Photographic Catalogs

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If you take lots of digital photographs, sooner or later you are going to need to develop a good way to find an individual image among the hundreds or thousands stored on your computer. No matter how you use folders or directories they will eventually become a cumbersome way of searching for an image. Although you could build your own cataloging application using a database program such as Filemaker or Oracle, most of us are not all that interested in starting from scratch.

Click “Read the Rest of This Entry” for some ready made cataloging solutions.

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Life On Wheels RV Conferences: College for RVers

It’s not quite an old adage yet, but it seems that the more we RV the more we find we don’t know. Like the times when we’re trying to change a thermocouple in the water heater or installing a new left-handed framistan. That’s when blogs like this one and the RV.net forums are like a oases in the desert. And not just for newcomers to the RV Lifestyle, but for we oldtimers too (why I remember when a camper was a Conestoga Wagon with a buffalo hide for a bed). Maybe even more so for we oldtimers, since RV systems seem to keep changing and adding new geegaws.

Several years ago RV Hall of Fame member Gaylord Maxwell, who even then had spent more years in the RV business and as an active RVer than many of us will ever see, wondered how all these newcomers (he likes to call them “newbies”) learn all the stuff they have to learn to make their RV experience fun and enjoyable, instead of stressful and unpleasant. His idea was to teach a class on RV Basics. He proposed the idea to the University of Idaho and that first class became the incubator for what is now the Life On Wheels (LOW) RV Conferences. LOW is a non-profit operation, with no commercial booths, much of its financial support coming from the RV industry, and instructors are not permitted to pitch specific products.

This week-long program of classes offers everything you could possibly think of in RVing, with beginning classes such as How to Pick an RV and RVing Made Easy, technical classes like RV Electrical Systems, MotorHome and Tow Car Braking Systems, All About Batteries, and Is Solar Power Right For You, and lifestyle classes including exercising for RVers (taught by my wife, Lynn–I had to mention that), Work Your Way Across the USA, Hosting in NW State Parks, Boondocking (one of my seven classes), and Digital Photography. And many more. More than thirty classes a day, spread over four 90-minute periods, are taught by some of the most well-known experts in RVing–Gaylord, of course, Joe & Vicki Kieva, popular seminar leaders and book and magazine article writers, Greg Holder, owner of AM Solar, Al Cohoe, RVIA Master Technician certified in both the USA & Canada with thirty-six years of RV experience, Mike & Teri Church, writers of seven popular RV Guidebooks including Alaska and Baja, Eric Davis,who founded and operates Eric’s RV Performance Center in Sequim, WA, Mac McCoy, Fire Training Coordinator for Oregon’s Fire Marshal’s Office and Public Safety Academy, Nick Russell, publisher of the Gypsy Journal–the list goes on.

You can learn just about everything you need–or want–to know at Life On Wheels. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t attend all the classes, there are too many, often with eight or nine classes going on at once. That is why RVers attend year after year, to pick up what they missed and to get updated on what is new.

This year’s Idaho Conference is at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston on July 6 - 11. Additional conferences are in Harrisburg, PA (September 7 - 10, 2008), Tucson, AZ (March 18 - 21, 2009), and Bowling Green, KY in May 2009. Space is still available for the Idaho Conference. For more information or to register click here. You can read my wife Lynn’s take on Life on Wheels in a previous post and you can also visit RV.Net’s forum thread on this topic.

Casino Camping and Fuel Prices

 Some random thoughts from me today about how our lifestyle (fulltime RVing) and our hobby (gambling) are related to and effected by fuel prices.

Increased Casino Offers

As fuel prices continue to increase both RVers and other vacationers are traveling less.  One result is increased competition for customers among casinos, and RV parks.  We’ve noticed an increase in promotions and offers from casinos to entice us to visit, and these offers have included more free rooms, free RV park stays, free buffets.  There has also been a big increase in our bounce back cash and free play offers. 

I’ll give you an example,   Read more

Hey Ranger! Does the River Run Downstream?

