RP-179 First Outing to Smith Mountain Lake, VA (2024)

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We recently took our first trip in the new RP-179 we bought at the end of August and I thought I would recap our experience. We bought the 179 on August 25th after selling our Aliner Ease on Craigslist. Although we enjoyed our adventures in the Aliner the lack of interior space and storage was starting to make camping with it not as enjoyable as it could be. I had seen various R-Pods in campgrounds and on the road over the years and always wondered what they were like but never really investigated them. That all changed earlier this year when we were out walking the campground we were staying in and came across a couple with an RP-180. I was really taken by the green paint scheme which I had not seen before. From the outside it looked to be the perfect size and the slider was icing on the cake. After being invited for a quick tour of their camper I decided it was time to move on from the Aliner and get an R-Pod. After talking with my wife and doing some online research we both decided the RP-179 was the best choice for us and the Aliner went up for sale.

It took about a month to find a buyer for the Aliner and two days after it was sold I took delivery of our 179 from InterstateRV in East Lansing, Michigan. The purchase process was smooth and enjoyable and the dealer happily beat the best price I could find from other dealers both online and in the region. My wife and I enjoy eating and relaxing outside in the evenings when we camp so we bought an R-Dome with the 179, more on that later.

For our inaugural trip we went to Smith Mountain Lake State Park in Moneta, Virginia which is located in the SW part of the state about 60 miles from Roanoke. SML is a man-made resevoir that was created in 1963 by damming the Roanoke River and it has about 500 miles of shoreline. The state park is located NE of the lake and is one of the nicest state parks I've visited. One of our sons lives in Richmond with his family so the primary reason for choosing SML was to be able to spend some time with them. We rented one of the park's 20 cabins form them for a couple of nights and later left the R-Pod in the park to travel to Richmond to see our grandsons play in their soccer games. Unlike here in Michigan where they forbid leaving unattended campers at the park the SML park staff were happy to accommodate us and even had the camp host check in on our campsite several times at day while were were gone. The cabin we rented was very nice, very well equipped and spotlessly clean and my son's family said they were very comfortable there.

The campground was also very nice. It's a single loop with about 50 sites total surrounded by dense forest laced with hiking trails and beyond that the lakeshore. Half a dozen sites are pull throughs and about 12 are tent-only with the remainder being back-in sites with 50 amp service and water. There is a dump station, a full-time camp host and bathrooms with 4 large showers. The bathrooms and showers are thoroughly cleaned several times a day and were a notch or two above what I am used to in SP campgrounds. All the non-tent sites are covered in crushed stone and clearly outlined with timbers and almost perfectly level. With the camper, slider and R-Dome up there was about 15 feet or so of open space adjacent to the camper so the site was fairly large. Each site also had a picnic table and steel fire ring. All of the sites appeared to be graded and very level and we often saw the camp host grooming the gravel with a rake after campers had departed. The sites are angled away from each other so your view is mostly of the wooded area and not of your next door neighbor. The campground is remote and very very quiet day and night but we still got a solid 3 bars on our ATT iPhones. The park has several other amenities including a great sandy beach for swimming, a couple of boat launch and picnic areas, a fishing pier and an outdoor amphitheater where the staff put on several types of events. It has a number of wooded trail loops ranging in length from 1 to about 10 miles. Another big plus was the complete absence of mosquitos and other pests.

Oh yes, the R-Pod! Sorry to make you read so far before talking about it. I had already towed the camper the 70 miles from East Lansing to Grand Rapids where we live so I had a pretty good idea of how it towed on level interstate before we left but I didn't know what to expect in the way of gas mileage or towing through the Appalachians or on the curvy, hilly, shoulderless two-lane roads we'd be on. Our Aliner had been a breeze to tow because it was a hard-sided popup and was lower than our Acura MDX tow vehicle and it also weighed about 500 pounds less that the 179. I was happy to discover that the MDX towed the 179 just as easily as it did the Aliner despite the extra weight and frontal area. Gas mileage fell from 14-15 with the Aliner down to about 12-13 depending on conditions and we had no trouble maintaining 65 through the Appalachian mountain passes. I used a single sway bar and normal hitch and we never had any problems with sway or other weird behavior.

