Badger the barge

We’ve finally got Badger finished and tidy enough to introduce him properly, so here he is:

 As mentioned before he is a Jayco Avatar born in 2003. Same Jayco as in Australia who dominate the market over there, strangely they are not that common here despite being a US company, but do allegedly have a good name. Primarily they make travel trailers (caravans as we know them) and C-class motorhomes (like Lurch and Fat Tranny where the cab and chassis are bought in from stock). Apparently they only briefly ventured into A-class motorhomes like Badger where they build all the bodywork on a stock chassis, but didn’t get enough market share to make it worthwhile. We hadn’t seen any others until we passed another one the same colour going the other way on Interstate 10 on the way out to Palm Desert. Its always at the back of my mind have we bought an uncommon lemon, but of all the RVs we saw it was the only one we liked the interior layout and décor of, and most of the fittings and moving parts are fairly common with other manufacturers – fridge, aircon, water heater, etc – and there are lots of other manufacturers who build on the same Freightliner chassis and Cat engine configuration. Being 10 years old some parts are a bit of a concern – the awning still isn’t working and the dealer has had to send the motor to be rewound as a replacement is no longer available – but overall he’s in very good shape and low mileage on an engine that should be capable of doing ½ a millon miles.

He’s almost 39 feet long, 8 wide and 12 high, with air suspension, double rear tyres and the motor at the back – what is called a diesel pusher - which is supposed to be better for driving: quieter, smoother, more torque and maybe slightly better fuel consumption, but as diesel is 10-12% more expensive than petrol here that may not work out. And he drives like a barge…

One advantage of the engine at the back is that there is no transmission going through the chassis, so the basement storage compartments go right the way through. Gives me somewhere quiet to sleep if Maria is snoring too loudly, although as you can see we have already amassed quite a bit of crap to fill it up and carry around everywhere.

There are only 2 sliders, both on the drivers side, and they are not as deep as on Tigger, but its quite enough room inside for us as the whole thing is wider anyway, and an advantage is that in some cases you can’t put sliders out, so you aren’t losing that much space by not using them.

 The whole engine compartment is very scary, and servicing is definitely a professional job and will be more than the petrol engines, but I can’t get my head around a 7 litre v10 petrol engine powering a bus anyway  – Dodge viper? yes, Winnebago? no. And yes, that is a real 4 inch exhaust pipe – let’s see your pimped out Citroen Saxo beat that. Personally I hate the picture on the back – might look for a union jack sticker to go over it just to be different, but then I’m not what you would call nationalistic under normal circumstances. Maybe the European 12 stars just to confuse the locals….

Turns out I was wrong: Badger IS from Pandora, and he does plug his junk in to tow Toad

But to be fair to the dealers they have done a really neat job fitting the tow hitch to Toad. It is only a couple of minutes work to hook it all up or disconnect, and if we come to sell the Suzi separately it would be quite easy and cheap to replace the plastic grill to make it look original

Inside, the kitchen and Maria’s sofa are in the slider. We paid for the gas oven to be supplied and fitted, although it turns out that the microwave above the hob is also a convection oven and cooker hood, so it might have been cheaper to just run the generator anytime we want to bake off mains power, and buy a small tabletop toaster oven for grilling bacon and cheese on toast. Oh well, she hasn’t used it yet, but the electric one does make very nice raspberry and white chocolate muffins. And the sour dough bread and butter pudding is a bit tougher than proper white bread, but it will do.

One of my favourite things we have bought is the single induction hotplate for when we are on mains power – it really does heat the pan up quickly and is as controllable as gas. James Seatter told me how good his induction hob was, and I was a bit sceptical being a fan of gas, but I have to say I am really impressed. And we even managed to find a pretty funky whistling kettle here in the land of coffee makers.

The sofa does fold out so a short person can sleep on it, but as the surround sound sub-woofer is underneath it she hasn’t been doing her usual trick of dozing off halfway through the movie.

I’ve made the fold up table leaf on the end to give a bit more worktop space when cooking, as all the kitchens we saw were really small, and have had some fun mixing an oil to match the honey maple cabinetry so I could replace the false drawer front and store the original. Even so, worktop space is still at a premium and we usually have the smaller sink covered as we need the counter space.

On my side is the longer sofa, which also folds out for sleeping, and I have made the end panel for it so I have somewhere to lean back against while watching the tv or movies without my cushions falling off the end. The table and free chairs are more flexible than the typical booth configuration you see, but a bit tight - that’s probably a good thing given the portions over here – if we can’t sit at the table to eat we can’t eat…

You can just about make out the side by side fridge freezer behind the dining table – not quite as big as our one at home, but close and has an ice maker. Lots of space for steaks…

The TV is the old style above the windscreen, but the previous owners have replaced the old CRT with a small LCD and made quite a neat job of it, and we hang a sheet in front of the windscreen to project movies on so have a nice big widescreen. There are also curtains that we normally draw across in front of the windscreen for warmth and privacy. All we need is the Wurlitzer organ to rise up out of the stair well. The drivers and shotgun chairs will spin right the way round, but then the backs get in the way of the bottom of the screen.

Toilet, shower and basin are in the middle of the bus so could be shared if we have visitors – there is a door that pulls across from the lounge, and you could fit a curtain between bath and bedroom. There is a big cupboard on the right that is plumbed to take a washer drier, but the only ones you can buy here are over 1500 bucks. I’ve persuaded Maria that it is cheaper and easier to use the camp laundrette once a week and go down and take over 3 or 4 machines and do the whole wash in 2 hours rather than having to do a load every day. No-one here line dries anything – it all goes in the tumble drier, and campsites have rules preventing you from hanging stuff out, but it means there are lots of washers and driers on the camps we have seen and heard about. And it gives her a chance to sit with the laptop for a couple of hours and catch up on her Doctor Who.

It’s a 5 ft bed with space all the way around – the head of the bed is in the rear slider so the whole thing moves across to give more space, but you can still get past the end of the bed with it in if you have to. Maria loves the full depth wardrobe right across the back wall and is itching to hit the outlet stores to try and fill it up.

And that is it so far – still finding needs and looking for bits and pieces, and the sagas of buying online and being fed lies and incompetence are growing, but at least we are now on the road…