2022 #4: Sightseeing

Now that we were seriously considering buying an Oliver, the next step was to reach out to the company to learn more about them. There are no Oliver dealers, they are sold factory-direct, so if you don't live near the factory in Hohenwald, Tennessee you need to visit a privately-owned trailer if you want to see one. An email to Oliver was quickly answered and our sales rep helped us make arrangements to visit Jeff and Katie's brand-new Oliver Elite 2 at their house. 

There were a couple of things in particular we wanted to look at: the beds and the bathroom. The Elite 2 comes in two floorplans, one with a dinette/king bed conversion in the back, the other with fixed twin beds. Steph was leaning towards the twin bed floor plan for easier access to overhead storage and not needing to convert the bed at night, but I had my doubts. I'm 6 feet tall and was worried the bed would be uncomfortably small for me. This is not a standard twin mattress. It is only 30" wide and tapers at the back. Jeff and Katie graciously allowed us to lie in their beds and I found that the twin was adequate and the upgraded mattress was comfortable.

We spent a fair amount of time in Jeff and Katie's trailer. 

Steph thought the overall space and kitchen facilities were fine for our needs and she didn't mind the refrigerator being down on the floor.

The bathroom was another story. Being at the front of the trailer, the bathroom ceiling curves down sharply. I like my morning showers. In our fifth wheel, they're just like home. However, while I could stand comfortably in the rest of the Oliver, I found my hair brushing the ceiling vent in the bathroom. Worse, the shower head was approximately 5" below the top of my head. Showering while standing would require some sort of squatting in the very limited space or, more likely, showering while sitting on the toilet. Not something I look forward to. But, I've done it before - in the bathrooms of Amtrak sleeping cars. It's a little weird, but it's do-able. Unfortunately, sitting showers will mean we'll have to dry the entire bathroom after showers, not just the shower area itself. A bit of an inconvenience.

Another thing we discovered during the visit was that the air conditioner is LOUD. Too loud to hold a normal conversation at the back of the trailer with it running. This, and the bathroom height, were the biggest concerns we took away from our visit to Jeff and Katie's Oliver. After some discussion, and more research on the Oliver forums, we decided that the pros still outweighed the cons. An Oliver Elite 2 with the twin bed floorplan was in our future.

Time to spend some money.