Our first motorhome, a 2002 National RV Dolphin

These pictures were taken the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2001, the day after we received our the motorhome.  This one shows it behind the new fence and gate:

This one shows the rear end coming up a few feet from the hill in the back.  We knew we couldn't have a motorhome over 38 feet and the Dolphin was 36 feet from front bumper to rear bumper, even though it is called a 35 foot motorhome:

Here is the 5355 floorplan from National RV's website:

Bill drove it down to Camping World and took these pictures that Saturday:

Diane drove it back from Camping World, about 50 miles and it took us about 45 minutes to get the Dolphin from the street into the side of the house the first time, with Bill directing in the dark with a two-way radio and Diane driving.  We hugged when it was done, there was no yelling but it was stressful.

In February 2003 we added an inverter and solar panels, which is discussed in our Jan/Feb03 Travel journal with pictures.

Here is the Dolphin on March 31, 2003 ready for us to take it down the driveway:

This picture shows how we parked the motorhome, shows the hint of the solar panels and shows the power cord going to the house with the Hughes Autoformer underneath the motorhome.  We used a combiner box to provide 30Amps to one leg of the motorhome and 20Amps to another, which is not as good as park 50Amp power, which provides 50Amps to each leg for a total of 100Amps.  But we could run both air conditioners if we needed to.  We learned that one air conditioner worked to about 82-85 degrees outside, but you needed both if it went over 85 to keep the inside comfortable.  Mostly it stays below 80 degrees in Woodinville in the summer, but we have had 90s.  The house didn't have air conditioning, so we moved into the motorhome if it got too hot.

We also liked to keep the waste tanks empty, the water tank full, the gas tank full, and the propane tank full while parked here.  If the power to the house goes out we could move into the motorhome and run extension cords to the refrigerators and freezers in the house while running the generator an hour or so at a time to keep them cold.  Yes we did end up taking advantage of the motorhome during some power outages.

(Update: November 30, 2007 National RV closed its doors and declared bankruptcy.  We are glad we no longer own their product.  We are also glad we downloaded the floorplan picture.)

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