travel planning

The RV community needs your support.

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In these crazy times we  hear a lot about the travel industry hurting from the virus, but usually their talking about airlines and cruise lines, but for the RV community our small business in a lot of case are the mom and pop RV parks. As a community we need to support them so as we travel we will have safe places to park and enjoy the local sights.

If your in the Twin Falls ID area please support The Oregon Trails campground. http://oregontrailcampground.com/ A new generation has taken over the campground and they due an awesome job caring for their customer to ensure that they have a great stay in the area. The campground is clean, quiet,  and close to local attractions.

If your in the Baker City OR area please support Mt. View RV http://www.mtviewrv.com/ this is a family owned and operated campground. This is a clean and quiet place and they are currently experiencing a large number of cancellations due the virus and peoples fear of traveling. We have found the owner to be friendly, helpful, and we’re totally enjoying our stay so much we extended our stay by 5 days.

Please support the mom and pop RV parks along your travels so we will continue to have safe places along our travels.

Thank you in advances for helping our community.

 

We need your help.

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Soon we’ll launch our new website IdealPhotoArt.com. We’re currently looking for a platform that can deliver the products your looking for to remember your travels.

We want to help people remember those special places they have visited.

All comments would be appreciated.

What type of product do you look for? ( postcards, calendars, coffee mugs, framed art, etc.)

What price point is in your budget for travel mementos?

Is having mementos shipped to you instead of carrying them back on airlines or other transportation attractive?

Would you use a personalized service that went to places of your choice took photos, created mementos or framed art and shipped them to you?

Would you like to have a personal photographer document you action vacation or holiday?

Thank you for your comments.

 

Workamping, What is it? Why we do it?

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What is it?

Workamping takes on many different faces but generally its seasonal positions that employers want to fill with temporary employees for a season. There are generally two seasons, winter and summer. We look for our winter work in the summer and our summer work in the winter. There are different types of positions but mostly in hospitality industry in some form or another. Some examples would be Hotel, Campground, Restaurant, camp counselor, ATV guide, ski guide, ski resorts to name a few. This is the work part of workamping. Although some of these employers ask for a resume it’s not your traditional resume where continuous employment is important. It’s more about your skill sets and will you honor your commitment to work whatever length of time you agree to.

The kamping part of Workamping has to do with the compensation the employer is willing to give in exchange for your labor. Again this takes on many different faces but generally the components are housing, meals, RV space, and pay for hours worked, no pay just an RV space, solely Voluntary positions. That’s why it’s important to read the Workamping ad carefully and ask a lot of questions before you accept a workamping position. Below are some resources we use to find workamping jobs:

If you want to have some fun go to coolworks.com and let yourself dream, click through the categories and look at the jobs people are willing to compensate you to do, you’ll be amazed I know I was.

Coolworks.com coolworks.com/

Workers on wheels newsletter   work-for-rvers-and-campers.com/help-wanted.html ,

HappyVagabonds.com happyvagabonds.com/Main-Menu.htm

Why we do it?

The simple answer is that it allows us to visit places we want to see, experience, and explore without spending our own money and so far we’ve put money in the bank doing it. But really the benefits are much more than financial. The RV lifestyle can easily become very sedentary and that can lead to sore muscles, stiff joints, weight gain, and fatigue.  So as workampers we’re doing something good for our health, our finances, and the bonus is we meet some really nice people from all over the world.

If you would like to see more photos of some of the places we’ve been, please click on link below

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/206867295/Richard

 

Adventure has many faces!

/ Rich / 2 Comments

When traveling with a 5th wheel trailer many things can cause your heart to race. We were on our way to our next RV campground in Rock Island Tennessee when we saw the two road signs that make you think, not good “Road work ahead” and “Narrow bridge” as we came around the corner we saw the narrow bridge which we knew we would fit on, but we also notice that half of the narrow lane on the bridge was 8″ – 10″ lower than the other half so we held our breath and slowly made our way across the bridge successful. We arrived at the road for the campground and turned right onto the road and the road just disappeared, the road is to narrow to turn around so we slowly continue forward wondering what happen to the road and than we saw it, around a fairly sharp right hand turn and down about 12 feet at 8 percent grade hill. We made it down the hill (still no place to turn around) the road is a wonderful mix of dirt and gravel and narrow. Our next obstacle was a sharp left hand turn followed by a hill that is 25 or 30 feet long, with an 8 percent grade, we took a deep breath and started around the corner and up the hill we get about 1/3 of the way up and the tires on the truck start losing traction but we get to the top and realize we are on one of the roads where whats ahead is worse than what you just went through. One more steep down hill followed by a steep up hill and we arrived at the campground and than it hits us we have to do this again to get out of here.

The reviews on this campground were good but nobody mentioned the road into the campground. We did make it out ok and now I know what it feels like to have a 10,000 pound trailer push our truck down a steep hill into a sharp right-hand turn.

Rock Island Tennessee -1-4Rock Island Tennessee -1-3Rock Island Tennessee -1-2Rock Island Tennessee -1

Tennessee

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We stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center when we crossed the State line and across the freeway was this giant guitar and it brought to mind my big brother Mike, he is a very accomplished guitarist and has played for as long as I can remember.

