Wise water usage the key to extended boondocking

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 AdminIn last week’s post, Power to the people: Upgrade options for your electrical system, I wrote about various ways to increase your electrical capacity while dry-camping (boondocking). Now we will move on to drinking water, that natural resource that will limit your consecutive boondocking days unless you are Moses and can strike a stone with a rod and water gushes forth. If you run out of water you can’t make coffee, spaghetti, or jello,  brush your teeth, flush your toilet, wash and rinse dishes, shower,  or have a nice cold glass of it. In fact, you are probably so used to just turning the spigot that until nothing but a drop or two dribbles out do you realize how thirsty you are. That’s why boondockers have to plan, curbing the natural instinct (and wasteful habit) of unconsciously turning on the spigot without thought. It’s the same as flicking on the light switch and not considering the amps fleeing your batteries. You don’t have to be paranoid about it, but if you adopt the habit of thinking about the consequences of  your... Read more

A FIVE-PART BLOG

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers YORK AND THE HOGS — As today’s title suggests, there are five parts to today’s blog, beginning with our discovering an interesting area to visit when you’re traveling in the Northeast.  The place is York County, Pennsylvania, between Harrisburg and Baltimore.  It proudly calls itself Another "Hog" owner arrives at the factory. No photos are allowed in the production plant. “The Factory Tour Capital of the World.” Before going further about all that’s available in that area, I’ll start out by saying that the only tour we took was the Harley-Davidson motorcycle factory.   Realize that technology is not high in Monique’s sphere of interests and I’ve never longed to straddle a “Hog,” but whattaplace! The robots that paint and form parts are magnificent.  The workforce’s devotion to producing a precision product is inspirational.  Everything on every motorcycle that goes through the stations is checked and rechecked all along the assembly lines. Most of the process is done by men and women because almost every bike is different. Large and small, various colors and models, some with ultimate accessories, others lean and mean – robots can’t be programmed to cope with the variety.  [And unlike Ozzie Nelson when the Nelsons went through the U.S. Mint in the 1960s, I didn’t ask for a free sample.] When we were staying near York, we carefully chose which factories to tour... Read more

Winnebago Picks A Winning GPS Solution

A look of what’s new, from Lug_Nut. Winnebago has announced it will be offering the Rand McNally GPS in the dash of selected 2014 models. Two screen sizes will be used with the largest being a huge 10.4”. This will give Winnebago the edge of offering the largest in-dash GPS in the RV market today. While there are many, many makes of GPS systems used in vehicles today, the Rand McNally is perhaps the only unit that was built with the RV market and application in mind. The internal user selected mode, can be configured to the real world size and weight of the specific vehicle it is installed in. Additionally tows, be it trailer or flat tow, can be added or removed at any time. How does the Rand McNally stack up against the others? Well, first of all, none are without fault. There are no makes that I’m aware of that are 100% consistently accurate. Small error can happen from time to time. Some of these errors may be due to RF signal propagation as well as possible internal processing logistic issues. But, in general, most receivers deliver fairly accurate data regardless. I believe the Rand McNally’s operation is above average, especially for large vehicles, or vehicle combinations, like found in the RV application. I have four GPS systems currently. One in my current motor home, 2007, updated in 2011, one in my Escalade 2006, updated in 2012, one in my Jaguar 2013 and my stand-alone Rand McNally. All are touch screen units. Generally, in an automobile application,... Read more

