Friday, January 10, 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
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National (speaking of chocolate!) Bittersweet Chocolate day.
Tip of the Day
It’s important to know your campground location
Always know the name and location of your campground including your site number (and GPS coordinates if possible). If it’s a public campground with no street address, then know which highway it’s along and the direction of the closest city. In an emergency you may have to call for help. If you don’t know where you are, you may have a serious problem.
Reader Pat Mitchell suggests if you’re concerned about being involved in an emergency situation while away from your rig, you could do what he does. “I usually just pick up a park brochure from the campground office to leave in our truck. It’s always handy and if we are in an accident, the location of our camper and other details are right there with us.” Thanks, Pat!
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Overnight with prehistoric graffiti near Phoenix
Most historic or recreation sites managed by the BLM don’t get a lot of publicity and even less advertising. So you may zip on by such a location and not even know it exists. Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, about 90 miles southwest of Phoenix, is typical. There is a primitive campground there, along with hundreds of prehistoric petroglyphs. Learn more.
Yesterday’s featured article: Know your RV’s height. What can happen if you don’t.
Keep your brain sharp and your knives sharper!
Tired of dull knives? This easy-to-use knife sharpener (used by staff members, Emily and Gail) sharpens your knives with a few quick strokes. You’ll feel like a professional! It has two settings: one for fine blades and another for coarse. Its small size is perfect for an RV, and it’s about $6. Says Gail: “Wow! This works great!” Learn more or order here.
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- What I found on the Oregon beach sickened me
- We do not want to own this RV. Nope.
- Florida RVer gives condo owners fits
- The strangest road sign we’ve ever seen…
Reader poll
Best-selling printed directory of free and inexpensive campgrounds. Click.
Helpful resources
• NATIONAL TRAFFIC AND ROAD CLOSURE INFORMATION.
• ROAD AND TRAFFIC CONDITIONS ACROSS THE NATION.
• WEATHER ALERTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
• CURRENT WILDFIRE REPORT.
• LATEST RV RECALLS.
Quick Tip
Get used to driving your motorhome before you start towing
Just getting into your first motorhome? Plan to tow a car, too? Put a few miles on non-urban roads without the tow car, just to get used to the drive and feel of the motorhome. Later, add the tow vehicle to the package.
Protect your RV’s slideout with this rubber seal lubricant
If you don’t take care of your slideout you’re asking for problems including dangerous, costly water damage. This rubber seal lubricant from Thetford prevents fading, cracking and deterioration. It cleans, conditions and shines, keeping seals flexible and protected from sunlight destruction. It is also useful on door seals and window seals. It’s a mineral oil product and also acts as a lubricant. Learn more or order.
Random RV Thought
When you haven’t been RVing in a while, and your thoughts turn to getting away again, it’s really tough to get the thought out of your head. If you are at work, it’s especially bad. Who can focus on work when their head is filled with thoughts of being away in the RV, seeing new places and things and enjoying nature? So don’t resist: Just find a way to go!
Website of the day
Eight great American winter road trips
Here are some incredible iconic drives around the country to experience this winter, when there is less traffic and the top national parks are usually crowd-free.
New 2020 Casino Guide includes RVer info and coupons!
The 2020 American Casino Guide provides detailed information on more than 750 casino/resorts, riverboats and Indian casinos in 41 states including which have RV parks and/or allow RV overnighting for free. Includes maps and more than $1,000 in coupons. Discloses the actual slot machine payback percentages for every state’s casinos. Learn more or order.
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.
Trivia
“It’s on the tip of my tongue!” There’s a word for when you can’t remember a word. Lethologica is what happens when you forget a certain word and can’t remember what it is. But the real question is, can you remember that one?
What do spam mail and Monty Python have in common? Find out in yesterday’s issue.
Leave here with a laugh
Found on FB, source unknown (sent to us by Michael Logan):
A woman phoned her husband on a cold day in Minnesota. Wife: “The car is not starting. Dashboard shows the sign of a person sitting on a toilet.” Husband: “What…?? Send me a picture.”
(Look again. It says -4 degrees.)
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: 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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I love sleeping with my 1/2 small poodle dog. She makes my life better.
