Friday, January 3, 2020
Welcome to another edition of RV Travel’s Daily Tips newsletter. Here you’ll find helpful RV-related and living tips from the pros, travel advice, a handy website of the day, tips on our favorite RVing-related products and, of course, a good laugh. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate you. Please tell your friends about us.
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Page Contents
Today’s thought
“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Chocolate-Covered-Cherry Day!
Tip of the Day
Don’t buy an RV that smells musty!
We often hear of RVers who want to know what magic potion can eliminate “that musty smell in an RV.” If you’re shopping for an RV and smell that musty odor, STOP! Musty odors are often attached to water damage – a terminal issue. Look closely for signs of water stains, including inside every single cabinet. If you find water stains or feel a “soft” wall or ceiling, RUN, don’t walk, away from that rig.
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Lube your slideout?
Chris Dougherty, certified RV technician, received the following question from a reader while he was serving as RVtravel.com’s technical editor: “We own a 2011 Coachmen Mirada 29DS. The DS means that it has double slides: one for the bedroom, and the other for the living area. How often do I need to lubricate the slide mechanisms and what should I use to lubricate them?” Read Chris’ response.
Traveler’s Guide to the Firearm Laws of the 50 states. Essential reference.
California Camping: Moon Handbook guide profiles 1,400 campgrounds. Updated 2019.
Best-selling printed directory of free and inexpensive campgrounds. Click.
Best RVing books as recommended by our editors: Click here.
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- A campground horror to avoid regarding water
- RV Electricity: What cost, electricity?
- You’ll laugh at this!
- Small Kansas town has big plan that could set pattern of RV relief
Reader poll
Fire Extinguishing Aerosol, Two-pack
The First Alert Tundra Fire Extinguishing Aerosol Spray is easier to use and discharges 4 times longer than traditional fire extinguishers. With an aerosol nozzle and portable size, it’s suited for the kitchen, car, garage, boat or RV. The formula wipes away with a damp cloth & is biodegradable. Learn more or order.
Quick Tip
Reminder about lost pets
Travel with pets? If you’re fearful about them getting lost and have ID tags on their collars, put your cell phone number on the tag, not your home phone. After all, you won’t be home to answer the phone.
Random RV Thought
This is a bad situation: You pull into a campground beneath a beautiful pine tree. You dine,
enjoy a campfire, then go to sleep. At dawn, a loud “boom” explodes on your rooftop waking you from your peaceful slumber. Then there’s a second, and a third! Explosives on the roof? No, just a squirrel dining above on pine cones, dropping them when done. You step outside and see him 50 feet above you. You say “Shoo!” and he looks at you with
authority and says, “No, the food is good and you can’t do anything about it.” And you realize that we humans do not always have the upper hand with nature, even small rodents.
Microwave cover collapses for easy storage
When heating your food you don’t want to spend 10 minutes later cleaning the splatters inside the microwave. Here’s the solution — and perfect for RVers: It pops down flat for easy storage. Lid perforations allow steam to escape to keep food moist. Doubles as a strainer, too! Learn more or order here.
Website of the day
Current World Population
Want to be totally weirded out? Click that link. The world’s current population, changing in real-time, is shown. You can see the births today, the deaths today, the population growth today, and all the above for the past year too. Interesting stuff.
Clubs and useful organizations
PLEASE NOTE: We may receive an affiliate commission if you join any of these.
• Harvest Hosts: Stay free at farms, wineries and other scenic and peaceful locations for free. Save 15% on membership.
• AllStays: The best website for RVers! Your membership will become your RV-bible.
• Overnight RV parking. Directory of more than 14,000 locations where you can stay for free or nearly free with your RV. Modest membership fee.
• Boondockers Welcome. Stay at homes of RVers who welcome you in their driveways, yards, farmland or other space on their private property. Modest membership fee.
• Escapees. Best Club for RVers: All RVers welcome, no matter what type of RV, make or model.
• No-park Walmarts. Best directory of stores that do not allow overnight stays with RVs.
Be like Mike Sokol – use silicone!
Mike says: Never use any kind of petroleum-based products on rubber or plastic components in your RV, such as your trailer connector. That includes products such as Vaseline, WD-40 or any other type of spray lubricating oil. Doing so will eventually break down the plastic and/or rubber components causing them to swell up and eventually disintegrate. The proper treatment is anything silicone-based. We use a lot of Heavy Duty Silicone in our shop for general connector cleaning and lubrication. It’s also useful on rubberized door sweeps and such. You can get some of your own here.
Trivia
At any given time on Earth, there are approximately 2,000 thunderstorms happening. Annually, there are about 16 million thunderstorms each year.
A beer made from 20,000-year-old icebergs? Yep. Read about it in the trivia section of yesterday’s newsletter.
Leave here with a laugh
A police officer pulls over a speeding RV. The officer says, “I clocked you at 80 miles per hour.” The driver says, “Gee, officer, cruise control was set at 60,” to which the wife says, “Now don’t be silly, dear. You know we don’t have cruise control.” As the officer writes the ticket, the driver says to his wife, “Can you please keep quiet?!” The wife smiles and says, “Well, dear, you should be thankful for your radar detector or your speed would have been higher.”
