RV Cooking Show – Crockpot Turkey Breast for Thanksgiving

Holiday greetings, friends,  

Poof! All of a sudden we’re coming into the busy, busy winter holiday season so I’ll make this brief. Do the words “RVing” and “turkey” in the same sentence have you shaking your head, thinking “can’t happen”? Well think again! In this episode of the RV Cooking Show host Evanne Schmarder shares her little turkey secret…the crockpot. Moist, tender, and easy. Take a look at Crockpot Turkey Breast for Thanksgiving, we think you’ll agree…it’s delicious!!

We’ve also got some goodies in the Thanksgiving archives:

Try Mom’s Famous Cranberry Sauce…folks in 18 countries over five continents did and gave it a thumbs up.

I’d always been on the lookout for an easy and elegant sweet potato recipe…well, here it is. No video – just a text recipe – but worthy just the same.

Go a bit “rouge” yourself this year with one of our wacky but delish recipes…Trash Can Turkey for the adventurous or double the sauce recipe, use turkey breast instead of chicken, and crockpot a Trailblazer Turkey.

Question: do you track your RV travels? I’ll share my method in this RV Cooking Show episode and have blogged about it around the RV Cooking Show virtual campfire – our blog. Check it out here.

May I take a moment to say that I’ll be counting YOU, our loyal viewers, among my many blessings this year.

Happy thanksgiving to you and yours.

Most sincerely,

Evanne and the RV Cooking Show family

http://www.rvcookingshow.com/

Furnace Creek at Death Valley National Park in CA

For travelers Ron and Jane, Death Valley National Park is a destination that everyone would be able to enjoy. In their travel journal, Ron & Jane 2007-08-09, they describe their favorite spots here, which include Furnace Creek.

Furnace Creek is a village in the center of the beautiful Death Valley National Park. Accommodating travelers that visit the National Park with the Furnace Creek Ranch, Furnace Creek Inn and several campgrounds, Furnace Creek is also the location of one of the Park’s Visitor Centers as well as a museum.

For a taste of the area’s history, visitors can browse amongst actual pieces of machinery that were used years ago in the local borax mines. The Borax Museum can be found at the Furnace Creek Ranch.

The name Furnace Creek just might be attributed to the fact that the highest North American temperature reading was recorded here; 134 degrees in the year 1913. This temperature almost rivals the world high temperature which was documented as 136 degrees in 1922, occurring in Libya.

Furnace Creek is also just a short trip away from some of the best attractions in Death Valley National Park. The Badwater Salt Flats used to be a salty lake which blanketed Death Valley long, long ago. The incredibly salty water, around three times saltier than sea water, is credited with the moniker “Badwater”; so named when a thirsty mule refused to partake of the water. While the area will still fill with water after a hard rain, the evaporation rate in the area is 150 inches per year meaning that it is usually dry. The area also claims fame to being the lowest point in North America; 282 feet below sea level.

Another nearby must see is the beautiful 9 mile stretch in Death Valley National Park called Artist Drive Loop and Artists Palette showcases the natural wonder of the park. Called the “Palette” because of the rich colors created through years of volcanic activity, this roadway through the Amargosa Mountains features hues of green, red, pink, purple and yellow.

Statuesque figures entirely composed of salt offer tourists an eerie sight at the Devil’s Golf Course. The fragile formations were created through erosion with water and wind alike. Because of the slightly higher elevation of the Devil’s Golf Course as compared to the Badwater Salt Flats, water does not pool in this area, allowing the salt crystals to accumulate. It is reported that the salt extends down approximately two miles into the earth’s surface.

One of the most popular spots in Death Valley is Zabriskie Point. A hike for the hearty, the visitor is rewarded at the top with a spectacular view of the salt floor, gullies created by rain washing through the hills and incredible, striking geological formations.

Travelers visiting Death Valley National Park will find the area called Furnace Creek to be a true gem. The area is complete with beauty, mystique, adventure and history; definitely a destination that provides a point of interest for anyone visiting the area.

Dan Parlow<
Personal Travel Websites by RV.Net ; Online Travel Journals by MyTripJournal.com ; Explore Good Sam Club Trip Journals ;Woodalls Trip Journals ; Travel Journals by Trailer Life Directory ; Traveling USA Travel Blogs

Blog vs Trip Journal: Part 3 – Guests and Messaging

Blogs commonly allow guests to post comments related to a single posting. Most commonly, the comment is posted, an email is dispatched to the blogger, and the blogger can then decide to delete. In this way, RV.net authors – myself included – have received quality info from the public on the subject of our informative blogs. Different blogging platforms allow for different levels of control over these comments.

Since Trip Journals are primarily a personal record of your own trip, guest comments are treated differently. Rather than including factual comments on each posting, visitors to your Trip Journal can elect to leave you a personal message through a ‘Leave a Message’ link. Often these messages have nothing whatsoever to do with your individual postings:

Messaging the Trip Journaler

This is like sending a personal email to someone, but with the added advantages that: (a) other visitors may see it; and (b) the message retains the connection to your trip.

Read more

Use Descriptive Trip Journal Titles to entice the World

So you are really into the trip journaling thing…all your friends and family are on your update list, but you are hungry for more…a larger audience to share your adventures with.

If you are in fact trying to drive traffic to your Trip Journal, keywords in titles are actually very important. It helps the search engine spiders index your site and lets the Google-searching world find you more easily.

Alaska-Yukon travel journal

Phoenix, Arizona. An accurate description of where you have been? Yes. A catchy title? Not really. I must admit I have fallen into this myself. Too lazy or not feeling imaginative enough to wow my readers with an eye-catching title. However, it can make a huge difference to bringing people to your site and making people actually want to read your content. How about “Taking in the Arts in Phoenix”? Now with search engines, this tiny step will transform your article from one of thousands about Phoenix to one of perhaps a few dozen about the arts in Phoenix.