On our return trip to Canada after spending time with family in Idaho, we stayed for the umpteenth time at a Home 2 Hotel. There’re beautiful well priced hotels which regrettably have succumbed to the animal/emotional support, blah, blah, blah, phenom.
Going down to the breakfast room next morning I noticed a sign on the front desk, your animal is welcome – $125.00 per animal. YES! YES!
After reading that we felt confident we did not have much worry we’d be sleeping in a bed someone’s St. Bernard had drooled up – or worse!
please everyone do this. Recommend it to the front desk. Pet owners have become a real pain in the …. I was hope for pet free camping at some point.
The only pet I sleep with is my wife of 56 years.
Regarding today’s poll; we don’t have pets but we sometimes dog-sit at our daughter’s home for our 2 grand-dogs. My husband refuses to sleep with the dogs and the dogs won’t sleep without a human, so we have to sleep separately–me with the dogs in the master bedroom and hubby alone in the guest room.
My only pet preps my meals. Yes she sleeps with me for 60 years.
I didn’t respond to the Reader Poll because it assumes you have pets.
Today’s Laugh: we here in Minnesota know only too well the reality of today’s joke. GOOD ONE!
Person on the pot reminded me of a situation 30 years ago with my late wife. She loved the Chrysler 5th Ave.car, we had a good late model car but she came across an ad for a 5th Ave.for sale. She had called about it and scheduled an appointment to look at it, after looking it over it was very clean and ran good so we bought it. I was working afternoon shift so I went to work and she drove her “new” car home. At lunch time I called her to see how she liked her car, she loved it but all the way home the tea pot on the dash was lit up. Not knowing what a tea pot was the next morning I went out to see what she meant. Turns out the tea pot is the oil pressure light, she had driven 35 miles with the oil pressure light on. 5 cans of crankcase flush and many cans of transmission oil I had the inside of the engine cleaned of sludge. Apparently there was enough sludge to lube the engine as it ran good for another 2 years until she got tired of it and we sold it in better condition than when we bought it. After that we sat down with the owners manual and educated her on what each symbol meant if a light comes on on the dash. I laugh about it now, but when it happened I just knew I was going to replace the engine.
Re pet/bed survey. Our bed does tend to get rather crowded whenever there’s a thunderstorm in the vicinity.
We don’t have pets anymore, but when we did (two cats), One or the other would show up sometime during the night and take up residence at the foot of the bed.
We love cats but when the last died we decided to not have any more pets. This gives us total freedom when we’re out camping (mostly boondocking) so we don’t have to worry about our little buddies when we’re gone all day in the summer heat. But, we miss them . . .
Sounds like me but substitute Boston Terriers for cats. I miss mine as well…
Reader poll – would be interesting if you added “No pets”
We have a granddog that sleeps with us when he visits.
RE: Knowing where you are in a campground. There’s an app for that! It’s called “Where Am I?” and it will give you your street address and GPS coordinates. The only drawback that I can see is that you must have cell phone data coverage for it to be useful.
This is a great app, gives you the zip code, area code, county just all sorts of useful info.
There are numerous apps by that name in Google Apps, who created it?
Thanks, I just downloaded it.
HEY FOLKS:
Just a HEADS UP: If you haven’t been watching the news. The southern states in the US are in for some very severe weather this weekend.
For those who are FULL Timers and All other RVers, You need to CONSIDER UN-Plugging your RV during this period of Time! To Prevent Surges and Potential Serious Damge to your RV!
Don’t Depend on a SURGE PROTECTOR or EMS to protect your expensive Rig! Just unplug from any Shore Power Pedestal and wait out the Storm on your Batteries!
JUST MY 3 Cents worth.
Take Care.
My dog prefers her own big bed however, if there’s a thunderstorm, she’s up snuggled against Mom even in the bunk over the class C cab.
Good idea about the park brochure in the vehicle when out of the campground. Thanks for that one.
This is a good idea. Not only for emergencies but if your not familiar with the area it will help you keep from getting lose. Just don’t leave it on the dash or seat where people can see where your staying, same with the tags they give you to put in the windshield of your tow vehicle.
Agree Bill learned something today, Good tip.
Person sitting on a toilet- funny!
Person on a toilet was a good morning laugh.