Tuesday, December 25, 2007
GREAT RV Holiday Gifts
I received two and wrote about them over at Pekin Prattles...
Sometimes Christmas can be sooo nice......& Did I mention my new Bose Companion 3, Series II sound system for the PC.....W-O-W!!!!! Blow-your-socks off sound on a PC. Thanks Duchess!
Duke
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Sometimes Christmas can be sooo nice......& Did I mention my new Bose Companion 3, Series II sound system for the PC.....W-O-W!!!!! Blow-your-socks off sound on a PC. Thanks Duchess!
Duke
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Merry Christmas!
A Merry Christmas To ALL!With family arriving today, and a full week of Christmas & New Year's celebrating to do, Duchess and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a joyous time...be you at a fixed home, or in your home on the road....
Duke
Saturday, December 22, 2007
GPS - Lots of Uses!
My GPS is a valued assistant in our travels in our 33 foot motorhome "Roadhouse". The thing was a gift from Duchess last birthday....It has been widely used since. Actually Son-in-law Lance and his father (just bought a motorhome as well) received theirs for Christmas. We all got the Garmin C330 model.
Not only are they fairly user-friendly, but they are easy to operate from the beginning.
Instapundit, Professor Glenn Reynolds, has just dived in as he explains...
Yes, Glenn, they are quite popular, and in a motorhome, on the road, even more valuable. One thing I stumbled upon by accident....there are "ad-ons" to your memory system with such things as a list of locations for places you visit. I have, for instance, added on a small memory clip downloaded from the net for Flying J Service Stations. For RVers they are keen. Not only do they have among the best prices, but also they issue you a user card which insures an added discount when used with your credit purchase. However, the real deal for RVers at Flying J is a set of two or three RV-friendly pull throughs. Room for the RV & your towed vehicle. They also have water, a sewer dump station and those long-handled windshield washers and sqeegees for RVs.
Using my GPS I simply choose the addon setting and the stations are located in order by distance from your current location....and a convenient arrow indicating direction.
There are numbers of other listings available as well...depending upon your travel preferences.
My GPS rarely gets a rest. On our trip to the beach two weeks ago I had the unit in our car, and when the urge to see a movie hit we simply chose entertainment and the movie theaters were there for us. Same for restaurants, malls, etc.
They are marvelous devices. My lone regret is I did not wait for the models such as Glenn has which give you traffic hints.
GPS.....I had my first when we owned "Reality" our flybridge sportfisher. By today's standards it was quite rustic. It worked fairly well as long as you plotted and entered a waypoint for yourself. Then, of course, one had to know enough about the area to insure there was no land between you and "Point A"...the GPS had no idea of water or land....just locations!
Love those toys.....wonder what Santa may bring this year!
Yep! I am still a kid.
Be 65 years young on January 1st!
Duke
|
Not only are they fairly user-friendly, but they are easy to operate from the beginning.
Instapundit, Professor Glenn Reynolds, has just dived in as he explains...
Yes, Glenn, they are quite popular, and in a motorhome, on the road, even more valuable. One thing I stumbled upon by accident....there are "ad-ons" to your memory system with such things as a list of locations for places you visit. I have, for instance, added on a small memory clip downloaded from the net for Flying J Service Stations. For RVers they are keen. Not only do they have among the best prices, but also they issue you a user card which insures an added discount when used with your credit purchase. However, the real deal for RVers at Flying J is a set of two or three RV-friendly pull throughs. Room for the RV & your towed vehicle. They also have water, a sewer dump station and those long-handled windshield washers and sqeegees for RVs.
Using my GPS I simply choose the addon setting and the stations are located in order by distance from your current location....and a convenient arrow indicating direction.
There are numbers of other listings available as well...depending upon your travel preferences.
My GPS rarely gets a rest. On our trip to the beach two weeks ago I had the unit in our car, and when the urge to see a movie hit we simply chose entertainment and the movie theaters were there for us. Same for restaurants, malls, etc.
They are marvelous devices. My lone regret is I did not wait for the models such as Glenn has which give you traffic hints.
