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

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

TAKING UP SPACE

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers Friday we arrived in Huntsville, Alabama, “the Rocket City,” climbed the mountain to Monte Sano State Park, unhitched and set out for NASA’s U.S. Space & Rocket Center, where in the 1950s, a team of scientists, led by Dr. Wernher von Braun, designed and tested the rockets that put men on the Moon. Monique acceded to my whim to visit the center, mildly interested at best.  When we walked in, I was blown away by the exhibits.  I think Monique was even more impressed.  (Last blog I mentioned that the World War II Museum in New Orleans is a “must see.” This certainly is another “must see.”) I thought it was a hair dryer for King Kong -- turns out, it was the cones beneath the rocket. In hall after hall, what we saw and experienced was grand.  When we walked into the space center, we were overwhelmed with the grandeur, the spectacles, the active exhibits – and how the designers put into perspective the importance of the space program to our everyday lives. Our trip to Huntsville was our fourth or fifth deviation from the planned route.  When wanderlust calls, we enjoy the spontaneity of our trip, the ability to stay a day longer or leave a day early, the freedom to veer off the yellow-highlighted routes on the maps Monique worked on so diligently. If you’re wondering about all this freedom, it comes first with being retired (except for writing and photography).  It also means willingness... Read more

PLANNING YOUR ROUTE

By Barry Zander, Edited by Monique Zander, the Never-Bored RVers Today I was going to publish some of the comments received from our last blog, but a flash of thought took me in another direction.  I’ll convey your comments in the next article. On yesterday’s trip through several desert communities, we noticed RVs on the move.  We guess that for many snowbirds, the beginning of March is the onset of spring, and maybe our Canadian visitors need to get back across the border so they don’t lose health benefits. For most of us long-term RV touring travelers, taking off on a months-long journey can be done two ways:  planned or unplanned. Monique and I try to be spontaneous, but there are some realities that we have learned to take into consideration. In a couple of weeks we’ll be off on a six-month trip that will take us into 20 states, the District of Columbia and seven Canadian provinces. Having two goals to achieve this year is where the Our Mission: Fill in the Empty Green Spaces planning comes in, and spontaneity is where we expect to find adventure.  The two goals are; 1) filling out the U.S. map on our rig with all the continental states, including Alaska, and 2) experiencing the Canadian Maritimes (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Labrador and Prince Edwards Island) plus Quebec and Ontario.  An additional goal is filling up on lobster and crab while on the East Coast. For those of you new to RVing or heading out on your first long trip, let me share what... Read more

Arizona State Parks are your snowbird guide to Arizona

By Bob Difley RVers that head south from the northern states and Canada to warmer location are called snowbirds, yet not all snowbirds follow the same route. East coast snowbirds generally head to Florida (some to the Gulf coast of Alabama), while mid-west snowbirds aim toward the Rio Grande corridor in Texas. West coast snowbirds pick the Coachella Valley of southeastern California and southern Arizona (though East Coasters think all of Arizona  is a desert, in fact northern Arizona has vast Ponderosa pine forests, snow-capped peaks, and cities above the 7,000 level [Flagstaff] that are far from consideration as a snowbird destination). For West coast snowbirds, much of where they head has to do with the depth of your wallet or purse. The Coachella Valley boasts the fancy, amenity laden (and pricey) RV resorts around Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio. Slightly downscale from there are the RV resorts surrounding Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma, also amenity-heavy and pricey but also a bit below their Coachella Valley cousins. Then there are the ones a step down around Casa Grande, Lake Havasu, and along the Colorado River. Most snowbirds spend their entire winter at one resort, since they fill up early with reservations and it is sometimes hard to find a spot if you just drop in. It’s easier just to stay on. However, if you’ve never been to Arizona before, or have always stayed at a single location, you have missed a lot of what the desert–especially the Sonora... Read more

