Issue 2710
Today’s thought
“I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.” —W.C. Fields
Need an excuse to celebrate? Today is National Relaxation Day! Say no more!
On this day in history: 1939 – “The Wizard of Oz” premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.
Tip of the day
Keep your generator fuel fresh—or do this!
By Russ and Tiña De Maris
For us, it was a hard-learned lesson. Keep your generator fuel fresh. We thought we did. After all, we frequent hot country in our RV, and don’t much care for RV parks. That means to keep cool, but avoid shore-power hookups, our portable generator gets a thorough running. Trouble is, it’s those off-travel times. We paid the penalty for the schoolboy’s lament, “I just didn’t think!”
One day, our trusty genny started, but reluctantly. From reluctant start, to the “Is it a hit, or a miss”—and a lot of “missing.” Something wasn’t right. A quick phone call to a long-suffering retired mechanic friend quickly answered the “why” part of our issue. Continue reading.
Ask Dave
What is best solar panel to use when storing RV in covered facility?
Dear Dave,
We recently had to fight to get an ECO coating covered that was supposed to keep our paint from oxidizing. We finally won the fight to cover a detailer’s cost of restoring our paint, which ended up being $5000. We decided to put our investment into a fully covered storage facility to prevent this from happening again. Since the RV is fully covered, our solar panels are not keeping our lithium batteries charged. Read the rest of David’s question and Dave’s answer.
PORTABLE SHOWERS FOR CAMPERS: Wow — So many creative options! Check ’em out.
In the RV shop with Dustin
The cause of side wall cracks near the front cap of an RV
As an RV owner, few things are more unsettling than discovering cracks in your side wall—especially near the front cap of your unit. These cracks may appear small at first, but they often point to much bigger structural issues hiding beneath the surface. At California RV Specialists, we’ve seen this issue time and time again, and we’re here to help you understand why it happens and what you can do about it.
Article and video
One box, two jobs: The Solo Windchill 47 is both a cooler and portable A/C
By Cheri Sicard
Sweltering summer days in an RV, van, or tent can quickly test anyone’s patience. Most coolers just keep drinks cold, and most portable A/C units cost a small fortune. The Solo Windchill 47 changes things up by offering both features in a single, rugged package. The hands-on review from the team at Playing with Sticks covers how it stacks up in the real world and whether this cooler-and-A/C-unit-in-one is worth packing for your next outing. Learn more.
Featured article
The ABCs of RV terminology: Every word and term you should know as an RVer
By Dave Solberg
It is beneficial to know the common terminology of the RV language and its components. Just like any other language, there are many words or descriptions that are either borrowed from other areas or are just plain “slang”. Knowing the nomenclature will make it easier to communicate with your fellow RVers and even technicians. Test yourself. Do you know all these words and terms?
BUMPER SNICKER: “Go around. Obviously this isn’t a race car.”
You may have missed these recent popular stories…
- World debut RV review: 2026 Forest River Sunseeker 2030RP—a first-class B+
- RV review: Keystone Walkabout 26MAX—Delightfully different
- A budget-friendly portable air conditioner review
- Virtual tool helps RVers choose the best campsites and avoid bad ones
- BLM identifies 6 million acres that could be sold—map shows where
- RV inspector’s top 4 RV slide out tips
Reader poll
Would you ride a roller coaster if one were in front of you?
Quick tip
Have an overzealous LP detector?
Sometimes RVers complain that their LP detectors alarm for no obvious reason. While these electronic sniffers are designed to alert when they sense LP gas, there are other things that can cause them to launch into that ear-irritating behavior. Hair spray, cooking odors, even dog farts can create “false alarms.” Try opening a window when you blast the hair spray, and be sure to run the range fan when cooking. As to Bowser? We’ll leave that one to our readers to make a suggestion.
On this day last year…
- Ask Dave: Where can I get an owner’s manual for my RV?
- RV review: 2025 Midas 24 BT, Tiffin Motorhomes’ most nimble Class C
- Video: The best RV gear from IKEA
- Featured article: A discussion about loneliness and the solo RVer
Website of the day
Atlas Obscura
We’ve featured Atlas Obscura before, but it’s been a while and it’s one of our all-time favorite websites so we wanted to share it again. You’ll have soooo much fun exploring this website and we bet you’ll add soooo many places to your travel bucket lists!
? MYSTERY PRODUCT OF THE DAY ?
Um, sure, it might help us walk on rocky beaches or paths. But if we used this we would fall on our faces… immediately. Wouldn’t you?
