Issue 1540
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
“They laugh at me because I’m different; I laugh at them because they’re all the same.” ―
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is Tartar Sauce Day!
On this day in history: 1985 – William J. Schroeder becomes the first recipient of an artificial heart to leave the hospital.
Information request
Are you being affected by severe cold weather? Are you at home or in your RV? Has your RV been of help to you at this time? Please tell us what’s happening with you now during this incredibly challenging time. We are working on a story for the weekend. Submit your comments here.
Tip of the Day
Be kind to your differential – It’s all you have
By Greg Illes
Deep down under your rig, far behind the driver’s seat and usually caked with dirt, grease and road grime, is one of the most critical members of your drive train – the rear axle and its differential.
Whether you drive a motorhome or pull a trailer or fifth wheel, you and your entire load rely on that rear axle to propel you down the road. Every single pony of your engine’s horsepower must route through a compact cluster of incredibly tough gears in order to twist your axles, spin your tires and push you up that hill or across that valley. Although these units are pretty reliable, they are not maintenance-free. Continue reading.
Do you have a tip? Submit it here.
Today’s RV review…
In today’s column, industry insider Tony Barthel reviews the TrailManor Convertible Trailers. As he reports, “TrailManor trailers are all uniquely designed. The top and bottom are separate entities and you raise and lower the top to create a finished travel trailer. This is sort of like a pop-up trailer and, technically, that’s what this is. But it’s so much different than the typical pop-up trailer.” Learn more.
Did you read Tony’s review yesterday of the Earth Traveler T300? 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, February 19, 2021. 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 two readers claimed their $25 Amazon gift cards: Bob B. of Eloy, Arizona, and Sylvia E. of Livingston, Texas.
We’ll have another photo in tomorrow’s 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 smell bad after being closed up? Try charcoal!
To rid your RV of musty or bad smells after storage or after being closed up for a few weeks, place activated charcoal in disposable containers throughout your rig. Read more.
Yesterday’s featured article: How to locate roof leaks
?????? MYSTERY PRODUCT OF THE DAY ??????
Please DO NOT, we repeat DO NOT, buy us this. But if your ex-spouse did you dirty, you may want this to show up on their doorstep…
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- Propane shortages. Skyrocketing prices. Problems ahead?
- RVSuperbag: A cozy solution for making those tricky RV beds
- 12 of the weirdest campground rules – You won’t believe these!
- Campground Crowding: Thousand Trails? More like “Zero Trails”!
Reader poll
Is your RV too big, too small, or just right?
Please tell us here. Thanks!
Quick Tip
Nighttime blackout help
Full-time RVer Mike M. sent in the following tip: “I saw the posting in RV Travel concerning RV day/night shades for darkening the interior at night. My Monaco Diplomat has two-part pull-down shades. The lower part lets light in and acts as a dust filter while letting me see out during the day. The upper part, when fully lowered, is supposed to darken the RV interior but doesn’t quite do the trick, so I bought a can of liquid rubber. It comes in black or white and either works fine, although the black stops a little more light. I took down each shade and sprayed the upper ‘darkening’ part only. What a difference, and the shade still accordions upward!” Thanks, Mike!
Editor Chuck Woodbury writes: If you want to know what we are up against with the incredibly nasty virus we’re dealing with today, read the book “The Great Influenza,” the story of the 1918 Pandemic. It’s estimated that about 500 million people worldwide were infected and that between 50 and 100 million died – 3 to 5 percent of the world’s population. I’m reading it right now and it’s fascinating.
Website of the day
Freerice
If you’ve got some spare time on your hands, spend it here. Freerice donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme for every question you get correct (and they’re pretty easy questions). Test your knowledge and feed someone in need at the same time. [Editor: Yes, this is legit.]
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
You’re an idiot! No, really, you are! In ancient Greek, the word “idiot” referred to anyone who wasn’t a politician. (Please refrain from making derogatory political comments.)
*What percentage of the world’s population claims to have never consumed any alcohol? The answer is surprising. Find it in yesterday’s trivia.
Amazing tool does so much!
This multifunctional tool is seven in one! This heavy-duty pen tool features a handy tablet or smartphone stylus, a sturdy screwdriver, a bubble level, a universal inch/cm ruler and a handy Phillips screwdriver flathead bit, and it’s only the size of a pen! Perfect for any weekend project, and it even makes a great gift. Learn more or order.
Readers’ Pets of the Day
“Tilly and Toga on their first RV trip! Three days at Roaring River State Park in Cassville, Missouri.” —Karla Kimerer
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.
Leave here with a laugh
A husband decides he has had enough of his wife trying to rule the house. One night he storms into the kitchen and announces, “From now on, I am the man of this house and my word is the law! You are to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight and a scrumptious dessert. After dinner, I am taking you upstairs into the bedroom! Afterward, you’ll draw me a bath so I can relax. The temperature must be perfect. You will wash my back and towel-dry me when I am done. Then, you will massage my feet and hands. Then tomorrow morning, guess who will dress me and comb my hair?” “The funeral director would be my guess,” responded the wife.
