Campfire safety, it’s not all light my fire baby!

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This week I want to talk about campfire safety. I realize and hope I am talking to the people that already are safety-minded about fires, but, since this is one of the most frequent causes of injuries while camping, I thought it deserved a strong mention. The campfire is one of the nicest parts of camping. My family loves to sit around the campfire telling stories and making s’mores (if you promise to read this to the end I will give you the new s’mores recipe we are using!), as the night goes on and the wear and tear of the day starts to take it’s toll, and the fire burns down, we become quiet and begin watching the fire and the almost hypnotic effect it starts to have. Finally, when someone either yawns so wide it looks like the top of their head is going to fall off or falls asleep, then it is time for bed. It is also most useful for cooking and heating water for dishes if you are dry camping.

But, like any tool, you must learn how to use it safely. You don’t give a 4-year-old a axe and say go have fun.  Likewise you don’t give a 4-year-old matches and say go have fun… but, at any age, you can learn about fire safety. Most of what I am going to say is common sense but, like my Grandfather used to tell me, “Common sense isn’t that common anymore.” So, Please read this and if you learn one new thing that can make you safer, it will have been worth it!

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The Bear Facts on Electric Fences

You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than ever having a close encounter with a hungry bear, but recent events; including an aggressive black bear having to be put down in Yellowstone National Park on July 11, a grizzly attack on a camper just outside the park on July 18, and an attack on a solo hiker yesterday in the Walker basin area east of Bakersfield, CA have elevated awareness of the risks associated with camping in bear country. With that in mind, we look at a pair of gadgets this week designed to protect your campsite sleeping area through the night. Read more

The Kamp Kaddie

On our last camping trip, over the 4th of July weekend, we picked-up a new Coleman 8D Family Size LED Lantern for those nighttime marshmallow roasts. The lantern worked great, but we quickly figured out that the picnic table was not the most efficient place for a light source. Luckily we were deep in the woods of Oregon’s Coast Range, so a tree branch was readily available, but we will need to come up with a better solution and I think I have found it in the Kamp Kaddie, from VacationGadgets.com.

The Kamp Kaddie can be clamped to a table top, or staked into the ground by switching-out the bottom section of the pole. This flexibility is important to me, because football season is right around the corner and our tailgate barbeques take place in a paved parking lot. I have been in many campsites, though, where the picnic table is some distance from the fire ring, so the ability to stake the Kamp Kaddie into the ground will come in handy. The condiment basket is adjustable up-and-down, and could easily double as a soap dish, making the Kamp Kaddie a useful addition to any wash station.

Happy camping!

RVing with pets and their unique needs

I would bet that most people who travel with pets have a canine along with them in the RV, car or plane. But there are a lot of folks who travel with their cats, birds and other pets as they head out for business or pleasure. The type of pet you travel with can have unique requirements for feeding, comfort, safety and other considerations. Birds, for example, have much more stringent travel needs than dogs. Some people would argue that cats are more difficult to travel with than dogs. Read more

RV Today Archive - San Francisco

Travel along with popular television host Stew Oleson for a glimpse on the beauty of San Francisco, watch some of the city highlights, and get great tips on how to move around, where to go for unbeatable views and fabulous food such as the historic John’s Grill. For nighttime entertainment, you can attend the nation’s longest running musical revue: Beach Blanket Babylon. Plus, get valuable tips for those planning to ride a boat and visit Alcatraz or get away for a day to visit the Napa Valley wineries. View the video below:

There is certainly a sophisticated air to San Francisco. Some of the highlights include the Golden Gate Bridge -be prepared to pay-, Chinatown -you have to walk through it to take it all in, the Twin Peaks -for incredible views, and the City Lights Bookstore - which prides itself to be San Francisco’s independent voice. But if you want to get away from the noise, you can peddle to Golden Gate Park for some peaceful and quiet enjoyment.

Stay tuned for more RV Today Archive episodes, being added soon.

O-Grill by Pro-Iroda Industries

In response to my last post on the Notebook Portable Grill, Aaron was looking for suggestions on a compact gas grill. The Weber® Q™ 100 is probably the gold-standard in compact gas grills (see Sean Michael’s review), but I ran across a similar grill that looks interesting; the O-Grill.

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Product Review: Weber “Baby Q” Grill

Airstream RV Blog #69 - Weber “Baby Q” Grill from Sean Michael on Vimeo.

Camping and grilling go together like juicy hamburgers and freshly cut French fries. Yet most campground grills (when available) leave much to be desired. Either they are falling apart from neglect, or they are gargantuan devices apparently designed by Cro-Magnons for the roasting of freshly slain woolly rhinoceros.

Enter the Weber Q100 “Baby Q” Grill. This is an excellent travel-sized, propane-powered grill. It works so well, you may find yourself using it at home as your primary barbecue grill of choice. Read more

Product Review: Flag Pole Buddy

JUST IN TIME FOR THE 4^th OF JULY!

Product Review: Flag Pole Buddy
Acquired from RV Upgrade Store
Price $85.95

What is it? A kit for mounting a flag pole attached to your RV ladder.

What makes it special? The pole with the flag attached can be easily installed or removed when needed without having to climb the ladder to remove the pole mounting brackets. The flag pole brackets remain attached to your RV ladder. In addition, the gold colored ball at the top of the mounting pole gives the product a classic touch. Read more

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

Notebook Portable Grill

Here is an interesting twist on the portable barbecue grill, out of the U.K., called the Notebook Portable Grill. Weighing a tad less than nine pounds (4.0KG for the metric-minded), the grill folds flat just like a notebook computer. Ready to use, the grill measures twelve inches high, twelve inches wide and eighteen inches long. I could not find very much information on the size of the grilling surface. One U.S. distributor, A+R Global Design, claims 192 square inches, and that seems about right based on the exterior dimensions. For comparison, a Weber® Q™ 100 has 189 square inches of cooking area.

The Notebook Portable Grill looks like an attractive solution for those who are storage space challenged in their RV’s. At just a few inches thick, when folded, it is the perfect size for pass-through storage areas and even tent trailers.

Happy camping!

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