi plus jacks/tools/spare for my trailer. We are fairly new to MH's though, am I missing something?