GPS.....I had my first when we owned "Reality" our flybridge sportfisher. By today's standards it was quite rustic. It worked fairly well as long as you plotted and entered a waypoint for yourself. Then, of course, one had to know enough about the area to insure there was no land between you and "Point A"...the GPS had no idea of water or land....just locations!
Love those toys.....wonder what Santa may bring this year!
Yep! I am still a kid.
Be 65 years young on January 1st!
Duke
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Stuff & Things
It occurs to me that while we are home for the holidays, and the "Roadhouse" sits quietly in storage, I might impart a number of thoughts/experiences/etc. on our RV experience.....
So....here's one.
Rain. I love the motorhome in the rain. I love sleeping in it in the rain, and just sitting reading and/or watching a movie on TV in the rain. When I was a kid in Pekin, Illinois I remember my room was on the 2nd floor of our two-story home. When it rained I could hear the individual drops striking the roof shingles. I loved that sound and found it comforting.
My guess is that must be the origin of my current RV rain sound enjoyment. My feelings are not shared by Duchess who finds rain, particularly driving rain to be a distraction.
Driving the big fella in the rain is another story altogether. Light rain provides a great way to get the bus dirty! It also depletes the windshield washer fluid quickly as road dirt soon covers the windshield and the huge wipers need a good bit of rain to operate efficiently. Heavy rain provides quickly appearing puddles and runoff areas across the road. That can be real fun when you hit one and the 33 foot - 18,500 pound beast develops a love of water skiing!
Other things that one, not an RVer, might miss about storms and rain. Awnings can be a problem. Our vehicle has a 16 foot awning that opens to about 8 feet in width. It even has dampers which help hold the awning in the wind, but at about 15 mph the wind begins to whip it quite a bit, and I roll it up. Some high end coaches (Our Damon is strictly mid-range to lower range in price) have electric auto-retractors. If you are gone, or it is storming the device detects high winds and retracts the awning. In addition to the large awning for cooking/sitting/etc. we have awnings over both bedroom windows and one over the large living room window located in our single slide. These awnings are to keep out bright morning sun, and bright summer sun in the afternoon. They are usually small enough to avoid wind problems...however, on our recent trip to Dickinson, Texas, I had to retract these in a three-day storm with 20-35 mph gusts rocking the vehicle...even as it sat on 6 tires and four leveling jacks! That is wind.
Wind on the RV is an other subject. More later.
Duke
|
So....here's one.
Rain. I love the motorhome in the rain. I love sleeping in it in the rain, and just sitting reading and/or watching a movie on TV in the rain. When I was a kid in Pekin, Illinois I remember my room was on the 2nd floor of our two-story home. When it rained I could hear the individual drops striking the roof shingles. I loved that sound and found it comforting.
My guess is that must be the origin of my current RV rain sound enjoyment. My feelings are not shared by Duchess who finds rain, particularly driving rain to be a distraction.
Driving the big fella in the rain is another story altogether. Light rain provides a great way to get the bus dirty! It also depletes the windshield washer fluid quickly as road dirt soon covers the windshield and the huge wipers need a good bit of rain to operate efficiently. Heavy rain provides quickly appearing puddles and runoff areas across the road. That can be real fun when you hit one and the 33 foot - 18,500 pound beast develops a love of water skiing!
Other things that one, not an RVer, might miss about storms and rain. Awnings can be a problem. Our vehicle has a 16 foot awning that opens to about 8 feet in width. It even has dampers which help hold the awning in the wind, but at about 15 mph the wind begins to whip it quite a bit, and I roll it up. Some high end coaches (Our Damon is strictly mid-range to lower range in price) have electric auto-retractors. If you are gone, or it is storming the device detects high winds and retracts the awning. In addition to the large awning for cooking/sitting/etc. we have awnings over both bedroom windows and one over the large living room window located in our single slide. These awnings are to keep out bright morning sun, and bright summer sun in the afternoon. They are usually small enough to avoid wind problems...however, on our recent trip to Dickinson, Texas, I had to retract these in a three-day storm with 20-35 mph gusts rocking the vehicle...even as it sat on 6 tires and four leveling jacks! That is wind.
Wind on the RV is an other subject. More later.
Duke
