By Cheryl Probst
We all have nightmares of cupboards coming open and dishes crashing to the floor as our RVs rumble down the road. One solution to this problem is to store your dishes in a dish drainer installed in the cupboard.
A standard-size dish drainer should fit in most cupboards, but measure the inside of your cupboard to be sure. A wire dish drainer works best for this project. Place the drainer in the cupboard, then measure the distance from the bottom of the cupboard to the bottom of the dish drainer. If you will be storing glasses in a side holder, you’ll probably need to install the drainer to one side of the cupboard, unless your cupboard is wide enough that it can be centered with room for glasses on each side.
After your drainer is positioned, mark spots in the back of the cupboard where you’ll put the two cup hooks that will hold the back of the drainer in place. Remove the drainer and screw the cup hooks in. Next you’ll need two blocks of 1 x 3/16-inch wood cut to the height of the distance you measured earlier. Attach a cupboard latch to each piece of wood that is high enough for the drainer to go down into it, and then screw the blocks to the cupboard bottom. Set the dish drainer in place and fill with dishes and glasses.
The dish drainer can be taken out and the cupboard space used for something else, and then the drainer put back in when you’re ready to store dishes again.
We were met at the entry booth by a young woman who informed us we could indeed stay for $10 a night for three nights maximum but the catch… we would have to sit through a one-and-a-half-hour sales pitch to join this membership park.
I wouldn’t want to belong to a park system that stoops to this kind of “bait-and-switch” advertising. That said, some of these park systems can be worthwhile as long as they remain solvent and they offer tangible benefits to their members. They can be quirky requiring rotation of stays, transfer limits, and a laundry list of rules and regulations requiring a law degree to understand.
My husband is a bit of a Male Chauvinist Pig. I want to be the total RV woman and he won’t let me dump the septic. He says it wouldn’t look right and that it’s too complicated and messy for me. Can you help me convince him that I am perfectly capable of handling a crappy job like this. It would make me feel whole if I could just add this to my RV resume’. Thanks in advance. —Down in the Dumps in Davenport
For the RVer, a walkie-talkie set can be a real boon. How about parking the rig in that tight campsite? One person on the outside with a walkie-talkie can give directions and warnings to the driver without having to shout, open windows, make hand signals, run back and forth, etc. Trying to caravan with a friend in another rig? Give them a W-T and you will be able to talk to each other up to a mile or two apart, without cell phone coverage or using up your cell minutes. You can even take one along on a solo hike away from camp, to keep in touch or for that unforeseen emergency. The opportunities are limited only by imagination. At one RV park (with lousy cell coverage), the laundry room was a quarter-mile from our site so we stayed in touch with the hand radios while the washers and dryers hummed away.
First, check the controls on the front of the refrigerator. These are properly called an “eyebrow board” or “upper board.” Is the board getting power? You’ll know it if any of the lamps or indicators on the board are lit up when the power switch is on. If the upper control board has power, you’ll find your problem on the back of the refrigerator. Do your checking behind the vent lid on the rig’s exterior wall.
When you’re traveling between RV parks, hauling scooters around can be challenging. The most important thing is to know what your RV can handle, since what works for one rig may not work on another.
Sizing down” for the RV lifestyle can be tough. Where do you put your laptop — other than on your lap — when you have some serious computing to do? Enter the laptop desk.
A similar system, but one that gets the laptop off your lap entirely, is to use a “bed table.” These little stands take a flat platform and add legs, usually folding ones. Many have room for a mouse and also prevent burnt laps. But what to do when you need to move and don’t want to disrupt your work in progress? The one pictured above left is from Sam’s Club. Careful though — those handy drink and silverware holders could create issues with free mouse movement.
Here’s another idea: Coupling the flat and stable platform with “full-to-the-floor legs,” the “Table Mate II” is made with lightweight plastic and is adjustable in height and platform angle. There aren’t any side braces, allowing users to slide their legs in and out from under the rig without fear of banging knees or legs. The whole rig slides right up over your lap, bringing the computer into reach and at precisely the right height. They’re adjustable so you can use it with more than one chair or even the sofa.
Don’t go grocery shopping without a list, as you’re more likely to buy things you don’t need. We “word processed” a list of all our frequently purchased grocery and non-grocery items. Broken down in basic categories, our list is laid out roughly as to where we’ll find things located in the store. For example, milk, cheese and other dairy items are in one clump on our list. We keep copies of the list hanging on a hook inside a galley cabinet. When something is needed, we put a check mark next to the item on the list.
Next comes cleaning. A very clean surface is key to making any coating stick well. First, sweep any loose dirt, debris, sticks, stones or leaves from the roof. Then use the appropriate Dicor Products cleaner/activator for your kind of roof and for the coating system you are using.
Different users of the shower simply remember their personal temperature setting, and set the handle to that position before turning the flow on. Variations in hot or cold input water temperature are no longer a problem — the temperature controller compensates, and you still get your requested water temperature.