Leasons Learned

Lessons Learned

Bring plenty of quarters. No matter how many quarters you bring on an RV trip you will need more. Before you leave take every quarter out of every jar, pot or piggy bank in the house. You will need them for laundry, newspapers, water, etc.

Stop often. The journey is the destination. The whole point of having an RV is the freedom to stop and go wherever and whenever you want.

Dry camp. Don’t be afraid to stay overnight at Wallmarts and other shopping centers. Pull up to friends’ houses and use their driveways.

Pick campgrounds wisely. The biggest ones might have too many rules. The smallest ones might not have essential services. Get both the Trailer Life and Woodalls directories

Books. We found “The Next Mile” very helpful. It tells you what to expect at the next interception.

Talk to people. At gas stations, restaurants, campgrounds. Get referrals on the next place to go.

Expect to spend money. RVing is not cheap. We ate all our breakfast and lunches in the RV and still spent about $1000 per week on everything.

Get the Good Same road service plan. We found them helpful in the accidents and problems we had.

Get all the discount cards. Good Same, KOA and others. They will pay for themselves.

Get gas discount cards. Some credit card companies are offering 10 cents or more off of every gallon for the first 90 days. Get that kind of card before a long RV trip but be sure to pre-pay so they don’t hit you will high interest charges and penalties.

Arrange to do all your banking on-line. Have standard bills such as mortgages paid automatically.

Find a good way to connect to the Internet. Many RV parks advertise that they have WiFi but only a few really have it. Check out cellular modems. Satellite direct broadband is very expensive.

Don’t take too many clothes. You will never have the right amount of the right kind and you will find that you wear the same outer clothes day after day until they get dirty. Bring about two weeks of underwear. Make sure that you don’t have anything that needs to be dry cleaned. Buy clothes as you need them from Wallmart or other cheap stores.

Bring lots of tools. Make sure that you have a complete set of mechanics tools as well as carpenters tools. Be ready to fix anything automotive, electrical (12 volt and 110 volt) , plumbing or carpentry. You need a cordless drill and screwdriver.
Bring extra fuses and light bulbs.

Get a mechanic’s toolbox and fit it into the storage department under the RV.
Don’t buy a cheap RV vacuum cleaner from Camping World. Get a real vacuum from Wallmart.

Don’t buy RV toilet paper and chemical from Camping World. They charge too much. Buy it from Wallmart. Camping world has the highest prices anywhere. Try to buy elsewhere when you can.

Share the driving with your partner. Take time to look at the scenery.
Get travel books. The Lonely Planet books and the National Geographic books on various states are great. Go to local museums. Learn the local history and lore.

Get a GPS card for you laptop along with mapping software. We like the DeLoran setup. You can use this to estimate distance and driving time to you next stop.
Eat dinner at the bar at restaurants that have a bar. That way you can get to talk to others at the bar and the bartender. Always order a local beer.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Make sure that you have plenty of propane, water, food and gas.

Keep a journal.

Take lots of pictures.

Go to sleep late. Get up early. Take naps. Dance. Listen to local music.

Have fun.

Tunnel Trouble

We drove to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel but were stopped from going through. The wind was too high. We were put in a holding parking lot for about half an hour and then allowed to pay $28 to go through.

As we were nearing the end of the first tunnel our mirror was hit by a dump truck heading south. It smashed the mirror and also smashed the driver's window. I was driving. I was covered in glass. I kept control and we called 011. We were met at the north end by the police and we made a statement. While I was doing that Helen tried to clean up the glass. In order to do it easier, she put the dog in the car where he shit. We got all the info on the other driver.
We stopped at Accomack where a glass company made a plastic insert for the driver's window.

And we got home at about 2pm on Friday, March 10.
The dog was very happy to get home. He ran up on the porch and barked until we let him in.

Heading North

We left Sarasota on March 4 and headed north. We stopped at Lazy Days again to meet with our salesman, look at our intended RV, and while there we attended a lecture on a Caravan to Mexico. We signed up with Fantasy RV Tours and are looking forward to our Mexican trip next January. We spent the night at a friend's house in Melbourne e, FL and used her clothes washing machine. We then headed north to Jacksonville where we spent the night at a Walmart and had dinner with friends and watched the Academy Awards.

Getting ready to leave on Monday, I noticed that the magnetic lights that I had on the car were not working reliably. These are the lights that attach to the roof so that people behind can tell if we are stopping or turning. So we stopped at an RV place near Jacksonville where they found that one of the bulbs was burned out. They had a replacement.

When I ran the cable from the back of the car through the SUV and under the hood, I must have made the slack too short. As a result it pulled out of the RV and at some point it was dragging on the road and broke off. We knew it because a tractor trailer kept signaling us.

We called Good Sams Club and got the name of another dealer, this time in Brunswick, GA. They were able to replace the entire light arrangement with permanent lights. There is now a separate circuit in the SUV with a receptacle at the front of the car that connects to a wire that connects to the receptacle in the RV. And we paid another $500. The delay made us too late to have dinner with a friend in Charleston, SC so we pulled into a campsite in Georgia.

The next morning we left late and drove to a consulting assignment north of Charleston, SC. We unhooked the car and Helen drove to Myrtle Beach, SC where my brother lives. I did my work and followed with the dog. We stayed in Myrtle Beach for three nights, right on the beach. We stopped at Camping World to get an oil change and then headed north on I-95.

We got as far as Emporia and found a Walmart. We stayed there along with about 10 other RVs. Near us was an RV from Quebec. The family could only speak French.
We left on our last day, March 10.

Frolics in Florida

We drove from Destin to Sarasota stopping overnight in Ocala (at a Walmart) and then in Tampa. In Tampa we stopped at a Home Depot to meet with the technical from the exterminating company. He gave us a second and final (and successful) treatment for ants. We then continued to Lazy Days RV dealership. We had a wonderful time looking at new RVs. We are considering upgrading to a Diesel. We had lunch at Lazy Days and continued on to Plant City, FL where they were getting ready for the strawberry festival. We bought a how flat of beautiful strawberry for a few dollars.

Finally we continued on to Sarasota where we had a reservation at the Sun N Fun RV Park. Sun N Fun is a very large park and is totally full at that time of year (mid February to Mid March). Many of the sites are occupied by permanent trailers (called Park Models) that sell for $20,000 to $50,000 and the people need to pay ground rent ($5,500 per year) and utilities. We were stuck between two park models which was not the most enjoyable thing.

Our good friends Glenn and Sharon Gale were already at the park. They drove from their home in Connecticut with their Chevy Suburban and their Airstream trailer. And their large, energy-filled, dog. A golden retriever pup.

We got to Sun N Fun on a Saturday Night and we had a ball making supper on the grill and drinking margaritas. We made it into a progressive dinner starting with dinner at our RV and finishing with desert at their camper (a short walk away).

We stayed at Sun N Fun for two weeks. Not along enough. The park has a large number of English and Canadian people. Lawn bowling is a popular activity. During the 14 days we went to the beach, attended to our property in Sarasota, ate a lot of great food and I did a little work. I did some consulting in Clearwater for two days.

While Sun N Fun advertises that it has Wi-Fi it really does not. The service was almost impossible to obtain.

The park has a large number of activities including a woodworking shop, music events and a fitness center. It has a wonderful pool.