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For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:10:55 -0500, Califbill
wrote: Poco Loco wrote: On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:12:38 -0500, Califbill wrote: F*O*A*D wrote: On 9/30/14 10:24 AM, Poco Loco wrote: On Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:32:59 -0400, Harrold wrote: On 9/29/2014 2:30 PM, Poco Loco wrote: On Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:52:21 -0400, Harrold wrote: One of my favorite destinations is Cody Wyoming. The town itself is charming but it's proximity to Yellowstone, The Beartooth Highway, The Buffalo Bill Dam and several other attractions make it worthwhile spending a week or more, there. All of the nearby campgrounds were cramped and booked solid. Nicer spots could be found near and in Yellowstone, but most had no sewer and some had no water or electric. How far in advance should reservations be attempted at those nearby campgrounds...any idea? Not sure, but I would recommend at least a month for Cody if you want full hookups. Due to a campground screwup, we had to spend our first night at Walmart with about 30 other RVs. I don't know anything about the federal campgrounds other than they looked pretty nice from the road. We've 'almost' stayed at WalMart a couple times, but changed our minds. We've stayed at Flying J's and Pilots several times. The RV's stay out front, not back with the trucks, and we've never had a problem. Usually the food is pretty good also. Ma and Pa Herring Joad. Nice thing about an RV. You can stay lots of places where there is no hotel available. In 1986, I had a sabbatical from my company. We bought a Class A motor home and towed a VW Rabbit. Did not have to worry if there was a room available when we got to an area. Ate healthier, and the kids, 10 and 13 at the time could do crafts while traveling. Was not Walmart parking in those days, but next to a lake in Georgia, nice camp ground in E. Islip, NY and take the train in to Penn station. Nice way to take 2 months to see the country. Stayed in a campground somewhere near a Metro stop for DC. Couple long days. One, for two tours of the White House. 8am for the East Wing tour, and a private west Wing tour in the evening. Helps to have friends. Nice way to travel. Not cheaper than motels, but a lot more convenient. We keep kicking around taking a couple months trip to Alaska. The problem, from my perspective, is the house and lawn. I suppose the thing to do would be to let the lawn go without watering. Now's when I wished we lived in a condo. Hire a mow and blow for the yard. Get the neighbor kid to bring in the mail. I auto pay all of by recurring bills, so not a problem there. Yeah, a nice family moved in across the street. I've had the middle kid do the yard a couple times. Works well. We'd take the dogs with us, so boarding wouldn't be necessary. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On 10/1/2014 8:39 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:10:55 -0500, Califbill wrote: Poco Loco wrote: On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:12:38 -0500, Califbill wrote: F*O*A*D wrote: On 9/30/14 10:24 AM, Poco Loco wrote: On Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:32:59 -0400, Harrold wrote: On 9/29/2014 2:30 PM, Poco Loco wrote: On Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:52:21 -0400, Harrold wrote: One of my favorite destinations is Cody Wyoming. The town itself is charming but it's proximity to Yellowstone, The Beartooth Highway, The Buffalo Bill Dam and several other attractions make it worthwhile spending a week or more, there. All of the nearby campgrounds were cramped and booked solid. Nicer spots could be found near and in Yellowstone, but most had no sewer and some had no water or electric. How far in advance should reservations be attempted at those nearby campgrounds...any idea? Not sure, but I would recommend at least a month for Cody if you want full hookups. Due to a campground screwup, we had to spend our first night at Walmart with about 30 other RVs. I don't know anything about the federal campgrounds other than they looked pretty nice from the road. We've 'almost' stayed at WalMart a couple times, but changed our minds. We've stayed at Flying J's and Pilots several times. The RV's stay out front, not back with the trucks, and we've never had a problem. Usually the food is pretty good also. Ma and Pa Herring Joad. Nice thing about an RV. You can stay lots of places where there is no hotel available. In 1986, I had a sabbatical from my company. We bought a Class A motor home and towed a VW Rabbit. Did not have to worry if there was a room available when we got to an area. Ate healthier, and the kids, 10 and 13 at the time could do crafts while traveling. Was not Walmart parking in those days, but next to a lake in Georgia, nice camp ground in E. Islip, NY and take the train in to Penn station. Nice way to take 2 months to see the country. Stayed in a campground somewhere near a Metro stop for DC. Couple long days. One, for two tours of the White House. 