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Issue 1486
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.
If you shop on Amazon, please click here to visit through our affiliate site (we get a little commission that way – and you don’t pay any extra). Thank you!
California bans overnight stays in some campgrounds over COVID-19 concerns
Californians will see sharp new limits on public gatherings and shopping under a new statewide order issued yesterday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, as COVID-19 cases continue to rise at dramatic rates. RV parks and other campgrounds in five regions of the state will be prohibited from accommodating overnighters. The parks may remain open for current long term stays. Current guests are not being forced to leave. Read more.
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Today’s thought
“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” —Walt Disney
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Sock Day! Check these out…
On this day in history: 1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, is published.
Tip of the Day
Prep meals at home for RV use
Heading out for an RV trip and don’t want to spend too much time slaving over a hot stove on the road? Here are some tips to help you prep meals at home for your RV use so you “work a bit before you go, less while you’re gone.” Continue reading.
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Today’s RV review…
In today’s column, industry insider Tony Barthel reviews the new 2021 Riverstone Reserve 3850RK Fifth Wheel. As he reports, “This is a floor plan that pays homage to the fact that a lot of people now are able to take their work on the road and combine the enjoyment of this wonderful land with some time behind the desk paying for that adventure.” Learn more.
Did you read Tony’s review yesterday of the 2021 inTech RV Terra Oasis? If you missed it, you can read it here.
For previous RV reviews, click here.
Is this your RV?
If it’s yours and you can prove it to us (send a photo for comparison), tell us here by 9 p.m. Pacific Standard time today, December 4, 2020. If it’s yours you’ll win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.
If this isn’t your RV, send us a photo of your RV here (if you haven’t already) for a chance to win in future issues.
LAST WEEK, THREE READERS RESPONDED and each claimed a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Congratulations to Dave A. of Pasadena, Maryland, Terri C. of Enfield, Connecticut, and Blaise B. of Marinette, Wisconsin.
We’ll have another photo in tomorrow’s RV Daily Tips Newsletter (sign up to receive an email alert so you don’t miss the issue or those that follow). Some of these photos are submitted by readers while others were taken by our editors and writers on their travels around the USA.
RV has rooftop swimming pool
It’s true, this travel trailer has a rooftop swimming pool. For those RVers who refuse to swim in lakes or rivers or, heaven forbid, public pools, maybe this is the solution. But there’s one problem. You may have a tough time finding a model like this at your local RV dealer. Read about it here.
Yesterday’s featured article: RV industry executive talks about lack of campgrounds
Don’t let winter keep you in the dark!
This 6-pack of tiny, battery-powered LED “Button Lamps” is just what you need for your RV’s closets and storage spaces. The tiny lamp is ultra-bright and has all the power of a normal-sized lamp. Backed with a strong adhesive, these little lamps will stick to any surface. They’re waterproof and good to have in case of an emergency. Learn more or order.
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- RV Electricity – Do I need a surge protector on an inverter generator?
- Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis to star in new TV show
- Street-dwelling RVers now get free honey wagon service
- Video: 2021 Airstream Interstate GT Feature Review – Part 1
Reader poll
Do you have a personal financial advisor?
Quick Tip
Super easy, multi-purpose potatoes
While we’re on the subject of food (see Tip of the Day above), Rose K. says she scrubs potatoes, tosses them in her slow cooker and cooks them for about four hours. What does she get in return? Hot baked potatoes with extras for potato salad, to chop up for hash browns, add to soup or mash ’em for patties. No need to heat up your RV for all this goodness. She adds that sweet potatoes are really juicy when prepared this way. Thanks, Rose!
Here’s an idea for you: Record your family history on your iPhone or video camera. If you want some inspiration, we recommend you get the book To Our Children’s Children. It will prompt many ideas of what to talk about. Your children and grandchildren will appreciate this when you are gone. Think about it, wouldn’t you love it if your parents could have done this for you?
Website of the day
Women’s RV Forum
This one is for the ladies! Chat with other women RVers in this handy forum about RVing with pets, RV recipes, plan get-togethers, start a book club and discuss recent crafts or DIY projects.
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.
Trivia
Think the freeway near you is wide? Well, unless you’re near the Katy Freeway in Texas it’s probably tiny in comparison. The Katy Freeway, part of Interstate 10 in Texas, is one of the widest freeways in the world. In some parts, it’s 26 lanes across!
