The Wanderlodge
When we're not on the water, we're on the road. Our RV is a 1990 Blue Bird Wanderlodge Wide Body, 40 feet long, powered by a Detroit Diesel 8V92TA. It's a classic motorcoach from the era when Blue Bird's coach division built them on the same chassis as their school buses — overbuilt, mechanical, and about as far from a modern fiberglass RV as you can get.
We've taken it from Minnesota to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Zion, the Pacific Coast, Texas, Tennessee, and most points in between. It's been to a Wanderlodge owners rally in Casper, Wyoming for the 2017 solar eclipse, alongside 100+ other coaches. It's our home when we're not on Yoto.
The Coach
| Make/Model | Blue Bird Wanderlodge Wide Body |
| Year | 1990 |
| Length | 40 feet |
| Engine | Detroit Diesel 8V92TA |
| Transmission | Allison |
| Generator | Kohler 12.5kW |
| Fuel capacity | 300 gallons (diesel) |
Philosophy
The Wanderlodge is the opposite of Yoto in one important way: she's much less automated. No Cerbo GX, no Home Assistant, no Signal K, no MQTT. The dashboard gauges are the dashboard gauges. When something needs attention, you walk over and look at it.
This is by design. A 35-year-old coach has earned the right to be left alone. We've upgraded what needed upgrading and left the rest mechanical. It works.
Power System
Inverter — installed, providing 110V from the house bank for the appliances that need it.
Battery bank — currently lead-acid. A lithium upgrade is on the to-do list and will be the next major project. When we do it, you'll see a build post here.
Solar — minimal compared to Yoto. The Wanderlodge spends most of its time at full hookups or running the generator. Solar makes more sense on a boat anchored for weeks at a time than on a coach that's plugged in at an RV park.
Generator — Kohler 12.5kW diesel, sharing the 300-gallon main fuel tank. For boondocking it does the heavy lifting.
Connectivity
Starlink — Standard residential dish dedicated to the RV (separate from the dish on Yoto).
Cellular backup — Teltonika router with cellular failover. When Starlink loses signal in the trees, cellular picks up.
This is a much simpler stack than the boat — we don't run multi-WAN bonding or anything fancy. The RV moves between locations with reliable cellular, and Starlink handles the rest.
Living Systems
Refrigeration — RV propane absorption fridge. Runs on 110V when on shore power, propane when boondocking. Not as efficient as a 12V compressor fridge but reliable for what it is.
Cooking — Propane range and oven. Same logic as the fridge — when you have a 35-year-old coach with propane infrastructure already plumbed, you don't rip it out for induction.
Holding tanks — 105 gallons black, 105 gallons gray. Substantial capacity for a coach this size, which means longer between dump runs.
Waste valves — This is where it gets interesting.
The Twis-Loc Story
Our 1990 Wanderlodge came from the factory with Dupree Twis-Loc Power Valves on both the black and gray waste tanks. Those valves are still on the coach. Same valves. 35 years. No replacements.
We've replaced the seals a couple of times — five-minute job each time, two screws, drop in a new $25 seal — but the valve bodies themselves are original.
This isn't marketing. It's our actual coach. The Twis-Loc was designed in 1964 to outlast the rig, and ours has held up that promise for three and a half decades. When we wrote why the Twis-Loc outlasts everything else, this Wanderlodge is the coach we're talking about.
→ Twis-Loc valves at Dupree Products
Where We Go
The RV is for North American travel — national parks, family in Minnesota and Tennessee, road trips with the kids when school's not in session. The boat doesn't move very fast and the world is big, so the RV fills in the gaps.
Highlights from past trips: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, the Redwoods, Arches, Canyonlands, the Pacific Coast Highway. Many of them documented in detail at bradenanderin.com.
Why Not Modernize It Like Yoto?
We've thought about it. We could install a Cerbo, run Home Assistant, automate the lights, monitor everything from VRM. We probably will when we do the lithium upgrade — it makes too much sense not to add a SmartShunt at minimum.
But part of the appeal of a 1990 Wanderlodge is that it's a 1990 Wanderlodge. The Detroit Diesel doesn't need a CAN bus to run. The aluminum body doesn't have wood rot. The chassis was designed to last a million miles. There's something refreshing about getting in, turning a key, and driving — without checking a dashboard on your phone first.
Yoto is the technology project. The Wanderlodge is the road trip.
Want to follow our family travel adventures (less technical, more destination-focused)? That happens at bradenanderin.com.