As the officer makes out another ticket for the illegal radar detector, the man turns toward his wife, “Please keep your mouth shut!” The officer frowns and says, “’And I notice you’re not wearing a seat belt. That’s an automatic $75 fine.” The driver says, “Yeah, I had it on but removed it to get out my license.” The wife says, “Now, dear. You know you never wear your seat belt.”
And as the police officer is writing out yet another ticket, the driver turns to his wife and screams, “WILL YOU SHUT UP?!” The officer looks at the woman and asks, “Does your husband always talk to you this way?” “Only when he’s been drinking,” she replies. —Thanks to Pete Doddato for sending this in!
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Editor and Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Managing editor: Emily Woodbury. Senior editor: Diane McGovern. Advertising director: Jessica Sarvis. Financial affairs director: Gail Meyring. 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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If my mother does text me back either I send out my child who on the way from work stops by or I send out the police to do a well check. Either way I don’t to mess with technology.
“Do you share your location with anyone else via your smart phone?” That needs to be a little more specific as todays smart phones are like computers. One can share location with a phone text, an email message, or a social media message all from a smart phone. Is that a simple phone text or a social media text or a location GPS automatic sync program from the phone.
My family uses an app called Life 360 to track me. If they don’t hear from me for a few days they can see where I am (or where I was last). I have a place in eastern WA that has no service except at the clubhouse they were worried when my spot disappeared and didn’t reappear for days.
I put my phone down in the grocery store a few weeks ago and my sister was able to pin point it in the store almost down to the aisle!
You can select which non-government apps have access to location data… I have GPS tracking on my whole family where we can see one another’s location but marketing apps don’t. Its great for safety and synchronization of picking them up.
I said “government” above because police et al CAN always activate the transponders on your cellphone with cause. Similarly, if you’ve called 911 from a cell you may notice your GPS automatically goes active and you can’t hang up on them.
Funny isn’t it,.
They can trace a sick cow back all the way to where it was born, what food it has eaten, what cattle cars it was transported in and all the cows around it for the past couple of years. But they cannot find illegal aliens.
Yes M.J. it is strange. Similar: The police chief in our small city of 100,000 people with the largest per capita usage of a supervised consumption (drugs) site (SCS) in the entire world recently announced that “we can’t arrest ourselves out of the crisis” so the dopers and pushers run among us freely. Strange how he can send his boys out en mass each day to ticket anyone and everyone doing 2 kmh over in a school zone, something they’ve been doing since the car was invented.
Be sure to microchip your pets too. Collars can be removed and if a full timer list a close friend as backup contact person.
Answered NO to the poll….I do not have a smart phone so I can not keep in touch ….
Nice point about what phone number to include on you pets’ tags. But more important — have your pet chipped. That ID will remain with them even if they lose their collar.
“Website of the day – Current World Population”
Funny isn’t it?
They can tell you in “real-time” the population of the world to the microsecond but can’t tell you:
1) who won an election for days or weeks later after the vote is completed.
2) what’s actually in your bank account or credit card until 1 week later.
3) What your W-2’s look like until 30-40 days after the first of the year.
4) What time your real doctor’s appointment will be even though they give you a prescribed time (no pun intended).
I would wonder how accurate that clock actually is…
TravellingMan – do you believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus?
No and that’s kinda the point.
There is another calculator that shows the current tax debt of the US. How accurate do you think that one is?
https://usdebtclock.org/
I share via voice or text with my parents and our daughter where we are headed for the day. I update them at lunch and then again when we arrive at our destination for the evening. I always have GPS turned off on my phone. Not everyone needs to know where we are.
You might want to land a copy of todays USA Today page 4B, bottom of the page “Alexa, where did privacy got he last 10 years” Kaeleen and anyone else interested in “privacy” will be astonished to learn who the new boss is, and what she knows about you.
If your phone is on then GPS or not an agency looking for you can see your approximate location by the cell tower it is using.
On our extended trip this past summer, I regularly sent texts to our sons to let them know we had arrived safely at our next destination or share some of our adventures. I also kept up a ‘blog’ in a Google drive folder that only family and selected friends were invited to join. Only after we were home did I do a few summary posts on FB.
The Joke of the Day is EXCELLENT!
There is a difference between telling someone where you are and sending them your gps coordinates. We have several family members and friends who know where we are, but have never shared location via google. If we were boondocking in some remote location, then I might share location …..just in case.
You are correct Sharon, if you are off the grid or boondocking, you should let friends and family know where you are!
Remember the case a few months ago, where the couple boondocking were murdered and their RIG was stolen and found in Mexico!
Just don’t post information online via social media! You never know who is watching!
For all those who never tell anyone your location when rving, why,
In many cases people share information (too freely) with Facebook. Facebook, is an open ended disaster and lets all those less than honest people know you are NOT at home, making you a target for criminal activity! That’s WHY????
If you are gonna share your location with Family and Friends do it via a PHONE Call and don’t post it on your phone or via a TEXT message!
How many times has FB, Google, Apple, etc. been hacked? Enough said…
I have no one to tell!! Think about it…………………………….
The NSA always knows where you are.