We own a 2552, live in it full time, work in it part time and tow a Subaru Forester. We never RV’d before, never towed anything before, and we owned small vehicles so navigating this baby was a new experience all the way around. We took a 4,000 mile trip last July with just the PC since our Toad was not ready. We could pull over at roadside stands (sometimes) and could park in a double head to head space or a normal space where we hung our tail over the grass as Tom did. We DID almost slam our stabilizer jacks on a parking bumper this way so you have to be careful with the maneuver and have your spotter back there. We easily parked at malls, Home Depot, Walmart, Cracker Barrel, etc. We took at least two or three spaces street side so if there is room, it can be done. You have to feed ALL the meters. We are still not comfortable maneuvering on some of those cute little walkable town streets but we’ve done it. Some of the corners do not give room to swing anything bigger than a sedan without invading someone else’s road space. What we found on that trip is that we would opt to stay in camp and skip a dinner out or a nearby trail or exploration site to avoid having to batten everything down and unhook everything before we went. It’s not a big deal but doing it day after day gets old. Coming back late all warm and mellow from a nice dinner then having to strap on your headlamp and drag hoses is not something we wanted to do repeatedly. Note that it can be done, we just choose not to. The July trip took our 2552 from Maryland to: Mammoth Cave Kentucky; St. Louis Arch and through St Louis (no problems); hopping through several Midwestern states stopping pretty much wherever we wanted; all through the Black Hills; Wall Drug; the Badlands; more states, more visitor centers, more campgrounds; the Amish market near the factory complete with horses and buggies (a little tricky parking but most tourist areas have RV parking areas and we’re MUCH smaller than most of those parked there); and then on back to Maryland with very few issues due to the size of the rig.
John refers to the PC as our “Mother Ship” and the Subaru as our “shuttle”. We dock the Mother Ship and easily wander the universe in our shuttle.
With the Phoenix, Subaru and Swing Daddy bike rack all strung together gas stations and parking become a little more of a challenge but we manage. We have skipped very few things due to our set up. In towns we tend to park at the far back of large store lots. Our solution to most parking problems is Google Maps. Pull it up on your phone and eyeball the places you want to go. I have navigated John through a lot of tight spots and side streets to get us where we want to go and to determine if we should even attempt to go there in the first place. It is a good way to find a safe turn-around spot when you are unexpectedly forced to travel in the wrong direction by divided highways or road construction.
We will be in southwestern Florida at least part of the first week of February and are happy to show you our rig and set up if you like. It is always better to go with someone local so you can go back again if you need to (as we did with Tom – thank you Tom) but if there are no 2552’s nearby that you can see, ours will be rolling through and we’ll be happy to show it to you. Gradygal (Judi and George) live in Punta Gorda and are PC pros so even if you check out our rig to get a feel for the 2552, you still might want to visit with them for the full Phoenix scoop.