 

 

We stayed 1 night at the Around the Pond RV campground. The owner is very laid back and the ambiance is relaxing, its the kind of place you want to stay for awhile but unfortunately it wasn’t close enough to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park for us to do that. If you find yourself in North-Eastern Tennessee and need a quite relaxation place check out Around the Pond in Baileyton TN.

Tennessee

Tennessee around the pond-1-5

Exploring Edinburg Virginia.

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Creekside Campground where we’re staying. Nice place we have a creek behind our site.

Creekside Campground Virginia-1Creekside Campground Virginia-1-2Creekside Campground Virginia-1-3

American Celebration on Parade.

We stopped in to a little second-hand shop and the lady inside told us about American Celebration and the place across the street called Yellow Barn. American Celebration is different parade floats on display. Yellow Barn is random displays of the old days. It was a fun different way to spend the day.

American Celebration on Parade-1American Celebration on Parade-1-2American Celebration on Parade-1-3American Celebration on Parade-1-4American Celebration on Parade-1-5Yellow Barn-1Yellow Barn-1-2

Pre-Trip Inspections.

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Since we’ve been traveling with our 5th wheel we have always done a pre-trip inspection. We do a walk around to make sure nothing is loose, we make sure the tire pressures are at 80psi, and we check the fluid levels and that there are no fluid puddles under the truck. We stayed the night at Cabelas in Hamburg Massachusetts and in the morning before leaving we did our pre-trip inspection and noticed that there was a small puddle of oil under the truck. It turned out that the oil drain plug had loosen and was dripping oil. We tighten the drain plug and topped off the oil, problem solved. A saving of thousands of dollars to replace the motor. We noticed that one of the trailer tires had a air bubble where the tread meets the sidewall. We called our roadside service Coach-net and they were able to direct us to a tire shop so we could replace the tire. We ended up having to replace 2 tires because of broken belts in the tires due to pot hole and just bad roads we’ve been driving on in the East. When tires come a part at 60 mph it generally does some kind of damage to the trailer which can cost a lot of money to fix. We’re glad that we have developed this habit of pre-trip inspections.

Where are they now?

We are currently in Edinburg Virginia, we’ll leave tomorrow morning and head to the Cabelas in Bristol Virginia to lay over for the Labor Day weekend. From there we’re heading to the Great Smokey Mountains for 4-7 days, and than on to see the Grand kids in McMinnville  Tennessee.

Hiking Acadia National Park.

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We had heard about a reversing waterfall and some cobblestone bridges located around the carriage roads in Acadia National Park. We knew it was a long shot trying to find a waterfall feed by run-off so late in the summer but we thought it would be a great hike. We did find the waterfall but it was only a trickle. Here are some photos from the hike.

Hadlock Pond Trail-1

Hadlock Pond -1

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Maine Hadlock Brook Trail-1

Maine Hadlock Brook Trail-1-2

What we Learn.

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We think that there are as many reasons why people RV (full-time or part-time) as there are people, many things work for some but not others, its in the sharing of information that helps us all have a better experience so Thank you to the RV community.

Technology

As full-timers technology is something that is very important for trip planning, navigation, communication, and its something we could spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on trying to make sure we have what we need as far as internet access and trip planning tools. When we got to Hermon Maine we found that the WiFi in the RV Park was very slow and that we’re in an area where our AT&T cell phones and hotspot don’t work. The first thing we try to figure out is whether this is an inconvenience that requires patients or a situation that requires a solution. Although we haven’t had this level of inconvenience in our travels we decided that maybe its a good idea not to have all our technological eggs in one basket and we moved one of our phone numbers to Verizon. We went with the Samsung Galaxy S8($760.00) and the 5gb data plan($45 a month) this was going to double what we budget for cell and internet. What we learned was that because of the pre-loaded apps on the phone updating it went through 2.5gb in ten days. The camera on the phone is said to be one of the best cell phone camera out there, but what I found was it was amazing for close ups of flowers, bugs but when you use the zoom it falls short. When we checked the first bill there were charges on it that shouldn’t be there and although Verizon said they would remove them the did not. We had 14 days to return the phone and cancel the plan if we were not satisfied. We decided that this is a inconvenience that required patients so we returned the phone and canceled the plan. This trip to the East we also upgraded our old GPS to the Garmin RV 660 LMT($317.00) which allows us to put the dimensions of our RV in and select no low clearance routes, no toll roads. It also finds things like campgrounds, rest areas, truck stops, fuel, stores and the list goes on lots of bells and whistles. For the most part its been a good upgrade and a good tool to have for traveling, but when we went from Scarborough Maine to Hermon Maine we selected no toll roads and the GPS said there was no way to get Hermon without paying tolls. We got our map out and found a route that did not have toll roads and did not increase the distance to Hermon that was a little disappointing. It also falls short on finding local attractions it seems to find the entrance to a National Parks but not things within the park.

Happy Anniversary to Us.

August 14, 2015 the escrow closed on our home of 15 years and we became homeless and started traveling, the only thing we forgot was the RV. While traveling in Arizona we found our truck and 5th wheel and the rest has been an adventure of a life time.

Travel Plans.

We will be in Hermon Maine until August 27, 2017 so we have started thinking about what we want to see and where we want to go. Here’s a few ideas: Grand kids in Tennessee, Statue of Liberty, Washington DC, Great Smokey Mountains National Park.