Combine Video and Photos with Movie Maker

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our E-mail Digest or RSS Feed. We will then send you the stories that are posted each day in an e-mail digest. We use a service called Feedburner for delivery of these emails. You will receive an e-mail from Feedburner after you subscribe and you must click on that email to activate your subscription. Thanks for visiting and enjoy all the information! RV.Net Blog Admin   This video was created from some photos and a couple video clips taken with our Nikon Coolpix camera during last week’s stay at Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park.  If you like waterfront sites and lots of greenery – check out this state park. We’ve taken thousands of pictures during our 7 years of RV travels and they bring us such joy! I couldn’t agree more with the recent RV.net blog post from Barry and Monique Zander, “Keep a Visual Record of Your Travels.”  That article gives you lots of great tips about taking pictures. Does your Camera take Video Clips Also? I want to talk to you about taking video.  So many of the little point-and-shoot cameras today take video as well as still photos, and video can really enhance the memories involved.  Most people don’t know what to do with those videos though. Can you just email them along with pictures? How do you get the great 2 minute clip of Joe catching the fish without the 5 previous (boring) minutes of film? How do you make a video to share that includes two video clips plus a few... Read more

RV Repair at the Local Barber Shop

We started out on our first “new to us” RV trip from Fresno, to Palm Springs, on the day before Christmas Eve, to visit my wife’s parents, for the holidays. Everything was going well until we got to Mojave, California. As we are driving along, I heard a loud “BANG”: All the gauges were ok, so we kept going. Decided to get off State Route 14, and go into town to check it out. We get to the stop light, and the temperature gauge needle jumps to hot. I turn off the coach, and call for our mechanical breakdown service. They responded, and proceeded to hook up the coach for towing, and we jumped into their truck. We get to down town Mojave, and the truck driver goes past the Ford store, and we ask him why? His reply was ” they will not be able to fix it in one day, and you will be stuck here over the holidays. I am taking you to a place that can fix it fast., you will not have to stay in a hotel”. He tows us into Don’s Lube, Oil, Auto Repair AND BARBER SHOP!! (Don repairs cars when the barber shop is not busy) He tells us to pull next to the deep pit lube bay, where the eighteen wheelers have their oil changes, with all our hook ups on the side of the pit, and we are welcome to spend the night in the coach. Don’s is right behind a famous hamburger chain, so we walk over to get a cup of coffee, and to decide on Plan B. When we walk across the parking lot back, my wife refused to let me hook up electric, nor water and not start the... Read more

From 3 Months Old, RVing’s In My Blood

The truth is that I don’t remember much about my first RV experience. I was born May 13, 1949. My father was a welder and when I was just two or three months old, my parents bought a trailer and followed construction until 1955. So I started my life off as a full timer. That was the end of full timing, but it was not the end of RVing. We rented and bought RVs from then on. My life has now gone full circle. My husband is going to retire in December and we are now living full time in a Durango fifth wheel waiting to hit the road. I love it . it must be in my blood. Submitted by Mary Cross of Lake Charles, LA as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!  Read More →

Camping Catastrophe in Colorado Turns Out to Be Bliss in Buffalo Creek

As a youngster and Boy Scout, I enjoyed camping out with the campfire, sleeping bag, outdoor cooking, etc., so as an adult I naturally looked forward to having a camping trailer to continue that outdoors style of fun in a little more comfort. In 1967, a few years after beginning my teaching/coaching career, things came together so that we were able to squeeze in a week one summer to go camping. My brother Jack and I worked out a plan to take our young families on our first, honest-to-goodness, vacation camping trip. Ignorance is bliss! Growing up and living in dry, flat West Texas, we decided we’d head to the cool, lush mountains of Colorado. After some planning and searching on our travel map, by mid-July we had all the plans set. We had located Buffalo Creek campground in the mountains west of Colorado Springs as our destination. Perfect! It was exactly what we had in mind. Now, all we needed was to rent a trailer somewhere en-route and get to Colorado. Since our aunt lived in Amarillo we thought that would be the perfect place to rent a camp trailer right on our way to Colorado Springs, saving a couple of unnecessary rental nights coming and going. While camping, the plan was for the wives and kids to stay in the trailer while Jack and I would bed down in the open bed of the pickup. For traveling, the wives and three small children would ride in his air-conditioned 1965 Falcon, and he and I would pull the trailer with my non-air conditioned, single-cab truck. Perfect! With... Read more

Have you had enough with fees to use our public lands? – Part 2

By Bob Difley Spending on outdoor recreation in America tops one trillion dollars. Much of this recreation is on public lands. That’s a lot of money. But most of this money is spent with outfitters, at ski resorts, and other developed recreation venues. Then there are the public lands that RVers–especially boondockers–use. For camping, hiking, fishing, bird and wildlife watching,  photography, and snoozing in a camp chair. Visitation to America’s public lands have increased over the past couple decades–65% on BLM lands, 80% on National Wildlife Refuges.  According to those that oversee public lands, “This increase in visitation means an increase in visitor demand for adequate facilities and services, as well as a greater need to expend funds to protect natural and cultural resources, the resources that are often the very reason visitors are drawn to a particular site. . . . and often expect amenities such as toilets, developed parking, water, and maintained trails. Recreation fees allow the agencies to meet this visitor demand.” Fees are justified for necessary services, amenities, and maintenance, such as operations and cleaning of forest service campgrounds (though that can be done with volunteers instead of leasing to for-profit concessionaires and doubling or tripling camping fees), placing restrooms in heavily used areas, and maintaining and signing trails. However, who determines, and on what basis, whether there is sufficient... Read more

From Tent Camping to a 21 Foot Class C RV

I first camped in a tent when I was 8 months old and every year until my teens I did the same. In my rebellious late teens I no longer wanted to vacation with my family so I stopped going. At the age of 22 or 23 I once again felt the urge to spend some time in the “wild” so I laid out an old greasy sheet of plywood in the bed of my 1958 Chevrolet Apache pickup, tied down a canvas tarp to cover it and spent the opening eve of fishing season in this “RV”. It snowed and rained I got wet and cold and I caught no fish but I reconnected with my inner camper and have had several “RVs since then including a home made tent camper built onto the back of my 1986 Toyota pickup and I now have owned a 21 foot Class C RV for 10 years and my wife Loretta and I have seen most of the country in it. Humble beginnings indeed but fond memories all. Submitted by Jim Melville of Banning, CA as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!  Read More →

1972: Yosemite, Fishing, Bears, Oh My!

