1994 Brave 29RQ RV: July 2014

Thoughts on RVing 5 years into it

We had a wonderful time on our most recent trip. I'm coming very close to accomplishing my goal of seeing all the national parks a reasonable driving distance from the Denver area. We originally bought the 1994 Brave because we could not find a new model that met our requirements of being less than 30 ft, a narrow body, walk around queen bed, and lots of windows. If I revisit my requirements now a couple of things have changed.

I would love a king bed that is easy to get into with being able to walk up to the side of it. The RV queen bed is too small for us and one of our dogs.

We don't need all the windows. We keep them covered with the metal foil insulation most of the time to keep the RV cool.

We still need the less than 30 ft for the campgrounds we go to. Anything bigger will limit where we can stay and is a trade off we aren't willing to make yet. I still want a narrower body because it is downright scary on major expressways to be caught between two trucks. Also many of the older national parks have narrow roads and we take our RV sight seeing in them.

I would love larger tanks sizes. Our 57 gallon fresh water and associated black/gray tanks only get us through 3 days of boondocking. The larger tank sizes is at odds with the shorter RV size in most cases.

I also want a big shower and not one that you can't turn around in. Ours is decent size but has a shower curtain which is annoying. When I look at some new ones they are so narrow in one direction that you hit both sides when turning around.

We find that we have more than enough storage in our RV. Even when we took 14 days of clothes and food for this trip we never filled up all our interior cabinets.

Originally I did not want a slide. I think I am now ambivalent about slides. If I found something I liked that had them, and was fully functional when they were in I would get it. However if I found something (like the 2015 Brave 26A) without them the lack of them would not be a deterrent.

I also didn't want a diesel. I wanted something every mechanic could work on for a reasonable price. Lots of mechanics know the Chevy 454 truck engine so that was a plus for me. I think I would still shy away from a diesel if an alternative in gas could be found. The exception may be some of the Mercedes Sprinter chassis. But they seem to lack in carrying capacity and/or tank size so not sure if they will ever be a serious consideration for me.

There are now several models of RV that meet some of our requirements better. They include the Forest River FR3, Forest River Georgetown 270K, Thor ACE and Thor Hurricane 27K. We would love for there to be a Winnebago choice but they seem to be behind the curve in terms of offering a king bed short RV. They have a new Brave with an interesting option of a corner queen with a bunk above. Unfortunately it has a measly 41 gallon fresh water tank.

Also a new RV will set us back about $80K. I'm not sure that the price is worth it when we already have a RV that we can take into the mountains and over passes like Monarch Pass. We spent $10K on this RV and have put approx. $11K into fixes and upgrades. We have an excellent suspension system, no wandering problems and it holds steady when the big trucks pass us.

I also like our fabric seats better than what is offered on the new ones where they are vinyl but called something like ultra leather which is just a fancy name for vinyl.

Whenever we make a fix or upgrade we choose the highest quality option so I have confidence in our Hankook tires, high temperature spark plugs and our other upgrades. In 1994 Winnebago built a quality product. Many of the new ones seem to be pretty shoddy in materials and build quality in comparison. The Brave generally gives us very little trouble compared to what I see on the forums for new models from the above manufacturers.

Also I'm wondering if we have enough big trips left in our area to warrant a new RV. Will we get tired of it if we get a new one with lots of problems? Many people spend the whole first year getting their new ones fixed and often have to take them back to the factory to fix all the build problems. They seem very happy to get good treatment at the factory but I'm not that sort of person. If my RV was so poorly built that I had to drive it back to the factory I'd be pretty unhappy with the purchase no matter how nice they were while fixing it.

While I ponder all these things I will keep my eye out for my perfect RV. Since I have so many requirements I'll probably never find it and just keep this one.

Mount Princeton

Mount Princeton was the last camping spot on our trip. It is an area we have wanted to return to after enjoying Cascade Campground a little further up the road.

We got a great treed site.

Our picnic table.

The many signs of the campground.

The creek behind our site.

A gentle creek shoots off the main creek and goes behind some sites like ours.

A little further down.

The wood that separates the gentle creek from the main one.

The main one is too rough to go into.

This is what Chalk Creek looks like.

Blossom rests on the picnic table. It was rainy so we didn't want to put our mat down and get it dirty.

The creek the next day with the sun out.

I really liked Mount Princeton but there were no official walking trails. You just sort of wander through the woods. I don't think it will be on our list to go back.

At Mount Princeton our refrigerator started to act up. It was fine on electric. When we started it on propane it was fine. However when it cycled off and tried to go back on while on propane it showed a fault. If we moved the switch to restart it then it would restart. It was only when it tried to restart itself that it wouldn't. Over night I moved the ice packs from the freezer to the fridge so it wouldn't get warm. I keep the ice packs so that I can do this whenever we are parked in a non-level position and have to turn the fridge off.

It seemed like a loose wire or bad connection so will put some conductive grease on it. We unplugged and plugged back in the wires and didn't see the problem again but it may have not been enough time to fully test it.

On the way home it rained again. Our windshield wipers reset themselves so they were resting in different positions on the windshield so one more thing to trouble shoot when we got home.

There was a delay on 285 and as we got closer we saw the results of an attempt to pass gone wrong. Looked to be a head on collision with one car straight into a rock wall on the side of the road and the other t-boned in the middle. A short time later we had a car attempting to pass coming the other way and looked like it was going to go right into us. Luckily they got back in their lane on time but it was very scary after seeing the crash. Needless to say we rode with our lights on and an extra sense of awareness.

Monarch Pass - the highest we did this trip

Monarch Pass at 11,312 feet was the highest we summited this trip. We tend to turtle up the big passes, sometimes going by vehicles that passed us earlier going faster as they are pulled over on the side of the road to cool down.

There was a ski lift at the summit with a parking area big enough for RVs. Next time we may stop and take it to the top to get a view of the continental divide.

Elk Creek Campground - Blue Mesa Reservoir

We scheduled a night at Elk Creek to break up our drive. The sites had electric just in case it was hot. The campground was nice with rocks for the dogs to climb on which they love. However, Blossom went into the reservoir and came out smelling like raw sewage. She got her first ever RV shower with Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo. We did our best to dry her with towels but she was still wet when it came time for bed so we made her sleep in the bed with us so that we could cover her with towels and make sure she was warm which made it very crowded. My thoughts started to wander to the new short (under 30 ft) RVs with king beds.

A site. Could have been ours, I'm not sure. They were all the same.

Blue Mesa Reservoir

Blossom before her unfortunate swim.

After the swim, enjoying the rocks.

Hail, washed out roads and hillsides collapsing.

I was too freaked out to get good pictures but we got had our first experience with washed out roads. There were many rock and branches washing through the roads in the mud. We had a car in front of us so could see how deep and our RV is pretty high clearance so we were fine. In the last couple of instances I got some pictures. We were through the worst of it by then.

Colorado National Monument

The Colorado National Monument was beautiful. Well worth the time to see it. We stopped at the visitor center, did the short hike there and then the drive through the park. At the entrance a sign advices a height restriction of 10' 6". We asked at the guard gate and they said they were really 16 ft or so and that we would be fine. I figured we could go to the visitor center and come back. Then at the visitor center were told that the big tour buses did the full drive all the time so it should be safe for all RVs. As a result we got to do the full drive.