Forming part of the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and within an easy drive of New York City, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is one of the most popular locations for “float trips” in the northeastern United States. A Tuesday in late September seemed like a great day for a canoe trip on the Delaware River for a couple I’ll call Jack and Jill, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Jack and Jill rented a canoe from a local outfitter and headed to Smithfield Beach to start their adventure. Their destination-a spot called Kittatinny Point-was only six miles downstream, and under typical conditions was an easy three-hour trip. The canoe rental employee arranged to meet the pair later that afternoon and shuttle them back to their car. I hope their shuttle driver took a good book along, because “typical conditions” apparently took the day off. Read more

“Alaska: RV Adventure” - The Road, the Bad Old Days!

Jodie & John - RV Adventure Videos
 

All I could do was laugh as I lay in the middle of the mud-covered road. It was 1973 and this was the Alaska Highway! I’d just been thrown over the handel-bars of my Harley-Davidson and made a nice soft landing in the muck. Before I left Detroit that summer, at the tender age of twenty, I had read all about the highway and heard the stories. People said “your vehicle will self-destruct from all the bumps, the bears will eat you and the mosquitoes will carry you off into the wilderness!” (or was that the other way around?)

I had more than second thoughts. At one point I decided to listen to all the nay-sayers and take the ferry up the inside passage. I was traveling by myself and heading for the coast when I met two other motorcycle riders from Minniesota. They were on their way to the beginning of the highway in Dawson Creek BC. Both of them had extra gas cans, tires, and tools strapped to the sides of their bikes. They had no idea about what they were getting into. We spent that night around the campfire as I tried to talk them into taking the easy way north on the ferry. I didn’t do a very good job, the next morning all three of us were heading for Dawson Creek. I had to go with them, they didn’t even know there were fuel stations at least every 50-miles along the way, they needed my help. This would be one great adventre!

To be continued next Thursday …………

Please email me any questions you might have about RV travel to Alaska, and anywhere else.

You can also see video clips of our three RV Adventure Videos Alaska DVD’s at www.rvadventurevideos.com

Jodie and I will be leading a Born Free Caravan to Alaska July 19th.

Water Pump Troubleshooting

Tech- Never Assume….

A quick post this week (only a day late!). Yesterday I made one of the basic mistakes in troubleshooting- not knowing how the system was supposed to work in the first place. While it only cost me about 20 minutes (of unbillable time), it could have been worse, and again taught me a valuable lesson.

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RV Cooking Show-Salmon at Olympic National Park

If you are planning to spend some time this summer in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, do not miss the gorgeous Olympic National Park, one of the gems of our National Parks system. Once there, you can visit the mountains for truly spectacular vistas, the seashore, with its amazing sea stars and beautiful rock arches, and last but not least, the mysterious and lush temperate rainforest, it is absolutely incredible.

Another gem of this beautiful region is salmon, and today I will show you how to prepare it in a foil pouch for a simple but delicious grilled dish. It is what I call company food.

If you’d like the recipe in a printer-friendly format, you can print out the recipe.

For more recipes, log on to RVCookingShow.com, it’s delicious. Drop me a line with your comments – I LOVE hearing from you!

Here’s to happy camping,

Evanne

Emailing Photos with Picasa

Have you ever opened a photo attached to an email and found yourself staring at a person’s eyeball taking up the entire screen? That’s what happens if the person sending the photo doesn’t know about resizing it first. That is, if you receive the photo at all! It may be so big that your email inbox simply rejects it.

Here’s a photo of my motorhome as you would see it if I emailed it to you full-size. This is how it would appear in many programs - then you would need to scroll around to see the entire photo. This photo would be taking up a lot of space in your inbox as well - 2.7 megabytes to be exact. And, if you have a mailbox that is limited to 10 megabytes, it would fill up real quick, and any further mail would be rejected.

There lots of ways to send photos with email and resize them first. Picasa is my favorite. You simply select the photo (or photos) you want to send, click the email button, and Picasa does all the rest. Watch the quick video below to see how.

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com

North to Alaska…Virginia to Kentucky

In my book, Guide to the Alaska Highway, I recommend people starting on the East Coast either duck into Canada right away and head west on the Trans-Canada Highway or get on Interstate 80 and head across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. I’m ignoring my own advice on this trip for a couple of reasons.