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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.
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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This newsletter is copyright 2021 by RVtravel.com
With reference to the Kurt Cobain comment – – those of us who are the ‘same’ usually get the last laugh !
OMG mystery product, well could be great for keeping company with on those long trips! Thinking of secretly sending those Madagascar Hissing cockroach’s to my daughter, I’m really sure she would get a rise out of them!
Snoopy
Thank you for doing such a good review on the TrailManor TT, I own a 2720 model and absolutely love mine, wouldn’t trade it for the world. I travel in cross winds and have no problems, it just follows right behind you, with no swaying. I have to keep looking in my rearview mirror to make sure its still back there, cause you can’t feel it when your towing it. Everything is so well insulated that you don’t have to worry about cold weather. I stay in it in the winter with no problems of keeping warm. The lift system is so easy, you can pull it up with one arm. And yes when you come into a campground you have everybody’s attention. I usually draw a crowd. I also let them pull it up to see how easy it is. They are all curious on how it goes up, and they are totally amazed at all the room inside. I always open mine up for anybody to look at. The new owners of the company are awesome also.
Product of the day. Fun reading the reviews. Must be some lonely people out there wanting roaches for pets. Being from Florida I find it odd that people want what I pay to get rid of.
You have hissing cockroaches in Florida?
We have German roaches and flying American roaches. Both are stealth. When a flying roach gets on your neck, you wish he would have hissed to let you know he was coming.
Just before this pandemic blew up, I was watching late night TV over the air on a public TV channel in Florida. That would’ve been in December 2019. There was a 2 hour documentary all about the Spanish flu pandemic. Soldiers that survived the Great War were being taken down by the flu.
The Great Influenza, the 1918 Pandemic called incorrectly the Spanish Flu as it was in a Kansas army base early April of that year. We just had more control over the media then and let them report it as the Spanish Flu due to the fact that the King of Spain was gravely ill. The book and the PBS are both great and should be required reading for those who want to represent this Covid as a Chinese virus.
The pets of the day picture reference to Roaring River State brought back some wonderful memories of camping there when I was a kid. Several metal coolers, musty sleeping bags, fishing tackle, and a giant canvas tent that weighed more than the station wagon that brought us there. Great memories of time with my parents and brothers, including at least one day of sitting in the tent while it poured outside. If you’ve never been to southwest MO and northwest AR you should check into it. It’s a beautiful part of the country. We’ve been to Roaring River and Eureka Springs, AR several times, but lately by motorcycle so we stayed in motels.
Enjoyed our trip to Roaring River several years ago. Would like to meet Tilly and Toga. They are cute.
My wife had a good laugh about the Leave Here With A laugh
Now we call politicians idiots. Times change.
Well if they act like Idiots then there you go.
Tom, this is the first time I have really missed the “like” button. I still wonder what happened to it.
I also have missed the “LIKE” button. Seems Chuck is still deciding! Even better would be a score card, you know a +plus column & a – column, this way you could see the actual votes rater than just a “like” button. Been so long I’ve forgotten how it actually worked!
Snoopy
And a notification if someone responds to your comment. Sometimes people ask other commenters questions but never get answers because the original commenter doesn’t come back to look at comments.
I second that motion Linda!
Ok Chuck, time for a READERS POLL on this subject! On another subject I just got an approval on another comment & thats new!
Snoopy
Hi, David. I can’t remember why the voting option was removed. We had too many problems with it, or it didn’t “play well” with our system, or something. I haven’t checked for awhile, so will pester our IT folks again and see if anything has changed. And regarding getting an approval on a comment — do you mean it had been held for moderation and we had to go in and approve it before it was published? If it was a comment regarding the cockroaches ad, that’s because it contains a term which the system is set to filter out. The comment is put into the Pending file until a moderator can approve or delete it. Some other comments containing the term “cockroaches” were also held for moderation. Take care. 🙂 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Also agree it would be nice to see notification if someone responds to your comment
Hi, John. Please see my response to Linda. Thanks for your comment. 🙂 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Hi, Linda. At the top of the Comments section there’s a button that says “Subscribe.” If you click on the down arrow, you can choose to be notified when there is a response to your comment. I wish the button were better identified regarding it use, but that’s just the way this system is set up. Oh, and I just noticed next to the button to Post Comment, there’s a button to “Notify of new replies to this comment.” (I don’t usually comment right in the newsletter itself so hadn’t noticed that before.) But if it shows a bell with a line through it, just click on the icon and it takes the line out and turns the bell blue, meaning that feature is activated. Thanks for mentioning this. I just learned something new! 😀 —Diane at RVtravel.com
Me too!
Given the choice between being thought of as a politician or an {bleeped}……I choose {bleeped}.
“In ancient Greek, the word “{bleeped}” referred to anyone who wasn’t a politician.”.
I totally agree with you, Tom.