Trivia
A study reported in the website Defector describes chimps at Zambia’s Chimfunshi sanctuary who began sticking grass in their butts as a style statement. After first spotting chimps wearing grass in their ears, researchers led by Edwin J.C. van Leeuwen of Utrecht University observed a new trend: chimps began wearing a stiff blade of grass from their rectums, a behavior that spread to most of the group within six weeks.
Readers’ pet of the day
“I adopted Sunna at 4 months old. She and her sister (German Shorthaired Pointer [GSP]/Dalmatian) had been ignored because of ‘cherry eye’, an ugly red blob in the corner of the eye. A local shelter took them in, did the surgery, and they were as cute as could be. The sister was two shades of brown, like most GSPs, but Sunna was black and white. She was a high energy, happy dog. Loved to run, chase her ball, wade in water. We RV traveled over 130,000 miles before she passed away at 14 yrs. and 4 mos. My perfect companion. RIP.” —Ann Palmer
Wow! 130,000 miles together! Sunna was so lucky you found her, Ann. So sorry for the loss of your adventure buddy.
Send us a photo of your pet with a short description. No blurry photos and please do not submit your photo more than once. Thanks!
FINISHED READING THIS NEWSLETTER? Time for you to move on to yesterday’s brand-new Great RV Accessories Newsletter. It’s fun—you’ll love it! Click here.
Leave here with a laugh
What do you call a laughing motorcycle?
A Yamahahahaha.
Today’s weather forecast across the nation
THIS MAP UPDATES TWICE A DAY
Visit Current National Radar Weather Map
Current fire and smoke map from AirNow
Did you miss the latest RV Travel Newsletter? If so, read it here.
Oh, and if you missed the Latest News for RVers, make sure to catch up here.
Search Google for the latest RV news from RVtravel.com.
If you shop at Amazon.com we’d appreciate you using this link. We get an itty bitty commission if you buy something, but they add up and help us pay our bills (most importantly our hard-working writers!).
RVtravel.com All-Star Team
Click here for information about our staff and how to contact us.
What do you call a pirate’s motorcycle?
HarHarHarHarley
Good one!
Sunna – what a living travel blog! Sounds like you and your people booked some wonderful adventures and memories. What a life together! Don
Not only Dog farts. My wife says I set it off too!
TMI 🙂
I deny any involvement what so ever.
Is there anything that can be done to eliminate the pop up ads? My whole screen is full of them today
My paid subscription does not include any ads. Maybe when I delve into an article with web links, a few may pop up. Rare.
Unfortunately, my disappointing solution is to leave and get on with my day.
Oh well….
I’m not sure what you mean by “pop up ads”. If you don’t donate to the newsletter, then there are ads embedded in the page, but they don’t “pop up”. If you have ads actually popping up in front of the page, then I think your device infected with malware.
Sometimes those ads show up in your feed because you do not have an ad-blocker. There are a number of them out there. You just need to choose one and download it to your computer, tablet, or cell phone; wherever you are reading the RV Travel Newsletter.
Use DuckDuckGo as your browser. No ads!
Yep! 👍👍
I’ve seen many readers suggest using DuckduckGo as your browser. I resisted for several years because of habit, probably. I just downloaded the app to my phone and made it my default browser. Haven’t had a single ad show up as I re-read today’s RV newsletter. With my former browser, Safari, I had many ads. With DuckDuckGo I had none. I’m using the free DDG version. May look at the paid PRO version
Sorry you lost Sunna. What a great companion she was! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks to RVTravel for posting her photos. She was truly amazing. I stopped at Long Beach in WA, one of her favorite places, and scattered some of her ashes there. The rest went to various places from east coast to west, north and south.
Sunna was quite the traveler. I hope to RV travel over 130,000 miles or 14 years, which ever comes last. My in-laws adopted a dog that had a cherry eye. Cute little thing but other didn’t want to pay for the surgery. My in-laws paid for to have it removed and it hasn’t come back.
REF: the article on being lonely; I haven’t heard the podcast and after reading the comments, decided not to. My idea of being lonely is not necessarily being alone – being with people friends or strangers and most especially a loved one are people to share things with – sights, sounds, changing terrain or landscape and just life’s routine or general events. Someone to talk and visually share these things with. Not being able to share or enjoy together – leads to loneliness…..
I wanted to comment on the RV terminology list, which I really enjoyed, but couldn’t see how to. Two minor things though: LiFePo4 batteries are called Lithium iron phospate, but I don’t think Lithium ion phosphate. And LP gas stands for Liquefied Petroleum, and even though propane is the most common, butane is also included in this classification; and is still sold in warmer climates, like south Texas (or at least used to be). Great list, though, thanks.
Very sorry for your loss, Ann. So glad that you were able to spend so much time together, create so many memories. Thank you, Emily and Diane! Have a great day and safe travels!