A FIVE-PART BLOG

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 AdminBy 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... 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

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

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

GREENVILLE, SC –AN EXCEPTIONAL CITY

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers The Reedy River Falls are a center of beauty and relaxation for Greenville residents and visitors Ain’t no grass growing under our feet, but I’m happy to say there are flowers blossoming on the bushes and trees that line the highways and byways we have traversed over the past two weeks. The pace of our travels has limited my computer time, but now there’s time to catch up, which I’ll do with this series of “Micro-Blogs,” a few impressions on the past two weeks in the Eastern Time Zone, published in series form. The story of the Mouse on Main “Mice on Main” seems to fit in well with the character of dynamic Greenville, South Carolina.  Our journeys have taken us through so many towns that put heart, soul and dollars into re-invigorating their downtown areas, only to see their efforts sputter and die — Greenville is a glorious exception. In a grand effort that began about 40 years ago, the once decaying Main Street is booming, with beautiful and historic buildings shining in Shady Main Street contrasts with the historic and modern buildings along the boulevard the sunlight. People line up for lunch and dinner in more than 50 restaurants along the tree-shaded boulevard.  International corporations have move into town, bringing energy and sophistication to this once sleepy southern town. Gardens at the base of the falls outline the park under the suspension bridge The suspension bridge overlooking... Read more

Where are the hookups? Camping off the grid

By Bob Difley In last week’s post, Introduction to Boondocking for the curious, the closet adventurer, even the skeptic, http://blog.rv.net/2013/04/introduction-to-boondocking-for-the-curious-the-closet-adventurer-even-the-skeptic/ I urged those who have not yet tried boondocking to get off the grid and give it a shot. So let’s look at exactly what boondocking entails, clear up a few misconceptions, and how to ease into it with a minimal of drama and tramma. To make boondocking enjoyable and fun requires a combination of learned (and practiced) skills, adjusting to new habits, a desire to stay out in the wilderness as somfortably as possible, and a curiosity about out-of-the-way places, nature, wildlife, and what you might find around the next bend. Not all boondockers match this profile. Some of the differences can be attributed to the semantics of the words “boondocking” and “dry-camping.” They are the same in that both refer to camping without any hook-ups–water, electricity, or sewage. With even one of these appendages, we would have partial hook-ups and therefor not technically boondocking. Let’s call it almost-boondocking. The key–or difference–is in where we do it. Dry-camping is what you do at an RV rally, in a Wal-mart parking lot, highway rest stop, or a primitive campground where there are no hook-ups but could have a fresh water supply, trash cans, or dump station on site. True boondocking is camping away... Read more

A FEW SITUATIONS OF OUR OWN

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers Dear Lug_Nut, We cringed during yesterday’s posting, wondering how we get ourselves into these no-going-back & no-going–forward situations.  We had a few, but, honestly, none that I can remember as harrowing as your knuckle-whitener.  Good writing, Lug! Since “Comments” aren’t active these days, a victim of spammers (who sent me over 400 messages at one time), I’ll relate a few of our experiences in this blog.  I wrote this same type column about a year ago, but Monique urged me not to run it.  I must have erased it, because it has disappeared from my files. First incident happened about the fifth day of our RVing experience, so naturally I was still nervous.  We approached a long, narrow bridge pulling our 22-foot Starcraft Antigua travel trailer.  As we moved on forward, I realized there was a truck with a wide load heading toward us !!! at a high rate of speed !!! and weaving a bit.  I truly white-knuckled it, hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life. We must have made it across, because we’re still RVing.  I may have blacked out as we almost scraped past. Not long afterward, we pulled into a shopping center … only it wasn’t the entrance to the center’s parking lot.  It was the entrance to a small Starbuck’s – no way to back up or turn around, only the narrow drive-thru driveway.  We didn’t order a Frappuccino:  we were just happy with our escape. Still new to the... Read more

THE PLIGHT OF A MILLION BATS

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers Another spontaneous detour on our 6-month journey across America took us to Russell Cave National Monument just over the state line from Chattanooga outside of Bridgeport, Alabama. The beginning of seven miles of Russell Cave The “why” to visit there: it’s “an archaeological site with one of the most complete records of prehistoric cultures in the Southeast. Thousands of years ago a portion of Russell Cave’s entrance collapsed, creating a shelter that, for more than 10,000 years, was home to prehistoric peoples. Today it provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 10,000 B.C. to 1650 A.D,” to quote the National Park service handout. The “caution” of visiting this remote park is the RV parking is very limited.  There are two spaces for RVs and buses, but I gave up maneuvering into them with our 50-foot truck and trailer length, parking instead across car spaces.  Luckily, since only two other visitors showed up while we were on site, there was plenty of room for us.  Smaller rigs, 5th wheels and motorhomes probably have less trouble than our 28-foot TT. And at this point, I’ll mention that when Ranger Antoine Fletcher was listing the numerous species of animals in the park, he said they have about everything but Bigfoot.  I corrected him immediately – our trailer is a Bigfoot.  We were also impressed to hear there are more than 700 varieties of... Read more

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