Meet Manny
Ladies and gentlemen of the court, please rise for the entrance of the honorable, the distinguished, the venerable, the one and only new addition to the family…Road “Manny” Mansion! (someone pipe in some crowd noise to this bubble)
Coming in at a hearty 3900lbs, with an 8 foot wingspan, and a high clearance package, this All Star outdoorsman brings a big personality to all your luxury campouts.
With two weeks under our belts driving this bad boy, we are finally feeling like a family unit, but it took us a little time to get used to our new, heavy set friend. Manny, we’ve learned, is a bit of a stop and smell the roses kind of traveler. Yes, the speed limit on the highway may be 80 miles per hour (we learned that speed limits are kind of new thing in Montana and Idaho so I guess they thought they’d start high and see how it goes?); and yes perhaps B, Dusty and I might have had no problem cruising for hundreds of miles on any given day. As it turns out though, Manny prefers that we all travel at 60 miles per hour, maybe an excited 65 mph if he’s got some giddyup in his step that morning.
Anything faster than 65, and Manny will punish you for making him exert himself. We know this now because Manny, on his second day on the team, decided that we had been going far too quickly and took it out on Dusty. Manny drained her of her gas so fast, you would have thought we had drilled a hole in the bottom of the car to water the road with gasoline. In fact, Manny was so upset with us, that he made us disconnect him from Dusty and drive 30 miles without him to get to the nearest gas station or risk running out of gas and being stranded on the side of the road outside of a town called Mud Lake, Idaho. (and now you may queue up the image of two California hippie kids riding their bikes into Mud Lake, Idaho needing gas for their car, which was towing a brand new camper. right. it was very vivid for me too.)
So we go slower now. For Manny. He’s just got a different body type than we’re used to, and we respect that! What matters is that he’s happy, healthy, and feeling confident when he’s out and about struttin’ his stuff. And our boy has some pretty fly stuff!
We’re talking hot showers (holla for showering regularly again!)
We’re talking fridge and freezer (the produce section of the grocery store hosted a very nice welcome back party)
We’re talking Queen size bed (I know, surprising to us too! especially since it only occurred to us to actually measure the bed after we bought the full size foam topper that fully expanded many inches shy of the edge of the bed.)
We’re talking power awning and outdoor speakers (yeah, we’ve already accidentally left those on; luckily Drake deep tracks are universally loved by the retirees that make up the large part of the weekday camping community).
And in case you’re not getting enough Manny, he’s got that sweet sweet slide out, giving you another 3 feet of this big boy’s rugged terrain love.
So Manny might be a slow mover, but the guy brings the party. I guess we’ll just have to learn how to sit back and enjoy.
