PIGS FLY (over RVs at Albuquerque’s Incredible Balloon Fiesta!)

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Airstream RV Blog # 85 - When Pigs Fly (The Balloon Fiesta!) from Sean Michael on TheLongLongHoneymoon.com.

One of the best upsides to RV ownership, as we’ve discussed, is the ability to haul around your own hotel room. It’s even better when you park it right next door to a major community event. That’s just what we did in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when we attended the fantastic International Balloon Fiesta. Owning an RV made attending this extraordinary festival even more fun. Here’s how… Read more

Hey Ranger! The Ultimate Swiss Army Knife

For over 80 years, the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog has offered unusual (and extravagant) gifts for the man or woman who apparently has everything else. Now, the folks at Hammacher Schlemmer have their own cutting-edge gift idea for the traveler and outdoor enthusiast: “The Only Complete Swiss Army Knife.”

A Swiss Army Knife has been a staple on the outdoor scene for decades, but this version is apparently targeted more at those who prefer to hit the road instead of the trail. Tipping the scales at a robust two and three-quarter pounds, this won’t be the tool of choice for backpackers! For road warriors, however, there’s something on board this model for almost any situation.

What does it take to earn a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for “The Most Multifunctional Penknife”?  (Apparently the definition of “penknife” is rather broad!) How about “87 precision-engineered tools” that perform a reported 112 functions? You’d expect a good sampling of blades, screwdrivers and pliers on a Swiss Army Knife, and this model doesn’t disappoint in that category. However, in an effort to be sure that no sportsperson is left behind, the “Complete” version also caters to aficionados of the following activities: Read more

Affinity Announces New Charity Partnership with the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps

Affinity, the nation’s largest provider of outdoor recreation clubs, services, media and events, and parent company of RV.net, announces a new major partnership with the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps (HITWC). The global charity organization is the dream of late actor Paul Newman, and includes a network of camps that provide a traditional, magical camp experience for children with serious illnesses and life-threatening conditions. The partnership between Affinity and HITWC is designed to build awareness of the non-profit’s programs through Affinity’s vast array of outdoor clubs, publications, and Web sites, to raise money to send kids to camp, and to generate volunteer hours to help the camps operate.

“Affinity’s publications, employees and membership groups inspire youth and families to participate in outdoor recreational activities and to understand, appreciate and enjoy its benefits,” said Mike Schneider, president and CEO of Affinity. “Our relationship with Hole in the Wall Camps will allow children the opportunity to experience what we already know and love about the outdoors, and we couldn’t be more proud of the partnership.”

For more information, view the full press release online at Affinity.

RV Cooking Show - Incredible Annapolis and Maryland Steamed Shrimp

Replete with big time history, fantastic food, shopping galore and their trademark City Dock, Annapolis has a lot to offer. What better way to spend a few days than wandering around this small city/big town soaking in the culture, enjoying the clink-clink-clink of sailboat masts and the sparkling blue Chesapeake Bay. This episode of the RV Cooking Show takes you on a fun tour of Annapolis, courtesy of our special RV Cooking Show guest – Annapolitian Mary Jane Eckert. And for all of you dog lovers out there don’t miss Mary’s tip on Annapolis’ premier dog park and beach!

Read more

The $1,128,000,000 Campground

Airstream RV Blog #84 - The $1,128,000,000 Campground from Sean Michael on TheLongLongHoneymoon.com.

How valuable was this camping experience? We’ve been told that a half acre of land on the Las Vegas Strip recently sold for $47 million. And yet, here’s a massive swath of such land dedicated to a full hookup RV campground. So using these numbers as reference, I guess our little campsite is worth at least $5,000,000 — and the campground itself is worth around $1,128,000,000. Read more

Healthy Eating: A Few Simple Tips

By Lynn Difley

Are you tired of counting calories, carbohydrates, or sugar in each food item? Do you feel overwhelmed by all the contradictory information about what you should eat and what you should shun? We in America tend to follow the latest food fad, from low fat to low carb in a head-spinning short time.
Despite our obsession with eating healthy, we are growing steadily more obese and the unhealthy risk factors for chronic and life-threatening diseases are increasing. What’s a poor bloke to do?
Eat food. No joke, many of the items on our plates or our Styrofoam boxes are not food items at all, but a mixture of processed non-food items. Consider the ridiculous notion of Atkins bread–bread that has the least amount of what makes a bread a bread.