Pictures of Anastasia Island State Park in Florida

It’s places like this that give me joy in using my good digital SLR camera, and then viewing and editing the pictures later in Picasa.  The picture of the two of us is of particular interest since we were all alone on this beach, and we didn’t have a tripod.  How did we get that picture?  The answer is at the bottom of this post. Anastasia Island is a Florida State park on the beach at St. Augustine.  We only stayed there one night, but we made our way to the beach at those all-important photography times of sunset and sunrise.  I can’t stop looking at these pictures and just feeling love for the world of beauty that we live in.  I took over 250 pictures!  With help from Picasa’s Side-by-Side editing feature, I chose the 49 best and then edited them so they look even better.  I hope you enjoy them! The better way to view the pictures is to follow this link to the pictures on Google+, then click on Slideshow.  That will show them full-screen. My Favorite Picasa Editing features: Just one example of Before and After editing in Picasa.  I hope you agree … the one on the right is better! Crop: most all of my pictures need a crop I’m Feeling Lucky: I always click on I’m Feeling Lucky. Sometimes – especially with sunsets – I don’t like what it does so I click on Undo Straighten: my horizon always seems a bit crooked when taking ocean pictures! Graduated Tint: to make blue skies bluer, or sunsets... Read more

More California state parks scratched off the closure list

By Bob Difley It’s rare when you find a government employee/bureaucrat that, when given a difficult job, comes through with creative ideas and then makes them work . (Note a rewording of this sentence in my comment below.) California may have found one in State Parks Director, Ruth Coleman (who has worked for both Democratic and Republican governors). When Governor Jerry Brown took office, one year and four months ago, the state parks were faced with the closure of 70 of their 278 state parks by July 1st because of budget shortfalls, declining revenues, and all the other problems confronting states today. Since then she and her hard-working staff have managed to pull off what the politicians couldn’t, working out deals with a variety of partners that enabled her to remove 12 parks from the closure list.  And agreements are in the works to scratch another five off the death list. An additional 20 deals are being worked out with various organizations and businesses to work out a plan with county and regional park districts, cities, and non-profit groups to operate the parks for at least a year, giving the economy time to recover and to find new sources of funding. Ms. Coleman has also offered incentives to park department staff to come up with creative ideas to keep the parks open, like the opening of a wine-tasting kiosk at Topanga State Park in Malibu and holding a blues festival (photo) at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma. These are creative... Read more

Vote for Your Favorite Park

The second annual America Is Your Park campaign was recently launched by National Park Foundation, in partnership with Coca-Cola, America’s State Parks, and the National Recreation and Park Association. America Is Your Park campaign urges families to get out and discover fun ways to get active in the park while helping their favorite park win big. Families can vote for their favorite park to win the title of “America’s Favorite Park” and a $100,000 recreation grant made possible by the Coca-Cola Live Positively initiative. “Our national parks are home to our country’s treasures—from our iconic landscapes to the hallowed places where history happened,” said Neil Mulholland, President and CEO, National Park Foundation. “Thanks to dedicated partners like Coca-Cola and the America Is Your Park campaign, our nation’s parks can continue to receive the vital support they need.” Last year, thanks to more than 1.6 million votes cast by its supporters, Bear Head Lake State Park in Ely, Minnesota, was named “America’s Favorite Park.” The following two articles may be of interest: Minnesota state park wins national contest How Bear Head Lake won national contest? Bear Head Lake is using the recreation grant to build a new warming hut to ensure safety and comfort for winter sports enthusiasts all season long. Vote for your favorite park. Pictured above Great Smoky Mountains National Park. © Rex Vogel, all rights... Read more

Great Outdoors Month

Are you planning a camping trip this month? June is National Great Outdoors Month, which is a wonderful time to enjoy fun outdoor activities with family and friends. Presidential recognition of Great Outdoors Week was begun in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton. Since 2004, Presidential proclamation of Great Outdoors Month has come annually, celebrating a variety of important events and actions that occur during the month. The 2011 Presidential Proclamation states in part: “America’s vast and varied outdoor spaces are a source of great national pride, and we have long strived to protect them for future generations. Our lands and waters provide countless opportunities for exploration, recreation, and reflection, whether in solitude or with family and friends. During Great Outdoors Month, we renew our enduring commitment to protect our natural landscapes, to enjoy them, and to promote active lifestyles for ourselves and our children.” Great Outdoors Month highlights the benefits of active fun outdoors and our magnificent shared resources of forests, parks, refuges, and other public lands and waters. Media attention to the proclamation triggers actions by millions of households and prompts public discussion of important issues linked to outdoor recreation, including volunteerism, health, and outdoor ethics. Additionally, the majority of governors issue proclamations declaring June as Great Outdoors Month in their states, and many take further actions ranging from Governor’s... Read more

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