RVING SWITCHBACKS – EAST, WEST, NORTH, SOUTH

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers I prepared an article years ago about the types of places you can park your rig, updating it several times — everything from private campgrounds to national parks to retail outlets and many more – 17 more to be exact.  If you’d like a copy, please email your request to neverboredrvers@gmail.com. It’s free. Annapolis, capital of Maryland. What a neat place!  We spent a day walking the streets of this interesting town, reveling in all-thing-Annapolis: historic homes and buildings, including those housing state From left, "Big Al" picks out crabs for us in St. Michaels, a town that celebrates its seafood, and we're ready for a feast in Annapolis government, the Chesapeake Bay waterfront, seafood, shops, and, most notable of all, the U.S. Naval Academy.  Very prestigious, and the midshipmen are all so handsome; that is, all except the midshipwomen, who Midshipmen -- with female middies in background at right are dolls.  I don’t mean to be sexist about this, but we were astounded to see how many of the middies are female.  And they all, both women and men, look so young and fresh. During the past week, we have qualified to put three more stickers on our map of states visited as RVers.  We stayed across the Potomac in Maryland while visiting Washington, D.C.  Then, we crossed the never-ending Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis (really only 4.3 miles, but it goes on and on) to the... Read more

Power to the people: Upgrade options for your electrical system

By Bob Difley In last week’s post, How to get the most out of your electrical system when camping without hookups, http://blog.rv.net/2013/05/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-electrical-system-when-camping-without-hookups/ I wrote getting started dry-camping or boondocking and how to conserve the electricity in your house batteries to add time to your camping trip before having to recharge. Today we will look at ways to upgrade your electrical system to provide even longer stays out in the boonies. Lower wattage and Energy Star appliances will take less energy to run, pull fewer amps from your batteries, and run more efficiently than your older appliances. However, it is not practical or economical to tear out your old installed appliances and replace with Energy Star (until they start getting tired and need replacement), but you can check before you buy a new RV whether the appliances already installed are in compliance. You can also vastly improve your electrical system–actually more than doubling your storage capacity–by installing additional or different batteries. Here you have choices. Buy an additional deep cycle flooded lead acid RV battery like the one your rig came with. But, don’t add a new battery into a system with older batteries or the older battery will draw energy from the new one. A newer type battery option is the absorbed gas mat (AGM) type, which has no liquid in the cells that must be monitored or refilled. Or you could install two... Read more

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers I was a newspaper editor and reporter back in the days when newspapers were the primary source of news.  Decades later, ink still flows through my veins.  In other words, even today I gravitate toward the news.  I All the Pulitzer Prize winning photos on display -- a time for reflection mention this because I put the new Newseum in Washington, D.C. at the top of my list of museums in our Capital City. The Newseum houses an incredible collection of things that matter to us all.  It’s about things so many of us have personally experienced (depending on age) so it’s filled with information we can identify with, and then gives us a different perspective on what we read or saw on television. In the FBI Section -- The shoes of the Shoebomber Matter of fact, it explains how television vaulted into first place as a reliable source of news when President John Kennedy was assassinated, as shown in an incredible series of temporary dynamic exhibitions.  It explains the importance of Edward R. Murrow.  The relationship between the media and the FBI sustained my attention. The most emotional experience was looking at the Pulitzer Prize winning photos through the years.  Almost every one of the more than 80 pictures made me think, reflect, evaluate, understand. Woven throughout the five stories of galleries are movies and other active visuals that take the viewer through the history of journalism from before the writing... Read more

D.C.

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers Washington, D.C. – I would call it the “phoniest” town we’ve seen.  Walking on the streets and through museums, around monuments and restaurants and on the Metrorail subway system, seems like everyone has a cellphone up to his or her ear, although they may be listening to music on an I-pod.  What did you think when I called Washington, D.C., the “phoniest” town? In the Museum of African Art With one exception, I would describe what we’ve experienced a notable, memorable stop along our route.  It’s been years since we both visited the nation’s capital.  We carried our impressions back with us and supplemented that with new appreciation of the grandeur of it all. We feel like we did it right. The first trip into the city (except for following our GPS’s routing of us through the plate of spaghetti they call freeways and roads) had us boarding a Gray Lines Tours bus for “DC at Night.”  We knew we would have a chance to revisit the must-see sights in the daytime; so, seeing it at night gave us a whole different perspective. Best of all, the crowds, especially the hordes of hyperactive school kids (mostly on cellphones), were more manageable when climbing the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and the numerous other sights we took in that night.  Even the long line of tour buses after 9 p.m. was mind-bending. We read this week that the National Mall in Washington has more visitors than Yosemite,... Read more