To make your own choices, follow this practice:

• Don’t eat anything with a list of ingredients you can’t pronounce, or do not recognize.
• Trans fats and high fructose corn syrup are two warning phrases that indicate that the food is far from the way Mother Nature created it.
• Eat food that you have cooked, or could cook.
• Eat food that your grandmother would recognize.

And Another thing

Downsize rather than super size. Our tendency is to listen to the advertisements that tout “less fat” “fewer calories” “low carbohydrates” and then give ourselves open season on the quantity. We are eating 300 more calories than we did in l985. That’s enough to gain a pound about every 11 days. Multiply that by a year, and you will find out why the trousers you bought two years ago have become tight.
A few other tips about overeating:

• Don’t eat in front of the TV, or computer.
• Avoid seconds.
• Shop and eat better quality, not greater quantity.
• A Super anything is not necessarily tasty, as a matter of fact, you may consume three times more calories in your desire to have it taste better.
• The better the quality of food you eat, the less you will need to feel satisfied.
• How about one tiny square of the finest chocolate? It will make you feel like royalty, as you consume it with full awareness and appreciation.

Plants vs Meat

Eat lots of plants. Meat is not the enemy, but the quantity of meat as well as its overemphasis is what causes problems. Small amounts of meat can be used, as in Mediterranean, Asian, Indian, or Mexican cuisine to flavor, rather than be the whole meal. You are not doing your arteries or your waistline any favor when you gobble down a 10 oz steak.
Appreciate your food. No matter what you eat, sit down and savor it. Life is too short not to include the simple joy of eating delicious real food, prepared with love and care, served with joy, and shared with loved ones.

Hey Ranger! What’s in Your Viewfinder?

Along with scenery, wild animals rank high on the list of favorite outdoor photo subjects, and for good reason. In areas such as national parks where they are legally protected from hunting, many birds and animals gradually lose their fear of humans, and can be approached much more closely than in other locations.  As the following story illustrates, that can create some interesting situations if you get too focused on what’s in your viewfinder instead of your wallet, and forget about the real world beyond your lens! Read more

RV vs. Hotel - Which is Better?

RV vs. Hotel! from Sean Michael on TheLongLongHoneymoon.com.

Being travel enthusiasts, my wife and I have stayed everywhere from flea-infested hostels, to skanky motels, to cozy bed & breakfasts, to five-star resorts. I’d like to think we’ve learned something about hotels, and how they compare vis-a-vis RVs. So let’s ponder the timeless question: “What’s better, staying in an RV or in a hotel?”
Read more

Innovative Rotisserie Campfire Grill

Here is an innovative new product, from JnB Enterprises, that incorporates a motorized rotisserie grill for cooking over an open campfire. The Automatic Chef™ uses two D-size batteries, which provide 15-hours of operation, to slowly rotate a 22-inch diameter stainless steel grate. The whole thing packs-up into its own 19-inch by 25-inch carrying case, for safe storage and easy transportation.

There is nothing better than cooking over an open fire, and the Automatic Chef looks like a great way to free you up from constantly having to turn the food, in order to control the temperature. The height of the grate is adjustable via a stainless steel cable, and the arm extends from 22 to 30-inches to accommodate various fire-pit sizes. The entire assembly swivels on its ground stake, so you can rotate the grate away from the fire when adding or removing food - a nice feature.

An adjustable rotisserie grill for campfire cooking; Hop Sing never had it so good!

Happy camping!

Firedude’s humorous side of full-time camp hosting part #3

From the desk of Firedude…

This has to be one of the craziest weekends I’ve ever seen. We were packed last night to the gills with not one single site available. You would have thought it was a holiday weekend. Friday night was a disaster with park staff in the office and everything that could be wrong administrative wise was. I dealt with those issues nearly 8 hours, not counting the multiple ranger contacts throughout the campground Friday night for noise issues.

