Dang RV

Time to settle down for a few weeks and recover from the cold I got in Big Cypress. I headed for the Wauchula SKP Resort owned by my Escapees camping club. The rates are cheap, amenities great, and people are always very friendly in Escapee parks. I love staying in them. It is also in the heart of Florida’s orange grove country.

The sites are level and provide cement patios as well as full utilities and wide paved roads. The entrance is easy to spot, very wide, and the 2 lane 60 MPH road opens up with a very long left turn lane to make it easy to slow down with a large RV to turn. The pool is heated and well used as is the clubhouse and the bike racks. The laundry room is very clean and inexpensive. WIFI is excellent all  through the park! They have local brochures available.  Super Walmart is nearby as well as plenty of restaurants. It was great to get back to a clubhouse with puzzles again. I have gotten my jollies with several puzzles since arriving.

Since I planned to be staying a while, I had some fun putting out some of my trailer decorations. I even had time to wash the Maine mud off the front and I washed the windows with my new collapsible bucket. The collapsible buckets are great! They do work and store neatly out of the way in their own pouch. Did some other annual maintenance too.

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A little checking around quickly told me that I was about to miss a window of opportunity if I didn’t move fast. Florida is a major haven for snowbirds (people running away from Northern winters) from December through April. They know it and cater to snowbirds while also adjusting prices for RV parks according to the season. My best chance to see the Keys was now before December 1st when prices double. EEK! No way am I going to pay $60-80 a night for a piece of ground to park my trailer on. The state parks don’t change their prices but that is why they are usually booked up a year in advance for the season. I did check them and found 1-3 days available here and there in them but since the Keys are so long and have so much to do, that is not nearly enough time for a visit.

The drive out through the Keys on the Overland Parkway is lots of fun. The speed limits are low but the water and scenery are so beautiful who cares. It is very surprising to see so many well known stores, restaurants, and even schools out there in an area so well known to be hit by hurricanes and only 3 feet above sea level. All the fast food joints are there as well as the usual grocery stores and pharmacies. Even the fancier restaurants are there. Be careful of your speed. It is strictly enforced there, particularly near the deer preserve.

I got lucky once again and found a Passport America park in Marathon, FL on Grassy Key, Jolly Roger Travel Park. I got 5 days at the discount rate and paid for 2 more at the off-season rate to get a whole week to explore. The PA section is close to the road with lots of noise of course but I didn’t mind. I had no problem sleeping there despite the noise. No pool or clubhouse but it is very nice looking and has a great view. If you want to swim with dolphins, the Dolphin Research Center is very close (very expensive too).

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Now I know some of you are going to say, “What the heck does that have to do with RVing?”. Well, I have met several Ebayers in RV parks I have stayed at. Being an Ebay seller or running an Internet store are two ways to support your RV lifestyle. It only requires a computer, an Internet connection, basic shipping supplies, and items that can either be drop-shipped or that are small enough and light enough to store and sell from an RV. If you have a a home-base such as a leased pad or house, you likely have storage there for more product which can be shipped to you or picked up when you are in the area.

Selling successfully on Ebay requires good product pictures. People want to see what they are buying. You can get a good picture with just your camera and a table, couch, floor etc. A better picture might be on a sheet or fabric background of a solid color. If you want really detailed professional pictures, you need a light box. I have had the plans to build one for some time but I didn’t like the folded down size or weight in my RV so hadn’t made it yet. Tada! In comes Digital Concepts with a truly light, portable, and professional light box you can purchase at Walmart.

It looks like an artist’s folio at first look. Open it up and it forms a 16″x16″x16″ light box with non-reflective translucent walls you can shine the 2 included freestanding high output photo lights through for backlighting, a reversible non-reflective background of blue and gray, and a tripod for your camera. The folio has pockets on the outside for the lights and tripod and folds up easily into a very decent size to store easily in any closet or under the bed. Cost is $49.95 which is well worth it if you do a lot of Ebay selling. It is also useful for online stores to add new products. Crafters selling online can look very professional with this.

Got some great tips I thought I would pass on.

1. Use the sides of the overhead microwave and the overhead stove vent if available to hang things like measuring spoons on stick-on hooks. The little plastic sticky hooks by 3M and others work very well on those, the items will be within easy reach when needed, and will generally stay in place while traveling.

2. Anyone who has cooked in a small RV propane oven knows how the food tends to burn on the bottom. Buy 4 six-inch unglazed ceramic tiles and put them on the solid metal shelf just above the burner to evenly distribute the heat throughout the oven. They must be unglazed and be able to handle high temps so you likely won’t find them at Home Depot type stores. Look for tile dealers.

3. If your rear RV bumper has rusted or does not have enough room for all your sewer hoses, you can buy plastic hose containers from Camping World or you can make your own! I bought one 10 foot white plastic sewer pipe at Lowes hardware store along with additional caps, etc. and made 2 of these for less than the price of one pre-fabbed. Mine don’t have mounting feet but I can still strap them under my trailer, on the rear bumper, or in my case, to the rear ladder. They were very easy to make with just a regular saw needed to cut the pipe and a knife to trim the burrs.

