First Trip - Quad Cities

Well, technically, I've camped out in the View quite a few times already, but it's always been in a driveway! After a few nights in my own driveway, I took the View up to babysit the godkids (ages 8 and 3) and they thought it was great fun to watch DVDs while sitting up in the overhead bunk (I liked that I could keep an eye on the 2 kids much easier in the confines of an RV than chasing them all over the house!).

But after all that driveway camping, one does eventually wish to actually get on the road and get out to a real campground! So, what better way to start than by bringing it to show my camping buddies at the International T@B Rally out in the Quad Cities (IL/IA). Well, I couldn't exactly go to a T@B rally without my T@B, so since my mom was planning to attend with me, I had her drive the Subaru and T@B and I drove the View.

Here's mom getting ready to tow the T@B.


The trip to Sunset Lakes RV Resort only took about 2 hours, and the View did great-- easy to drive and super easy to set up once we got there!

The park had a terrific little paddling lake with paddle boats and canoes available, but I wanted to bring my own canoe.

Only bad thing about the View thus far...can't figure out yet the best way to bring the canoe along--- it's too long to strap onto the rear ladder vertically, and the roof is too high and filled with other stuff to store it up there, so I need to decide if I should get a boat trailer or get a new car that can be towed behind the View and then put the canoe on top of that. Decisions, decisions!

First Mod - LED replacement bulbs

I love the View's curvy, modern Euro interior and upscale look of the under-cabinet lighting. But after a few nights of driveway camping, I discovered a couple of drawbacks--- first, all those under-cabinet lights are HOT halogen bulbs. Leave 'em on in the winter for a few hours and you've got some nice hand warmers, but doing that in the summer, and they're not much fun to sit under! Second, each of those hot bulbs need 10 watts of power (and there's 9 of them total)-- fine if you're plugged into electric at a campground, but a quick way to drain the coach batteries if you're not.

So, I did a few searches to my trusty View-Navion Yahoo Group site and found a number of other V-N owners using LED replacement bulbs from SuperBrightLEDs.com. The bulbs were a bit pricey ($12/ea) but they last a long time, generate no heat, and best of all, require much less battery power to run (all 9 lights will now require only 1.35 total amps per hour versus 7.5 total amp hours previously, so I now can run the lights all night long for about the same amount of battery power it took to run them only 1 hour before). Best of all, they still have a warm tint to them just like the halogens did.

They look a little odd, but once in the under-cabinet light fixture, you can't see much of a difference. The light itself is a slight bit more diffused, softer, and less intense-- actually, quite nice for spot accent lighting around the coach. Highly recommended product and company!

For those of you who have a View or Navion, here's the actual product number and picture:
It's a G4-xHP6-D Warm White bulb.

Welcome to WinnieViews!

This site will follow the continuing travel adventures of me (Lynne) and my dog (Millie). I had started a travel blog a few years ago when I first got my T@B trailer (http://tabventures.blogspot.com/). When I bought the Winnebago, it seemed only fitting that it should have it's own new blog....and so we begin our next blog series: Winnie Views!

Our new rig is a 2008 Winnebago View 24H. We got a very sweet deal on it from Camping World of Indianapolis and spent the first night in their parking log reading the owner's manuals and having fun trying everything out!



Here are some shots of the interior (note the cushion colors specifically chosen to match Millie's "million hairs" of blond fur...every little bit helps!)--