Then a young boy (about 12 or 13) was walking around in the middle of the road in front of Dennis’ site with his pants at half mast and no boxers on either and yep, the bare butt showing. He was walking around letting everyone (including children) see him and laughing. The whole time his parents watching and laughing about it. Yep, called Mr. Ranger, but before Mr. Ranger had arrived, his dad got in my face which he found was not a wise choice by anyone’s standards, especially this weekend. I told him, sir you do not know me personally very well because if you did you wouldn’t be getting in my face. He asked in a smart tone why’s that?  I simply responded with a straight face and my deep voice that I was one of the meanest, toughest fella’s to ever walk the face of this earth and if he pursued his current direction he was about to find out first hand. He then backed off until the ranger arrived. This was NOT the weekend to mess with ‘ol firedude! He was such a tough guy until I lit into him and then when Mr. Ranger arrived he became Fred Rodgers pleading…”won’t ya be my neighbor”! It was funny because when he told Mr. Ranger what I had said to him the ranger asked did you back off? The guy said yes and the ranger told him he had made a very wise choice! Man, love the smell of napalm in the evening!

Now as I always say just when you think you’ve seen it all you find out you haven’t. Never ever say that or you’ll jinx yourself big time! The city here operates a Trolley system that runs on the weekends until the first weekend in Oct then shuts down. It comes into the campground and stops near me and goes downtown and makes its run about every half hour. Well last night the trolley driver comes to me a bit mad. It seems some teenager wearing a beanie in one of the first campsites as you drive into the campground turned out to be a direct descendant of one of my genetically declined camping buddies. As the trolley drives in this genetically declined teenager begins chasing the trolley barking like a dog!! When he catches up to it he starts banging on the side and the driver immediately stopped thinking he ran over the guy hearing the thumps. Realizing he hadn’t, he came to my place to report it. The campers down there all sat with mouths wide open. When Mr. Ranger arrived the humor for this idiot and his family suddenly disappeared. I told the trolley driver the minute the guy got near me I would have slammed on the breaks letting the guy run smack dab into me.

By dark there wasn’t a campsite left here or within 60 miles and you would have sworn it was Memorial Day weekend! I kept getting people coming in and I’d have to tell them we have no room left. I think some people’s comprehension skills are often left at home when they leave to go camping. They would plead with me and of course my reply was I’m sorry, but as I said we’re FULL! They would plead more until I started foaming at the mouth and they would only then begin to comprehend what I was saying.

I then have this camper come up to me “concerned” over this lady camping here and thinking she maybe in need of help and homeless. OK, so after a long, weird, tough weekend I decide to go over there just to see. Well after talking to the woman for a few it is established that she is an off duty deputy sheriff and I sat down at her table and began laughing along with her. Too funny. Well we decided paybacks were often fun so we went over to this (yes genetically declined camper) and the deputy ID’d herself to this woman and asked if SHE needed help. By then I was rolling on the ground hysterical! This woman hid the rest of the day and evening! The deputy and I walked off in total hysteria.  There was nothing that would have indicated this deputy was in need of anything. I think the gal was just a busy body and “pet the wrong dog” so to speak!

Speaking of dogs, I was behind my rig doing something (really hiding from all the weirdo’s) when I turn around and see this huge dog staring me in the face!  My heart skipped about 47 beats until I realized it was friendly. I got one of the leashes out of my rig and took her into “custody” until the ranger arrived. We called a number on her tag and the owner who lives nearby who was out looking for her came by and got her and thanked us. He had left the gate open by accident. Turned out to be a really sweet dog and he was very thankful. At first though I had trouble distinguishing this dog initially between some of my campers!

This has just been a short excerpt of my weekend. One guy who saw a lot of this told me “man you’ve had a rough weekend”!  I said, ya think? I said look at me. Look what this place has done to me. I’m only 29 years old! He rolled with laughter.

Today is HOOVER DAY!!!! The day the huge giant Hoover vacuum comes along at around noon and sucks everybody out of the campground! I’m like a kid waiting for Santa!! I hope and trust your weekend went better than mine! I hope this coming week all I have to report to you all is an empty campground and pure heavenly boredom!

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