*What color is hippo milk? Betcha don’t know… Find out in yesterday’s trivia.
Strengthen your hands, fingers and forearms
Here’s a great, easy way to build up the strength in your hands, fingers or forearms. Perfect for RVers. If you suffer from arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis or tennis elbow this is for you. It’s also great for simply building up the strength of your grip. This is a best seller and costs about $8. Learn more or order.
Readers’ Pets of the Day
“These are our two rescue cats. Archer and Eli are brothers. We welcomed them to our home three years ago. They love to go camping. Looking out the windshield of our Sunseeker motorhome is one their favorite pastimes.” —Randall Hughes
Send us a photo of your pet with a short description. We publish one each weekday in RV Daily Tips and in our Saturday RV Travel newsletter. *No blurry photos, please!
Leave here with a laugh
Today’s Daily Deals at Amazon.com
Best-selling RV products and Accessories at Amazon.com. UPDATED HOURLY!
Did you miss the latest RV Travel Newsletter? If so, read it here.
Oh, and if you missed the latest Sunday News for RVers, make sure to catch up here.
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RV Daily Tips Staff
Publisher: Chuck Woodbury. Editor: Emily Woodbury. Senior editor: Diane McGovern. Social media and special projects 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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This newsletter is copyright 2020 by RVtravel.com
Rvers and tourists are pouring into Mexico. We have 109,000 COVID deaths. For god’s sake stay home. We have enough problems.
Regarding Laugh of the day: I’ve been doing that all year. I look at myself in the mirror and see such a difference. Amazing!
Big box stores at non-peak hours are the safest place to shop–the high ceilings dilute the virus.
In our travels, we’ve seen that some areas of the country have 99% mask compliance and other areas compliance is as low as 25%. The NE was best, rural TN the worst.
No financial advisor need as I don’t have money problems. Reason being is I don’t have any money.
I think the article about CA banning overnight stays in some campgrounds is misleading. For virus control purposes the state has been divided into numerous regions. Only five of those regions are affected by this new rule. And for several of them, it will not be effective until and unless the ICU Bed vacancy rate drops below 15%. For example, I live in the SF Bay area; for our group of counties this is not expected to happen before Christmas, if at all. But we’re close enough that the state is saying “be ready for this, and do what you can do to prevent it.”
If that’s not a veiled threat, I don’t know what is.
That’s simply a heads up, if everyone does what needs to be done instead of complaining around their rights being trampled on, we can get out of this. Better to trample on a simple right than trample on our graves….
Folks are being told what is in store if hospitals fill beyond set levels. It can be avoided if all will wear a mask, stop gathering/traveling for pleasure and heed the science. That’s not a threat, veiled or otherwise. That’s forewarning.
858 people had voted in the poll about having a personal financial advisor at the time I responded. 59% said they do. CNBC reports only 17% of Americans use an advisor. Thank you for having two laughs in today’s newsletter!
59% of 858 people who responded versus 17% of 327 million or so people in US. Not the same math. Therefore, very different results.
It’s all about the sample demographics, isn’t it? Turns out people who 1. were able to come up with enough money to pursue RVing, 2. are conscientious enough to read RV Travel to keep up with things, and 3. chose to take the poll, probably because they are proud of what they have achieved –are more likely to have used a financial advisor. I’ve always been leery of them myself, but, they seem to work for some folks.
858 RVers do not constitute a statistically significant sample. (Statistics wasn’t my favorite course by far, but I do remember some of it…)
Plus people that RV have more resources to invest in as a group than nationwide that includes poor people.
My husband and I are about to leave Michigan to head to the sw. New Mexico for about a month then on to Arizona for a month. We are concerned about traveling with covid restrictions. Any advice? Would love to get some feedback. We really don’t want to cancel our trip.
NM State Parks just re-opened to NM reisdents, day use only. That’s all I can give ya, but it’s pretty easy to find your answers online with most search engines.
Have traveled in many states since this started, carefully. You’ll be fine.
Use your RV restroom while traveling, stay out of the buildings at giant gas stations where hundreds of people will pass through leaving cough and sneeze clouds. Ditto for all big-box stores, El Paso just did a study linking big-box visits to cases. Use small groceries and gas stations. Mask up every time you go in a building or do a transaction at a campground, not necessary outside unless you get too close to folks. Back up from people who don’t get it, and don’t worry about hurting their feelings. There are people who just can’t grasp that it is airborne and breath travels several feet. Keep disposable gloves handy for gas pumps, alcohol wipes for after shopping etc.