If you have the room in one of your storage bays, coiling sewer hoses and cords up in Tupperware was also suggested to me

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My Christmas present to myself this year is a Garmin c330 GPS. I managed to snag this wonderful new travel tool cheaply at the Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) Sale at Walmart. I already have Delorme GPS with Street Atlas added to my laptop which I very much love and actually has far more capability than this basic unit has, but I am not comfortable leaving a laptop, especially one I need to work, in my car when I’m toodling around town for a day or hitting the local tourist traps. My new unit will be used for local driving and as a backup for the laptop on the long moves.

Aside from the excellent price, I chose the Garmin c330 because of the hundreds of great reviews it has gotten on the Internet. It is highly rated by most folks who tend to buy not just one but one for each car and for each college student in the family. The unit is designed to get you from point A to point B, that is all it does, and it does it very well. The screen may seem small at 2.1″x2.8″ but they use it really well and I was amazed that all the direction arrows are very large as well as the text along the top of the screen. It does not have text-to-speech to say the street names but it does say turn here, then there in a very loud, normal, crisp female voice while the street name is displayed along the top of the screen in very large easy-to-read letters. It also changes the screen colors for day and night driving. Easy access to millions of Points of Interest such as gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, local recreation, tourist attractions, etc. makes this a very valuable addition to anyone’s vehicle.

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Time to flock south with the other snowbirds for the winter. Michigan was getting cold and rainy not to mention northern campgrounds tend to start closing October 15th.

I spent my first night in a Walmart parking lot in Monroe, MI. The managers were very nice about it. It was easier considering I arrived late due to my work schedule and I needed to pickup my prescriptions there the next morning since they filled them once before. Spending a night with no electric or TV was somewhat boring but I did have a windup radio at least and I could still cook dinner on my stove. Having the slideout in was a little cramped but still useable. Only thing that bothered me was some idiot walking around the parking lot at 2am with a leaf blower like that could really clean it. Aargh!

Next day, headed out through a rain storm to Lancaster, Ohio and Lakeview RV Park for a week. Ohio landscape is flat with lots of farms and cornfields. Saw a sign to watch for horses and buggies. I got to use my Delorme Street Atlas GPS on my laptop to guide me. I love that it talks to me and I can command it with voice commands. I chose a slightly different path at one point and it recalculated immediately. I missed a turn and it got me right back on track. The best thing is it only cost $40 on sale at Best Buy. Came with the GPS device and software. The interface is non-Microsoft and weird but I’m learning it.

Lakeview RV Park was chosen because it is cheaper than the other parks with wifi nearby and close to a major highway. My trailer sits on a spit of land between two small lakes. I have a lovely 360 degree view of them out all my windows. I have a cement patio, lots of grass, a fire ring, electric, water, gray water hookup, and they run a honeywagon around once a week to empty black water tanks. The staff have been so nice and they guided me back into the site like champs right next to the patio.

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After a month in Osburn, Idaho, it was time to hit the road again. Pulled out Saturday, June 9th.

New backup camera worked very very well to hitch up. Definitely would be easier if the front of the trailer hitch wasn’t black so I will be painting or taping it yellow. Lining up dead on center sure was easy though.

New cat travel area in my GMC Yukon worked quite well with hanging see-through security curtain to keep her out of the front area. She was free to roam and had water, food, and a litter box which she did use. That area also has it’s own air conditioning zone and controls. She enjoyed looking out the windows. Of course, she still chose to whine quite a bit but I noticed she took naps during the long drive as well this time which was nice for me. She did not try to breech the curtain so I think this is going to work for the long haul.

We hit tons of contruction going on just over the Idaho-Montana border. Several different zones of it for miles which kept narrowing down the road and shoving us over onto the other side of the highway while they worked on ours. Still the drive through Montana was quite lovely. The curves near the border were a little rough with the trailer not quite tracking behind the car but once we got out on the flat straights, maintaining 65mph was easy with no sway and cruise control.

I crossed the Continental Divide a huge sign on top of a mountain announced. Woohoo! That made me glow. My Yukon seemed to be pretty proud of itself too.

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Another weekend off and time for more changes before I hit the road again soon.
I got the remote to activate the door locks and horn for my new SUV. I hadn’t thought I would need it but there are no keylocks on the passenger doors so I was having to open the front doors to unlock those doors which was getting a bit annoying. I’m definitely enjoying it.

My son has added a backup camera by VR-3.com that I bought at Walmart for the rear of the SUV. The new vehicle has cargo doors in the rear which now block my view of my hitching rods unless I leave both rear doors open. Not too crazy about leaving the doors open so I now have a very sharp color camera that shows me a great shot of my hitch and everything else while backing. It might also save some fool at the shopping center if they walk behind me while backing and I can safely back quite close to other objects now if needed. Installation was not difficult since the camera (installed on the license plate) and 2.5 inch monitor (velcroed on the dash and using 12V outlet) communicate wirelessly.

I have changed the old style screen door handle out to a modern one. The old style looks like a hook and you pull it to the side to get in and out. This seems to cause a great deal of confusion for my visitors and I’m tired of having to teach them how to use it. The new style is a normal handle you push down on.

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