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

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

MS Streets and Trips to Plan Your Travels

Long before we took to the road in our RV, we had a computer training center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida called Computer Savvy.  We were a Microsoft Authorized Training Center and one of the classes was Mappoint.  Mappoint was a very expensive mapping, routing, and demographics database program.  As an authorized training center we had our own copies of all the software, including Mappoint.  So, after we sold the training center and became RVers – we figured we’d give Mappoint a try for planning and navigating our travels.  Mappoint’s inexpensive little brother is called Streets and Trips.  We installed it on our laptop, bought the USB GPS receiver for it and found a place to mount the laptop in the cab of our 30 foot Class C motorhome.  That was our sole mapping and navigation program for our first few years on the road – 2003-6. Here’s the very first video we made about MS Streets and Trips. Then came the Garmin dashboard GPS, the Rand McNally, and Google Maps on our Android smartphones.  Streets and Trips had to take a backseat while we played with all these new toys.  But, we still used Streets and Trips when we had time to sit at our computers and dream about our future plans.  There’s a lot of good things to be said about all of those while you’re driving and want voice-directed turn by turn directions, but nothing beats Streets and Trips for the planning part.  Now, with our new MS Surface Tablet that... Read more

WILMINGTON, NC. – MADE FAMOUS IN ‘LINCOLN’

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers A continuing saga, which I call my Micro-Blogs … Unless you are one of the few who didn’t see the movie “Lincoln,” you know that the Town of Wilmington, North Carolina, was a key target for the North in cutting off supplies for the Rebel army.  Once it was taken, Southern forces had an excellent strategy to hold Ft. Fisher, but the North's gunboats had too much power for them to sustain their position. the Civil War was all but over. While Monique and I have been immersed over the past two weeks in American Revolution and Civil War history, honestly, it’s not something we soak up.  Yet, it’s hard not to appreciate the do-or-die struggles that resulted in America’s independence and at the Civil War that ended with the return into the Unionof the states that seceded. When Patrick Henry proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death,” he and the other patriots were truly facing execution if they lost, or at least loss of their bountiful way of life.  Same was true in the Civil War.  Southerners putting their lives on the line to defend their agrarian culture against the Northern Army, also made up of men willing to die for what they believed. I ask that you remember that every member of our Armed Services today faces that same call to duty.  They put their lives on the line to secure our freedom. The antiquity of the Wilimington Cotton Exchange Building is evident in a star at the end of... 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

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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