Issue 1069 • March 19, 2019
Welcome to another fabulous edition of RV Travel’s Daily Tips newsletter. Here, you’ll find helpful RV-related, and small-space living, tips from the pros, travel advice, a handy website of the day, our favorite RVing-related products and, of course, a good laugh. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate your readership.
If you shop at Amazon, would you use one of the links below to do your shopping? The link in the blue bar above also works. Thanks.
U.S. shoppers: Shop at Amazon.com
Canadian shoppers: Shop at Amazon.ca
QUICK TIPS
Fix things like a real geek
With veteran RVer Mike Sokol
I love this Tekton ratchet screwdriver set. My kids got one for me a few Christmases ago, and I’ve used it on a weekly basis ever since for all sorts of repairs and installations. It not only includes the usual suspects of standard and Philips blades in a plethora of sizes, but there’s also Torx and pentalobe security bits so you can pull apart your computer case or open up the cover on something you need to repair. The ratchet handle makes quick work of long screws. I don’t leave home without it.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Tune in to The RV Show USA this Wednesday evening, March 20, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern, to learn all about RVing. In particular, learn from electricity expert Mike Sokol about Electric Shock Drowning (ESD) around boats and boat docks. (Mike will be on during the 9:00 hour [Eastern].) For Mike’s important article about ESD, click here.
Feeling old? Visit the Fountain of Youth in Lewes, Delaware. The fountain well, said to have been discovered by the area’s first Dutch colonists in 1631, is dried up now, but it’s still worth a visit juuuuust in case there’s still a little magic left. Get the address here.
MORE QUICK TIPS
Where to put that stabilizer jack crank?
If your crank is creeping around in a storage compartment, you may find that when you need it most, it’s crawled to the middle of the compartment, just out of reach. Get yourself a couple “garage storage hooks” like these, screw them into an appropriate location in your basement storage compartment and hang that cranky crank where it’s in reach and can’t get away!
Buying a used RV? Who is showing you the rig?
Does the person showing you the RV actually own it? First and foremost, make sure your contact is actually the owner of the RV. The first Class C motorhome we looked at was shown to us by the father of the man who owned the rig. He didn’t have answers to our questions nor did he have any control over the cost of the RV. He wasn’t able to tell us how it was stored (very important), how often it had been driven, or show us any of the maintenance records. Unless the owner is deceased or you’re buying from a used RV dealer, make sure you are able to ask the owner questions directly.
—From Beginner’s Guide to Living in an RV: Everything I Wish I Knew Before Full-Time RVing Across America.
Do you have a tip? Send it to Russ (at) rvtravel.com
WEBSITE OF THE DAY
How to create retirement experiences on a budget
Retirement can mean many new experiences are around the corner (especially if you’re reading this from inside your RV). Here’s some advice about how to have those experiences on a budget.
Check out the long list of great RVing-related websites from RVtravel.com.
LEAVE HERE WITH A LAUGH
Welcome to the plastic surgery addicts meeting.
I see a lot of new faces today.
Today’s Daily Deals at Amazon.com
Best-selling RV products and Accessories at Amazon.com. UPDATED HOURLY.
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RV Daily Tips Staff
Editor and Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Managing editor: Diane McGovern. Contributing writers: Russ De Maris, Bob Difley, Gary Bunzer, Roger Marble, Mike Sokol, Greg Illes, J.M. Montigel and Andrew Robinson. Advertising director: Emily Woodbury. Marketing director: Jessica Sarvis. IT wrangler: Kim Christiansen.
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Everything in this newsletter is true to the best of our knowledge. But we occasionally get something wrong. We’re just human! So don’t go spending $10,000 on something we said was good simply because we said so, or fixing something according to what we suggested (check with your own technician first). Maybe we made a mistake. Tips and/or comments in this newsletter are those of the authors and may not reflect the views of RVtravel.com or this newsletter.
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20 years? According to one of the recently announced presidential candidates, the world will end in 12 years!
Regarding trip to Mars
You could have added” who cares “?
They are not coming back. At my age, I probably won’t be alive to see it happen.
I think a better use of all the money spent on space exploration should be to use it right here to make a better earth for mankind ……
“All the money spent on space” is what lead to diodes, tubes, transistors, computers, radio, microwave ovens, plastics, composite materials, metalurgy… (10 billion more things). Actually going to space was a distant trailer to learning HOW to go to space. If you wanted the planet stuck in 1920s technology, by all means breed more horses “to make the world better.”
We can’t even get back to the moon. That’s a walk in the park compared to headed off to Mars.
It’s all because of money that we don’t go to the Moon or Mars. The technology exists for the most part.
Just visited NASA in Houston and it confirmed what I always thought. If we had not wasted the money and lives on the space shuttle and had kept using the Saturn 5 rocket, we would have been on the moon years ago and probably Mars. I guess the space shuttle builders had more money to bribe the decision makers.
All of you please read “Challenger, a Major Malfunction” written by McConnell. It is so true it is scary – I know this first hand. That said NASA is a waste – I actually agonize every time we have to supply and man ISS with Russian lift vehicles and pay tens of millions of dollars to do so. It is better privates like Space X develop and get a “go fly”.
Correct. Again, the moon is just the nearest rock, and not all that interesting or useful. The objective was to learn how to do it, not to actually visit a barren dusty rock 1000 times. Do it once, we’ve proven we could. Do it a couple more times to do it better when going elsewhere. Then there’s the fact that it was done by government, which guarantees multiples of the true expense. NASA used bigger and bigger and bigger vertical firecrackers, while Orbital Sciences flew their OWN satellites on a reusable plane carrying a multi-payload lateral launch (Pegasus). Now Space-X has made vertical launch reasonable again by reusing the first stage (soon more). Again and again, when “just waste the whole thing” isn’t an option, we get better solutions. 5 years ago re-landing the booster was an absurd dream, and now SpaceX is doing it routinely with commercial cargo. 5 years from now, landing on Mars may be entirely reasonable, IF the government doesn’t get too involved.
I liked the plastic surgery joke. Hadn’t heard that one before! 🙂
Can you retrofit a Bounder with rockets?
Oh, the possibilities . . . I like your sense of humor!
i bet you can leap tall bounders in a single leap.