Not only will adding descriptive titles help folks find you, but it will entice them to look further and click to read your stories. Ask yourself if you were searching, which of these two articles would you be most likely to click on?

June 2/07 Spying the Florida Panther

or June 2/07 The Everglades

Likely the first one: the first is evocative and enticing; the second you could have seen a million times.

Dan Parlow
Personal Travel Websites by RV.Net ; Online Travel Journals by MyTripJournal.com ; Explore Good Sam Club Trip Journals ; Woodalls Trip Journals ; Travel Journals by Trailer Life Directory ; Traveling USA Travel Blogs

Backing up your Trip Journal content – Part 1

This is part of a series of posts on a comparison between Trip Journals and blogs.

Today , I’ll consider the ease with which your trip history can be backed up using a Trip Journal. Next week, I’ll consider the same question using 3 major blog systems.

Backups from your Trip Journal

The MyTripJournal system offers a comprehensive backup tool for premium subscribers. This permits you to archive the following content:

• Your Trip Journal in the same form that your visitors see it on the Web – with maps and linked entries with stories, photos, videos, your guestbook, etc. in html format. This format is useful as: (a) a permanent memory of your trip; (b) a periodic backup for peace-of-mind; and (c) posting to another webserver.
• The original of your photos in the resolution and quality that you uploaded them.
• Your entire message in-box. This includes messages from family and friends that you elected not to post to your Guestbook, and .

Backing Up Your Trip Journal

You can obtain these in two forms:

1. By web download from your Archive Center. Click to request the desired files.
2. On a CD or DVD sent to your home. (Once annually, min. 6 mo. subscription).

The archiving features are not available to free subscribers.

Further detail can be found at www.mytripjournal.com/faqs and in your Trip Journal’s Archive Center.

Dan Parlow

Personal Travel Websites by RV.Net ; Online Travel Journals by MyTripJournal.com ; Explore Good Sam Club Trip Journals ; Woodalls Trip Journals ; Travel Journals by Trailer Life Directory ; Traveling USA Travel Blogs

Blog vs Trip Journal: the Difference. Part 1 – Mapping

I’m often asked on the difference between a blog and a Trip Journal. This came up recently in a reader’s comment here. I’ll address the differences today and in some future postings.

Today , I’ll focus on mapping. Each of your travel maps is a picture that paints a thousand words. I’ll start with a typical Trip Journal homepage “default” map. This is the first map you come to when you come to the Wisemans’ Trip Journal, “Mexico Bound – Winter 2007“. Note how the daily entries to the right correspond to the numbers on the map:

Wisemans USA to Mexico

Now click on the Yucatan link below the map, and you’ll see this snapshot of the Wisemans’ visit to the Peninsula:

Wisemans Hit the Yucatan

Finally here is the Wisemans’ Travel Homepage. To the right are links to all 11 of their Trip Journals. You can click on the green lines or the links to the right to go directly into the daily journal entries:

Wisemans’ “Travel Homepage”

Dan Parlow

Personal Travel Websites by RV.Net ; Online Travel Journals by MyTripJournal.com ; Explore Good Sam Club Trip Journals ; Woodalls Trip Journals ; Travel Journals by Trailer Life Directory ; Traveling USA Travel Blogs

Why Keep an Online Trip Journal?

Happy New Year!

Over the past 4 years, I’ve had the opportunity to review literally thousands of online Trip Journals (also called “personal travel websites”) kept up by folks on the road through MyTripJournal.com and its partner sites, as well as through webpages they’ve created themselves.

When originally researching how to improve online journals, I had studied many traditional handwritten Trip Journals that were pieced together after the trip and involved countless hours sorting through old photos, maps, admission tickets, and trying to pair them with the applicable stories.

There are a lot of reasons why people on the move choose to maintain an online road trip journal. In my experience, the most common are these:

1. A Trip Journal allows you to store all your experiences in one place. This is what makes a Trip Journal so different from emailing your family and friends each time you have a new adventure. Imagine receiving invitations to visit this typical Trip Journal homepage each time it’s updated. This format allows them the opportunity to visit the journal when they are ready to read at their leisure:

Typical Trip Journal’s Homepage

Now compare that to what we’ve all experienced: a barrage of emails from a friend on the road, clogging up your inbox with a multitude of stories, photos and video clips which will take forever to sort through:

Death by Email

2. Trip journaling is a great way to keep friends and family current on your trip. Today we have the luxury to document our trip as we’re going, instead of having to piece it all together afterwards. Once your most recent entry is complete, you can update your friends & family literally with one click. I’ve collected a lot of comments from friends about how much they enjoy the updates. I’ll share some of them with you in later posts.

3. An online Trip Journal makes for vivid memories for years to come. Now in my forties, I fondly recall my family’s RV trip to western Canada when I was just 11. If only I could find all those slides and view them together with my family -particularly my long-departed mom – my memories of that trip would improve one hundred-fold! Fortunately, my own two boys will never face the same issues: by calling up our family’s online journals, they can instantaneously view all our best photos, videos and read our stories – even our friends’ messages in our guestbooks – from anywhere in the world.

4. Your Trip Journal will visually link you to where you’ve been. Thanks to online mapping technology, Trip Journals will instantaneously bring you back to where you’ve been and link your experiences to your location at the time. No more head-scratching: “Honey, which National Park were we in when that feisty black bear nearly gobbled up our bacon & eggs?”

Dan Parlow

www.rv.net/mytripjournal ; www.mytripjournal.com

http://goodsamclub.mytripjournal.com/explore ; http://woodalls.mytripjournal.com