First, I have some writing to do in southern Indiana, and I-80 runs across the northern edge of the state. Next, I hate toll roads and in most of Ohio and Indiana, I-80 is a toll road. So for the moment I am sticking with I-64, though I did detour a little to the north on I-81 in Virginia and up to Hagerstown, Maryland, before going back south through West Virginia. After yesterday, let me state unequivocally that there is no level ground in West Virginia; it is truly a mountainous state.

The final reason I’m ignoring my own advice is that I just want to see some new country.

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Carefree Add a Room

Carefree makes an Add A Room (AAR) you can attach to your awning for extra living space while camping. It gives you an enclosed room you can enjoy all day long. I highly recommend this for people camping with kids or pets. It takes us about 25 minutes to set up and we find it well worth the extra time when staying somewhere for at least 3 nights.

We opted for the LTD room which has heavier vinyl panels and zippered privacy panels. There is also a hard screen door you can buy and use in place of the zippered screen door. We’ve used both. The hard door option is very nice. No more bending over and zipping and unzipping every time you want to enter. It makes it feel more like a real “room”. It does require more storage space though. The AAR comes in 2 bags already and then the door folds in half for storage so it can be tricky to bring with you to the campground. We only bring the hard door when we are staying more than a week at a campground. It also adds about 20 minutes to your set up and take down time.

There are 4 panels with the AAR. The long one attaches to the awning. This side has the door which zips up and down for entry. Then there are two side panels which attach to the RV with snaps or optional snapless kit. The 4th panel attaches to the bottom of your RV to complete the room. If shade is your main goal and you aren’t worried about keeping pets inside or bugs out, you can skip the 4th panel and just leave that side open.

We used the AAR last fall when Halloween camping. It was a cold, rainy weekend so we left the panels down to keep it dry. One word of caution…you do need to be careful of where your furnace is venting. You must leave at least one of your panels up if your furnace is on and venting directly into the room ! We opted to use a small, portable heater that weekend for our heat source. We put our picnic table in the AAR and it was a great place to carve our pumpkins and play games with the kids. Since it was cold it also became a *mud room* of sorts where we could store our coats and heavy shoes.

This past weekend we used it again, this time with the panels rolled up since it was a beautiful weekend. We opened a few of the interior windows and then kept the AAR door closed and left the RV door open. Our dogs were able to wander back and forth and enjoy being outside too. The room was a great place for reading, playing games, and enjoying a meal without those pesky bugs. Another word of caution…these rooms were not designed to contain your dogs. If your dog is one who doesn’t like boundaries he may be able to dig under the walls, even when they are staked down. I would also not recommend them for someone with big, jumping dogs. I can see how easy it would be for a dog to jump on the screening and bring the whole thing down and possibly mess up the awning in the process. My advice would be to never leave your dog in the room unattended, no matter what size dog.

Last season we used a free standing screen room/tent instead of an AAR. While it was easier to set up and take down we found it was too hot during the day for practical use, even with the doors tied open. For meal times it was a bit of a pain to take all of the food and supplies out to the tent and then back again to the RV afterwards. And we’d zip it up to keep out the bugs, but then one of the kids was also zipping and unzipping to go grab another drink, another napkin, or something else. And unless we used an extension cord and brought out a lamp, a lantern alone wasn’t enough to light up the free standing room well enough to play cards at night.

We decided at the end of last season to invest in an AAR. We thought the benefits were worth the expense.

With the AAR you have panels to put down for privacy or to keep out the rain, the benefit of the porch light and awning lights, our tv can now be enclosed, it is much easier going in and out of the rv during mealtimes for anything we might need. If you think an AAR would be great for your RV, you can check for a local dealer and installer on their website. They will check out your RV and talk to you about the options available for you. They can also take care of proper measuring and installation. Make sure they show you how to set it up and take it down when you pick up your RV. There is a certain order things need to be done so that nothing is damaged (lesson we learned the hard way ).

Until next time,

~Shannone

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