Be aware many state park systems have shut down for the winter, and New Mexico forbids out of staters from theirs. Also in NM, many forest service and local govt campgrounds have closed too. Have reservations across
Check each state’s COVID web site as restrictions are changing daily. Flexibility is the key to any trip right now. So far, California is the only one I’ve heard of on the verge of total lockdowns. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports though. Many states health care systems are struggling right now and that could result in changes at any moment. You’ll probably be fine. I definitely wouldn’t cancel. Worst case, you can always turn around and go somewhere else.
Head straight to Arizona then do NM on way back but remember NM is cold in winter. When living there for five years in Clovis it was snowy and cold and the wind added to that but a beautiful state. And follow “wanderer’s” advice above about all the precautions he’s mentioned. Have a great trip.
It’s been thirty years since I visited Houston, I remember driving the slow lane at seventy !
So CNBC came out with a poll saying 1% had a financial advisor, while the RVtravel.com query shows about a 60/40 split. HMmm. The fact that a “news” organization can and will put findings such as this out and survive speaks volumes doesn’t it.
I think RV travel may be at least partially a higher income and higher awareness sub sample than the general public. Look what planning and expense goes into traveling.
Right you are. Totally different sampling and social economic group.
Absolutely correct.
The CNBC number above is 17%, not 1%.
But in spite of that, it makes sense that there could be a significant difference between the CNBC news article and the self reported data collected on this website.
The CNBC article is probably polling data across the total population. So you are seeing data reflecting multiple age groups, multiple income levels, etc.
The self reported data from this website at 59% using a financial advisor just reflects the experience of folks using and reading this newsletter. I would suspect this population skews to a higher age group and also possibly a higher income level. Which makes sense that more folks in these two demographic groups would use a financial advisor.
Just because the results are different, doesn’t make the CNBC result ‘fake news’ as you are possibly implying.
Well said. And another reason to be grateful– we are so blessed to be able to pursue RVing.
Agreed!
Ray, to me there are two things that speak volumes. One is that you don’t seem to understand the difference between a nationwide poll conducted scientifically and an informal poll of one group of people who happen to read a given online newsletter. The other is that you are attacking a news network for unreliability when your own statement about the network’s numbers was incorrect. My conclusion is that your reply does speak volumes, but not about the news network.
I disagree, respectively, with your conclusion about the accuracy of CNBC’s report. As has been pointed out by many other people on this forum, the sampling numbers and demographics are significantly different. Polls are interesting but a narrow poll among mostly like-minded, or at least those with mutual interests (RVing) people like this one in RV Travel is for entertainment.
Polls? Nah… they’re for strippers and cross country skiers.
~Sarah Palin
I don’t live in Houston, but have driven the Katy Freeway many times. It’s definitely not for the faint at heart. In fact, for the, “first timer,” it’s scary as hell.
If you know how to stay in your own lane, why would it be scary? Now a two-lane highway is scary, you never know if the oncoming vehicle has a death wish and will come at you head-on. :-/
Cats in the windshield. My senior cat lays on the flat dash, sleeping in the sun. When one side is warmed up, he turns over and warms the other side. The junior cat rides on the table, looks out the window, and yells at 18 wheelers.
My financial advisers were Dewey,Cheatum&Howe.
… they are my attorneys !!!
They must be good, cause they are the ones I used as well!
Two things. I too have that exerciser and it’s great. Unfortunately I left it home when we came down here to Houston and I’m kicking myself.
Since we’re here in Houston I decided to look up Katy, TX. It turns out to be only a few miles from where we’re holed up. I did a satellite search and followed I-10 through Katy. It may be 26 lanes across in area, but not in paved lanes. They used up a lot of area constructing this freeway, with lots of frontage roads, get off and get on ramps, and the main freeway separated by grass (or weeds . . .), but they didn’t pave 26 lanes. I think we’ll be going this way when we finally leave here and head home. Now I’m looking forward to checking this out firsthand.
Just so you know: the device to strengthen your hands, fingers and forearms? My wife broke her wrist and was having issues. I ordered this, and she LOVES it. It has adjustable resistance, and because we rated it on Amazon, the company sent another one! Now for the price of one, we have two! One for the RV, and one for our sticks n bricks. Thank you. You never know which tidbit is going to be the one that wins the prize.