Friday, April 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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Today’s thought
“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,’ the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Farm Animal Day!
Coronavirus Updates for RVers
Coronavirus Updates for RVers
Because so much is happening, and so fast, we are separating our daily coronavirus news updates into its own file.
There is so much interest now on how the virus is impacting our lives as RVers, our staff is devoting more time to keeping you informed of critical matters that affect how you use and travel with your RV.
Read today’s coronavirus news updates for RVers.
New Facebook Group: How the coronavirus is impacting RVers. Learn about park closings, cancelled rallies and RV shows — and more. Your input requested.
If you are a member of an RV club or are affiliated with an RV-related event would you please let us know if its gatherings, meetings, etc., are cancelled or postponed because of the coronavirus? We’ll pass along the info to our readers. We appreciate any news related to RVing that’s being affected by the virus. Please submit it here. Thank you!
RV Life in a Coronavirus World: “What magnets taught me about social distancing”
We have asked RVtravel.com readers to tell us how they are adapting to life these days.
“Our Pleasure Way Class B is a 2003 model and for the most part, we have not changed the interior since we purchased it in 2016. We probably only use it about 30 nights a year, so it’s really not enough to create much wear. But, the past couple of years, I have thought it needed an update and a brightening up. We are retired and home a lot of the time anyway, but in this time of mandatory confinement, I got a little crazy one day and …” Continue reading Linda’s story.
Tip of the Day
Best ways to tow a vehicle behind a motorhome
What’s the best way to tow a vehicle behind a motorhome? Walter Cannon of the Recreational Vehicle Safety and Education Foundation explains the three most popular ways, citing each method’s advantages and disadvantages. View this popular 4-minute video.
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
For peace of mind, use a backflow preventer
Backflow happens when a fresh water system gets “cross-connected” with a source of bad water or other contaminants. You don’t want that! Prevent this from happening by using a backflow preventer. Here’s an affordable one. Use it and rest easier. (You can read more about backflow prevention here.)
RVs and WD-40: Unusual combinations that work!
Seems like every RV has at least a can or two of WD-40 for lubricating various parts. But there are more uses for good ol’ WD-40 than just the occasional thread loosening. Here are a few tips that may make for slicker RV trips. Learn more.
Yesterday’s featured article: Give your RV tires “the old Shinola”?
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- Full-timers – Where can you stay during this outbreak?
- At last! A toy-hauler with a “hidden garage” – but with hidden problems
- During this crisis, ask what you can do for your neighbor
- All bottled up! A hilarious story of an RVing newbie…
Reader poll
If you own a firearm, you must have this book!
Firearms laws guide updated for 2020
The 2020 updated edition of the Traveler’s Guide to the Firearm Laws of the Fifty States has just been published. The book is always a best-seller among RVers, many of whom carry a firearm when they travel. The annual guidebook helps ensure they stay out of trouble when crossing state lines, where the laws may be different. Learn more in this article.
Readers tell us
How long do you think the coronavirus will affect daily life? See what fellow RVers said here.
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
Expanded showering opportunities
Got a BIG family or lots of traveling companions – once we can gather and camp in groups again? You may find that the RV shower and associated gray water holding tank just aren’t big enough for the whole mob. Consider picking up a “solar shower” system. Heated by the sun and used outdoors, it’s great for showering down after a swim. There are many to choose from at Amazon.com starting at less than $15.
Pan liners protect kitchenware while driving
These 9 pot protectors come in three sizes and are perfect for placing between pots, pans, plates and bowls while driving down the road. Nobody likes arriving at the campsite to find broken or scratched kitchenware! Learn more or order.
Random RV Thought
With the state of the world the way it is, now is a good time to start a journal. It will be nice for your kids and grandkids to read when you’re gone, plus it’s a neat way to document your personal history, as well as current world happenings.
Website of the day
Easter crafts and sweet treat ideas
We normally wouldn’t link to an entire Pinterest category, but there are way too many adorable Easter crafts and dessert ideas on here for us to pick just one (or two) to tell you about. Explore here and get to crafting and baking!
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.
Refrigerator bars ensure nothing shifts while moving
It’s happened to most RVers – you open the fridge (even slowly) after a day of driving and a heavy jar falls on your toe – “Ouch!” Never have that happen again with these easy-to-install spring-loaded refrigerator bars. They’re also useful in cupboards and closets. Order for a good price.
Trivia
One of the largest pyramids in the world can be found in Memphis, Tennessee. The local Bass Pro Shop Megastore is inside this pyramid, which is 321 feet tall and has a 535,000 square-foot interior. It features a hotel, an indoor swamp, an aquarium, a bowling alley and the world’s tallest freestanding elevator (which takes you up to an observation deck). Forget Egypt – head to Memphis!
A Brazilian man once died from a cow falling on top of him while he was asleep … but how? We told you this strange story in yesterday’s trivia section.
Leave here with a laugh
Random thought: If you attempt to rob a bank you won’t have any trouble with rent/food for the next 10 years, whether or not you are successful. —Thanks to George Bliss! (a retired RCMP, BTW)
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.
This website utilizes some advertising services. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Regardless of this potential revenue, unless stated otherwise, we only recommend products or services we believe provide value to our readers.