As for camping in the 179, we absolutely loved it! Space, the final frontier. The 179 has enough storage space that we were able to stow everything that would normally be in the camper for our 13 day trip in a cabinet or drawer with nothing floating free or stored in bins on the floor or under the bed. We stored our camp chairs, charcoal grill and ice chest in the TV but otherwise there was a place for everything in the 179 and it never felt cluttered or cramped. Although I had tested everything before we departed to ensure all the systems worked as they should nothing broke or failed to work correctly while we were traveling. Do I have any complaints? A few but they are minor and have been hashed over by many others but I'll go ahead and list them again. The mattress is cheap and likely uncomforble if you use it as is. We cut down the 4-inch memory foam topper we had to fit the length and along with the mattress pad we both slept just fine on it. I'm pretty sure the expanded plastic mesh inside the mattress isn't very durable to I'm sure we'll eventually replace it. The same goes for the too thin and soft padding used in the dinette cushions but for now they'll do. Both my wife and I are music lovers and have invested a lot in having good sound in our home so the sound of the indoor speakers was tinny and disappointing but to be expected given their quality and location. Engaging the loudness button on the radio helps a lot. The outdoor speakers are beyond horrible and distort the music at almost any level and the mere suggestion of bass in the music makes them un-listenable. It's hard to believe that Forest River used speakers that sound this bad so I wonder what other campers have experienced with theirs? The other big disappointment was the flip foot tongue jack. It was too low to fully extend before touching the ground when disconnecting the camper from the TV and I had to use the stabilizer to slightly lift the front of the camper in order to get it to work right. I've purchased an electric tongue jack to replace it and I see that FR has done away with it on new models too.

We had high hopes for the R-Dome and we weren't disappointed. It's a bit fussy to set up the first time but I think it will be one of those things that will get easier each time you do it. It was certainly easier to set up than the six pole screen room we used to use and being able to go in and out of the camper was great. We spent a lot of time relaxing in it and the configuration flexibility it offers is exactly what we wanted. We used the rain flys to block the view as we wished and to open it up to the forest beside and behind the camper. We had a couple of nights of rain and everything in the dome stayed completely dry. I found it very easy to take down and stow in the bag.

Oh yes, before I forget we stayed in Shawnee State Park, Ohio overnight on the way down and Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio on the way back as transit overnighters. Both parks were also very nice and in beautiful areas.

Here are a few pics:

Our site

Sue and Mike

2022 Grand Design 23LDE
2017 Ford Expedition Platinum
2017 r-pod 179 (for sale)
2018 Chevrolet Traverse LT (sold)

Sue and Mike

2022 Grand Design 23LDE
2017 Ford Expedition Platinum
2017 r-pod 179 (for sale)
2018 Chevrolet Traverse LT (sold)

StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,...

ouR escaPOD mods
Former RPod 179
Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS

Sue and Mike

2022 Grand Design 23LDE
2017 Ford Expedition Platinum
2017 r-pod 179 (for sale)
2018 Chevrolet Traverse LT (sold)

I'm not sure about the Accura MDX. Is it turbocharged? Our Escape has the 2L Ecoboost engine. It tows well in the mountains. A naturally aspirated engine would struggle more at the higher elevations, but the turbocharger ensures the engine gets enough air to work without loss of power. Uphill grades do impact the mileage. You recover some of that on the downhills though.

Our first trip was from North Carolina to Nevada and Arizona. We went across the US on I40, including through Flagstaff, AZ. On the return trip, we used I10 to I20 to I85 (if I recall correctly). Limit your speeds to 60 mph, and you will get better mileage. Trying to hit 65 and 70 mph exacerbates the wind resistance and really cuts the mileage. Trying to drive those speeds, we got between 8 and 14 mpg on that trip with an average of about 11-12 mpg. On our last trip with the AeroPlus and with limiting our speed to 60 mph, we saw mileage between 12 and 16.5 with an average of about 15. The Escape is normally rated for about 32 mpg highway, so I consider the mileage on our last trip (NC to Vermont and NY, including stretches to Cherokee, parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and other mountains in the northeast) to be excellent.

StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,...

ouR escaPOD mods
Former RPod 179
Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS

Sue and Mike

2022 Grand Design 23LDE
2017 Ford Expedition Platinum
2017 r-pod 179 (for sale)
2018 Chevrolet Traverse LT (sold)

StephenH
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,...

ouR escaPOD mods
Former RPod 179
Current Cherokee Grey Wolf 24 JS

Wonderful! Thank you for the photos. It is different seeing the R-Pod on a lot. Love seeing it "in use."

You are in my neck of the woods. I grew up in Michigan (Detroit area, Northern Michigan, and Grand Rapids) and my parents grew up in Virginia (Appalachian Mountains) but now live in Shenandoah, VA. Beautiful place to go! I love the Virginia Mountains.