Want to Ride? Let’s Go!!!!

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There I was, sitting on my little quad, and looking up at the hill in front of me like a death sentence. It was straight up, about 50 feet, and lots of soft gravel. I mean STRAIGHT UP!! I told myself “don’t even try to take this…you are in over your head. They will get more angry at having to call Life Flight to carry me out of here, than at having to turn around and retrace the seven miles back to camp if I refuse. I am just gonna refuse. Yup. I’m not going!”

One by one, I saw the dirt bikes, the Rhino’s, and eventually, the quads, climb the “death hill”. They would stop and watch for the next rider to make the climb. Each one got a big cheer as they topped the summit, and then looked back to watch the next one try. I was the last quad, and I just wanted “out”, but we were too far into the ride to turn around.

“How did I get myself into this?”

As I stared at the loose gravel, the “death hill”, and the group of grinning friends at the top, I remembered….

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Everybody knows RV maintenance, don’t they?

It was great growing up in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in the early 70’s, the weather, the beach and the girls. What could have been better? Maybe having your Father owning a Motor Home and Trailer sales lot and getting to use a Motor Home to go on dates. To this day I cannot imagine what the fathers of the girls I dated and picked up in a 27′ Travco or a 23′ Lifetime thought. Yes I grew up around all types of campers and while in high school I was my Father’s service manager. I kept involved in RVs while I was in college working for 2 dealers in South Miami. Luckily for me the woman I married at the ripe old age (both of us) of 19 loved camping as much as I did. We moved from small travel trailers to fifth wheels to our current ride, a 2004 Winnebago Vectra. We are not full timers but intend on doing so as soon as possible. We belong to many camping organizations and camp once a month with a local chapter of FCRV. I enjoy working on old cars, diesel pickups and anything with grease on it. I hope to bring some things to the Blog I have picked up over the years to make your camper maintenance easy, safe and fun.

Good day eh!

Hello all RV.net family members!  I’m going to take this opportunity to introduce myself as one of your new RV.net bloggers.  My name is Ian, and I’ll be posting here regularly on the topic of safe driving.  I live in Saskatchewan, Canada — right smack in the middle of the Canadian Prairies.  I’m an eleven year police officer, and my job is doing Collision Reconstruction.

I’ve been certified as an expert in criminal court, and had opportunities to be trained by the very best in my field, including Rusty Haight of the  Collision Safety Institute (http://www.collisionsafety.net/), and the national training center for all of Canada’s Police Officer specialized training, the Canadian Police College, in Ottawa, Ontario.

Before I was hired as a Police Officer, I studied Industrial Systems Engineering at a local University. 

I have a passion for all things automotive, from muscle cars, to diesel trucks, to any sport that involves drivers pushing the envelope.  I enjoy FIA World Rally Championship racing, NASCAR, Indy, DAKAR, you name it.  I grew up around grease, wrenches, and oil.  My father had a GM dealership when I was a kid, and I was the type who hung around in the shop and asked the mechanics silly questions.

I plan to provide you with practical advice on how you can avoid being a statistic, and even some tips to keep your vehicle in top shape.  I look forward to my participation in the RV.net blog, and can’t wait to get started!

Well Howdy !

At my age it takes a bit to get all the gears moving, also sleeping for more than an hour is the same as hitting the Delete key on a computer, it just all goes into the bit bucket! But I was told to get a bio together so here it is.

My name is Mike Steffen and I’m a Texan who has lived in 17-states, visited many more and spent time in several lands around the world. An Army career occupied the first 20-years, 4-months and 8-days of my working life - but hey, who was counting!

During my military time I changed headgear four times, jobs about 50-times and also turned my love for camping and the outdoors into camping in a rolling house, right about the time that I discovered that sleeping on rocks and in the rain is not the perfect family trip.

After the military I spent ten more years in Germany working for the Department of the Army as the director of information management for the Depot Systems Command in Mainz, Germany and running my own computer consulting company. When the Berlin Wall came down we returned to the US to full-time RV for a bit over eight years. A couple more business on the road came and went during that time including a three year stint as an instructor for the Dick Reed RV Driving school. Brief landing times in our travels included running a RV service center, a RV parts/goodies store, a short time as a RV salesman and work camping.

In 1996 my wife and I attended the first Life on Wheels course in Moscow, ID and became core instructors, that’s 12-years now, wow, time does fly!

Another business that stuck was writing for magazine’s, being a contributing editor, helping on and co-authoring books and speaking engagements at RV shows and meetings. That’s a lot of work for an old duffer but I enjoy meeting and making new RV’ing friends, so what the heck. Reckon that’s why I keep flunking retirement!

I could bore everyone about schools, travels, events and such, but I think that I’ll save that stuff for later where is may help make a point in a Blog or article, for now I’m Mike and glad to meet ya!!

Now the folks at RV.net have divvied up the subject areas for each of the Blogger’s and told us that we could wander a bit in our scribbling but to tell the truth, I could not for the life of me pick just one area to respond to. This led me to hashing it around with my boss. This is the person who I’ve been hitched to since, well, let’s just say over 40+ years and please remember - she was a CHILD bride since she’s only 29 years old as of now. Anyway, we decided to call my efforts “Do you want a second opinion”. This allows me to drift, one of the things I do best, from one topic to another and gives folks who read the Blog an easy alternate viewpoint from an “expert”. You do know what it takes to be in expert in most anything don’t you? Ya just gotta screw up more than most others doing the same thing, that way you learn all the wrong ways for doing something which leave the “correct” way as the only one left!

Well, that’s more then enough about me so until next week ya all take care and I’ll try to have something interesting for you on the next Blog. Hmm, should BLOG be capitalized, lower case or all caps? Don’t know, perhaps I should read the dang book.

Later,

The Old Ranger