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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Help your neighbor-My neighbors, an elderly couple had a wooden fence that had blown down in a recent wind storm. The husband is blind and the wife is taking care of him and a granddaughter. So I decided to help them out with supplies I had on hand to repair their fence. I’m stay at home anyway, so it gave me something to do alone. I mowed their yard all last year for them for free. I got a letter in the mail from them today-“Your the Greatest Neighbor in the World, Thank you so much”. This is what we are suppose to do-help your fellow neighbor. Everybody stay safe.
Been diving since 1966.. then got into underwater photography…..that’s expensive. In the early days the waters off Florida were magnificent. However, not only Florida, but the world has watched the severe decline of those magnificent reefs and tremendous loss of fish. But at least I will always have those memories of those rich clear waters with beautiful underwater communities.
What I would like to do is dive the lakes, ponds, and streams while RVing different places. Not much photography has been done in those smaller waters. It would be fun and fascinating to see what’s out there and maybe make a little book.
oops ! The tank size was 68 cuft and not 680 – I am not a sub.
NAUI certified SCUBA diver when 15….used Scott Hydropack full face from Navy UDT surplus…. twin 680cuft steel tanks. Dove mostly in Great Lakes & Niagara River in cold, medium to no visibility as well as some northern lakes…..often dove alone [in early 60’s not many other divers to buddy up with]. I would have loved to been able to dive in clear, warm water somewhere.
Most enjoyable time of my life up to the Vietnam gig.
Have friends who have dove the Great Lakes. Viz is much different from sub-tropical waters but still is fascinating. If you get the chance do the shark dive with Jim Abernathy in Palm Beach County. It was one of the most wonderful dives of my life.
Re: Trivia. Another little known neat place to visit is in Webster, TX near Houston at the Fry’s Electronics store. It has a full-size scale mock-up of the International Space Station hanging from the ceiling, plus some additional neat space-related displays around the store. It is not far from Johnson Space Center. But, you might want to hurry. I don’t think Fry’s Electronics is doing very well. The stores all seem to be more and more empty.
Is that place still open? It was in very sad shape the last time we were in it.
I’m terrified of deep water. No snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, or boating for me!
Re: showering. How about just using the campground shower and wearing shower shoes?
Hi Bill..I take my camper to many campsites where there are no campground showers, especially in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. I guess they’r called “primitive” sites. We have a solar shower bag to use when running low on camper water, and use one of those spring up changing tent to shower in. Pretty fun actually.
I clicked yes to snorkeling with a bit of chagrin. Tried snorkeling ONCE with our kids at Disney World and was so bad at it, I panicked and a lifeguard about the age of of my kids jumped in to “save” me. And I was a really good swimmer… Hmm- think I should change my vote.
I guess I’m to old fashioned, your survey question about scuba diving generates this comment. If God had intended for me to swim under water He would’ve created me with gills. I also have similar feelings about flying, I have flown many times during my 7.5 years in the USMC but I was much younger and foolish then. I no longer get on crowd killers.
Well he did, but “man” got tired of swimming and came out of the water a few hundred million years ago and has walked ever since. 😉
This is the second time I have seen your recommendation for a back flow preventer. The one you are selling will not prevent back-flow into the RV. It is an anti-siphon valve. If on the park pedestal it prevents back siphoning into the park system. If on the RV fill it is backward and stops water from feeding the RV. As you are promoting this in more than one ‘issue’, I hope you print a correction and apologize to all you have fooled.
Before buying/using any device, you should understand what it does and how to use it. Yes, it would be smart to make it clearer it goes on the hose-bib end of your hose, and ONLY protects the water supply from YOU. Why is it needed? Some people rinse their toilets and tanks from the freshwater supply, and a drop in pressure “could” backflow your own contamination into everyone else’s water.
As far as putting it on the other end of your hose, I’d slightly disagree — if you have a tank rinser, it might be wise to install it on that input at the RV end of the hose… this protects your own hose from being rinsed with black tank contents.
Best practice is to never use a potable hose OR potable spigot for tank rinsing, but immobile folks break this rule ALL the time.
A little closer reading of the story will reveal we are NOT suggesting that a back flow preventer [or an anti-siphon valve, different names, same purpose] be put on a supply hose to an RV to “prevent back-flow into the RV.” The point of the story is that when using a hose to clean out a holding tank, the anti-siphon valve should be used to protect THE WATER SUPPLY from possible contamination by the tank contents. Thanks for your comment!
??…. Isn’t this item intended or use when flushing the black tank ?? NOT for fresh water inlet. ……….from the article referenced above…..
The backflow device in question performs as it is intended to perform. They are designed to protect everyone else connected to the water distribution system if you do something dangerous (like leaving a siphon tube in a bucket of pesticide) so it won’t backflow into the system and injure or kill someone else. It goes on the spigot to which your supply hose is connected, not to your trailer input.
I took a sun shower with me to Desert Storm. Had a hot shower every other day, based on water availability. Clean clothes also.
really work well.
Would love to see pic of curtains
It is my understanding that silicon fumes can obliterate the function of automotive oxygen sensors. While Mike Sokol makes a great point that rubber components should be treated with silicon rather than oil based compounds, silicon use in proximity to oxygen sensors should be avoided.
Flammable vapors? Hydrocarbons? I’m still confused on the contents being no- petroleum based product!? I’ve asked Mike this question (clarification)in the past, and no response…..Please educate me!
You are right, silicon coats the O2 sensor, and in extreme circumstances, will kill that vital and expensive sensor. Keep it away from any air or gas input sources to engine.
Silicon is a crystalline solid. It does not make fumes.