Seems like the more you search for EPIC campsites the more you concentrate on that instead of just camping and enjoying the peacefulness of Mother Nature. We decided to extend Lynn’s birthday trip by one night with a stay at Roan Mountain State Park… on top of a mountain…. down by a river… with a cold mountain night… and a campfire. And in doing so we realized that this… this, is what camping is all about.

If you’re new to our channel you may be surprised to learn that this is not the first time I’ve cut a hole in an expensive RV. Sometimes in trying to make a new RV fit you and your lifestyle you need to make modifications. In this case I could have just removed the front TV and repurposed the sound bar in the back area and left the cutouts and TV mount in place. But with all that extra storage behind where the TV used to be that just didn’t make sense.

So with drill and saw in hand I set out to turn what used to be our TV area into a storage area that matched the other 2 over-cab storage areas. I’ll show you how I did it. What tools you’ll need to do the same thing if you so desire. And I’ll share with you all the benefits of making this very invasive and irreversible mod.

We drove 2,000 miles out of the way to head back to Iowa so we could get our Winnebago Ekko repaired at the Winnebago Factory Service Center. So how was it?

First of all it’s apparent that they are truly the experts. Every skill. Every part. And every procedure to perfectly repair your Winnebago… no matter what your Big W is on. For us it was our new Ekko. She need some pretty major things done. Probably the most important was getting our blind spot detection/warning system to work again. We also had several window blinds that needed repair and/or replacement.

And after our experience there we will never, ever, never go to a dealer for service again! Why? It wasn’t just the fast and thorough work done… it was the experience and the people behind the big W. It was the feeling about being in the right place with the right people. From our first entrance into the service office area until we drove away 3 days later with everything repaired it was just the best.

Even though the garage in the Winnebago EKKO is big… for an RV garage… it’s still small. Meaning, if you put larger items in there, like Rad Mini Step-thru eBikes… well, there’s not much room for anything else.

We’ve made several long and short trips now with our Ekko, but we’ve yet to take any “toys”.,. No bikes… no inflatable paddle boards… none of that. But we want to. So we finally took everything out of the garage and tried to devise a plan for taking our bikes and maybe Oru kayaks and the griddle… and chairs… and a room… You get the picture quickly… if you put the bikes inside you have to selectively choose what else goes with you.

It was a lot of work to unload everything. It was a lot of work to put the bikes and try to make everything fit. But it was time well spent. You see we have to make a decision about what can go with us and what must stay behind. So it takes a little trial and error and a little sweat on a hot day to load, unload, load and unload… trying different configurations.

We’ve met many who take their bikes with them inside the Ekko garage and we could too. But we place such a premium on things being easy and organized and simple to use that putting the bikes inside, when we can easily put them outside just makes getting to everything else inside the garage more difficult than it needs to be. And… it severely limits what you can take inside the garage since the bikes are just big and bulky.

Our limo to our nephew’s wedding was our RV… our Winnebago EKKO. Boy did folks look at us when we showed up in an RV… but were they looks of “man, look at those idiots”… or looks of “wow!, they brought their house with them”??

Well if you know us then you know we didn’t care which of those emotions happened. We were on a trip in our RV that included so far Wisconsin, Iowa and now we found ourselves in Ohio… so going home for a more “respectable” form of transportation was out of the question.

You see that’s one of the great things about having a smaller Motorhome that thinks she’s a van… you can park anywhere… even a wedding venue. Granted the venue was an Ohio State Park (Lake Hope State Park) and granted it was an informal event… but to us it would not have mattered one bit. We did get dressed up for the event and it was a precious time in our lives as we watched our nephew marrying the love of his life. Surrounded by family and just steps away from our cool home-on-wheels… well it was just perfect. Many times one of us would walk out and let Maggie out for a walk… or grab a quick rest… or change into shorts since everyone else had on shorts… It just worked out great. It was hot so it was great to have a place to spend a little time cooling off.

Not only did we show up at the wedding in the RV, we also camped there. We booked 3 nights there thinking it would be a great campground and it would be awesome to spend time with our family. Well, those two things didn’t work out. The campground was just… ok. Very small sites, right on the road and very unlevel with little privacy. So when most of the family was ducking out early Sunday morning we decided to cut our stay in Ohio short and head… east back home? Nope.. back west… where we came from. Iowa.

Our RV has just a little time left on her warranty, since we bought her lightly used. So with the blind spot detection issues along with alternator and window blind issues we had several things that could be repaired under warranty. But getting in to see a dealer was going to mean waiting for months. Instead we pointed our home on wheels back west to the Winnebago factory. But this week is all about the wedding… the memories and family.

There’s just something about seeing your family so happy. And something about having your home with you when you go. Granted, you feel a little funny pulling up in an RV… kinda like cousin Eddie at the Griswold home, but she’s not really that big and it all went perfectly… even had folks looking in and asking about it and envious of our home at that wedding.

So if anyone asks you “Is it cool to show up at a wedding in an RV?”… tell then YES!! IT WAS!