How to get the most out of your electrical system when camping without hookups

By Bob Difley In last week’s post, Moving forward: Surviving your first night of dry-camping http://blog.rv.net/2013/04/moving-forward-surviving-your-first-night-of-dry-camping/ I wrote about how to spend a night or two without hookups. This week I go a bit further by looking at how to extend our camping time–actually getting the maximum out of the batteries that provide our house electricity–prolonging the time when we need to go find a hookup or run our engine/generator for an extended length of time to restore the amps–the power–to the batteries. So let’s take a look at the RV’s electrical operation. What could be easier to use in an RV than the electrical system? You flip a switch and there is light. Push a button and your coffee maker produces a perfect cup of Java. Nothing to think twice about–as long you keep an electrical wire connected to your house-on-wheels and the utility company’s equipment doesn’t brown out. In your stick house, when these fail, there is not much you can do about it but wait. And wait. Until somebody else fixes it. But in your RV, it’s a different story. If you practice the cavalier attitude about electrical usage in your rig that you probably do in your house, chances are that your house battery will soon be completely depleted. The reason, of course, is that your wire to your house/RV continuously feeds infinite current, while when boondocking you are using up the finite stored electricity in... Read more

IN THE SHADOWS OF SHENANDOAH

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers A continuing saga, which I call “Micro-Blogs” … In the uplands, the trees were just starting to come into their spring greenery.  In the valleys, the bright yellow forsythia, white and pink shrubbery and wildflower blossoms and lush green everywhere kept us enchanted for mile after mile (much akin to fireweed in the Yukon Territory). Looking out from Skyline Parkway at the Blue Ridge Mountains So Babcock, West Virginia, was a pleasant enough state park, but it wasn’t in its glory when we visited in mid-April.  Nor was Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, one of the most visited national parks in America.  The rhododendron bushes were leafy but have not yet bloomed, so we missed out on their rich hues, but the Shenandoah Valley is a place of beauty. Once we arrived at Shenandoah River State Park, Virginia, we were surrounded by healthy forests that we always enjoy, sprinkled with colorful trees, butterflies and the beautiful Shenandoah River. This valley is a tourist’s paradise, with its abundant caverns open to the public.  We picked the most renown, Luray Caverns in Luray, for a trek underground.  We seem to gravitate toward caves in our travels, having gone underground in at least a dozen and maybe closer to two dozen — that makes us expert cavern tourists. Far beneath the surface of the Earth is an enchanting lake, seen in Luray Caverns in Virginia A vintage Mercedes-Benz in Luray's... Read more

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE – HAMPTON, VA

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers A continuing saga, which I call ‘Micro-Blogs” … From our campground at Hampton, Virginia, we walked the historic olde streets of Yorktown and visited battlegrounds.  We took in Williamsburg, recreated to show what life was like in the days before American Independence.  And we drove down to Jamestown, where it all began for Europeans arriving in the New World. That was two days of being injected with American history, and, honestly, it brought to life what I had learned so many years ago about the founding of this country. But, there’s more!  Before hitchin’ up and movin’ out of Hampton, we thought we should take a few minutes to see the Town of Hampton.  On our way over the scenic Hampton River Bridge next to downtown, we spied Scenes from Hampton's International Children's Festival something going on in town – looked like a festival.  No way to pass that up. That’s when we walked into a highlight of our trip – the International Children’s Festival.  Dozens of booths manned by locals native to or who have spent time in countries around the world.  The people dressed in the traditional attire of their countries were doling out information to children (and parents) about each of their countries. Each child had a passport to get stamped as they learned at least a smattering about each country, its geography, culture, products and more.  We saw native costumes and heard music from... Read more

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