I came from a family that traveled and camped for vacations. My husband came from a family that spent vacations going home to visit relatives. In 1972, my husband let me plan our first camping vacation with our three sons, ages 11 months, 3 years, and 5 years old. We purchased a used 16 ft Nomad travel trailer that had a back couch bed, upper bunk, kitchen, and front dinette. As we were checking into Yosemite National Park in California, my husband found that there was no fishing allowed in the park. He turned to me and said that from now on he would plan the vacations. We stayed as we were already there. The first night, I was awakened by a movement of the trailer. I checked and no one inside had moved. The next morning, I told my husband that I thought a bear had bumped the trailer. He thought I was crazy as there were no bear around. Going outside, the next camper informed him that a bear had stood up against our trailer during the night. Later that morning, we went sightseeing. We spotted a bear eating in a clearing. My husband took the camera and crept up to get a picture. The bear thought he was getting too close and swatted at him so he backed off. Now, he believed me. We wanted to hike up to one of the falls but didn’t know how we could do it with the boys as we would have to take turns backpacking the baby. Our 3 year old had seen a wooden truck in a gift shop that he wanted really bad. We made a deal with him that if he walked to the falls all by himself, we would... Read more

Lots of Learning (the Hard Way) On Our First RV Trip

Our first RV experience was scary, exciting and unfortunately expensive. We had been planning on our retirement for years and we had decided to buy a 40′ Class A and see the country. On the first day of retirement we planned on a cross country trip from Southern California through Arizona and Colorado then northward to across the northern half of the US then spending a couple of months with relatives on the east coast and heading back to the west right after Thanksgiving. We had bought the RV a couple of months earlier and although we had a couple of practice drives, my wife and I weren’t too experienced with a 40 footer. We packed the RV and were planning on a early departure. We pulled out of the storage lot at about 5 AM and immediately had a alarm go off . We pulled into a Wal-Mart to figure it out and we couldn’t. So plan B was to head to the local Camping World where we bought the rig and have them check it out. We were immediately looking at a 3 hour delay waiting for them to open. As I pulled out of the parking lot and started up the street, I wasn’t familiar enough with the mirrors and even though I was going slow a car approached from the right and not being able to judge the distance well enough, I turned to the right lane and forced the car off the road. We circled back and checked out what we had caused. To our good fortune the young women had been able to avoid hitting us and although she was shaken up, then was no damage. Thank goodness. We... Read more

Topsy-Turvy Pop-Up in a Rain Storm in Hershey Park, PA

It was our first time out in our new pop-up camper. We traveled to Hershey Park, PA and were excited to experience our first real camping adventure. On our way over,from Ohio, it came up a very bad thunderstorm when we were in the mountains. We arrived at the campsite,my husband popped up the camper, pulled out the beds and attached the sides while the storm continued to rage causing the water to rise because the storm drains could not handle all the water that was coming down. My husband came in, soaked from head to toe, and told our 2 sons, ages 8 and 9, to get ready for bed. They went to one end of the camper and it started to tilt when he remembered that he’d forgotten to put any of the jacks down! He headed back out into the storm to fix the problem and as he did, he told us to go to one end of it. Unfortunately, the boys and I went to the wrong end and up it started to go!!! He told us to go to the middle and to stay there until he returned. By this time we were laughing so hard,but he surely did not see the humor in it! An upside down camper was definately not what he had in mind!! Thank God we survived and we now camp in a 30 ft. pull behind camper and enjoy every bit of our time we spend camping. We learned a good lesson during that first excursion!! Submitted by Larry Smith of Pickerington, OH as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your... Read more

4th of July Camping Trip Brings New Friends and Great Fun

My first RV memory was actually last year, 2009. My partner of 8 years had started looking for a camper in the latter part of 2008. When it was mentioned to me, I was so opposed and thought “camping?” why on earth would you want to buy a camper.  I had not camped since I was a small child, which was just tent camping. In May of ‘09, we bought a ‘72 Shasta from an elderly couple and I was convinced to help clean it up, which it was in great shape to begin with, but I started to clean all the while knowing I had no desire to camp, that had been my attitude through many a conversation. The first camping trip was schedule for July 4th weekend at Four Paws Campground in Rutherfordton, NC. I was really skeptical about going. We loaded up everything we needed and our 3 pugs and headed for camping. I just knew this would be a long, boring weekend. I was so amazed, I had a wonderful time and it was a blast. We met so many people and made such good friends. It was so much fun, I couldn’t wait to go back. Camping is just undescribable, I never thought our fellow campers could be so nice. And to meet people from all over and so many different personalities. I thoroughly looked forward to the Spring season to arrive so we could hit the road again. We bought a more updated travel trailer this year and that makes it all the better. The pugs love to travel and this is such a great way to vacation with them. Bring on the camping!!!! Submitted by Joseph Hardy of... Read more

Next Page »