8am for the East Wing tour, and a private west Wing tour in the evening. Helps to have friends. Nice way to travel. Not cheaper than motels, but a lot more convenient. We keep kicking around taking a couple months trip to Alaska. The problem, from my perspective, is the house and lawn. I suppose the thing to do would be to let the lawn go without watering. Now's when I wished we lived in a condo. Hire a mow and blow for the yard. Get the neighbor kid to bring in the mail. I auto pay all of by recurring bills, so not a problem there. Yeah, a nice family moved in across the street. I've had the middle kid do the yard a couple times. Works well. We'd take the dogs with us, so boarding wouldn't be necessary. It helps to be friendly with the neighbors. The fellow across the street cut my grass and looked after the pool and took in the mail. He had to have the pool place put a new pump in. Ouch! $800. And the salt chlorination stopped working at the same time. Must have been a power surge or lightning strike. He fed the pool chlorine tablets until I got home to find out what was wrong. Two bridge rectifiers and a thermistor fixed that problem. Then the plumbing had to be sanitized to cure a foul odor in the water. Then there was weeds and trimming to deal with, and fire ants, who lived here unmolested for 3 1/2 months. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 11:57:07 -0400, wrote:
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:38:19 -0400, Poco Loco wrote: On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 19:50:24 -0400, wrote: On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 17:05:19 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote: You have to like driving long distances, which I don't, and unless you have a motorized RV, you're towing a huge windcatcher. No thanks. I'll drive from here to Baltimore or Charlottesville or even to Virginia Beach or the Outer Banks. I'll take a train to Philly, NYC, New Haven, or even Boston. Perhaps it is because the main North/South interstate hereabouts is I-95, and I-95 just plain sucks a lot of the way. On the other hand, I've driven long distances on the PCH a few times, and we always enjoyed it, probably because of the terrific vistas and interesting towns. Motor homes and travel trailers are pretty popular in Alaska because there are miles and miles of nothing. Unless you are in a big town or at a Carnival resort, the pickings are pretty slim in the hotel business. BTW do not trust Carnival if you are not on the boat. They can take a reservation but they can't keep one. We had confirmed reservations at Denali and Cooper Landing but they did not honor either one. They book the whole resort and bump everyone displaced by a ship passenger who signs up for the bus ride. There are lots of places like this http://gfretwell.com/ftp/alaska/Fine%20Dining.jpg In Cooper Landing we ended up staying at this B&B. It really wasn't that bad. They were fairly spartan private cabins but it was clean and the people were great. Willie even married us again in a fairly authentic Eskimo ceremony http://gfretwell.com/ftp/alaska/lovi...d%20willie.jpg Love it. I'll bet the food was pretty damn good. I wouldn't trust Carnival lines for anything. I'd have to buy a generator if we took the trip. I understand, from others who've done it, that spending the night by the side of the road is pretty common. Although, now that I've got most of my bulbs replaced with LED's (Thanks, Harold!) the drain on the batteries is much less. If you get down to Homer, be sure to go get a beer at the Salty Dawg http://gfretwell.com/ftp/alaska/salty%20dawg.jpg The food at the Best Western was pretty good. They had an all you can eat halibut night while we were there and it was the best fish I think I have ever had. This was fresh off the boat stuff. That was also where we took the water taxi over to Kachemak state park for a real wilderness hike to a glacier fed lake. http://gfretwell.com/ftp/alaska/Glacier%20lake.jpg Looks almost like Mildenhall Glacier outside Juneau: http://tinyurl.com/n4lgnfk I'm putting all this info on my Trip to Alaska document. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:10:55 -0500, Califbill
wrote: We keep kicking around taking a couple months trip to Alaska. The problem, from my perspective, is the house and lawn. I suppose the thing to do would be to let the lawn go without watering. Now's when I wished we lived in a condo. Hire a mow and blow for the yard. Get the neighbor kid to bring in the mail. I auto pay all of by recurring bills, so not a problem there. === If you are going to be away for a while as we frequently are, there are better ways to handle mail. We use a forwarding service which is popular with boat cruisers, RV people and ex-pats. It is called St. Brendan's Isle and they provide fantastic service which we and many others have been using for years: http://www.sbimailservice.com/ We tell the post office to forward all of our mail to SBI. They scan the incoming envelopes every day and forward us a summary by EMAIL. If there is something important in the summary where we need to see the contents immediately, we check off the box for that item and return it. They then open that piece of mail (with our advance permission), scan the contents, and EMAIL it to us the next day. It's a great service, professionally done, and reasonably priced. They hold all of the paper and send it to us periodically on request via UPS or Fed Ex. All of our bills are paid electronically with online banking. The lawn and pool are under contract with service professionals that we have used for years, and we have neighbors who check up on things and let us know if anything is amiss. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:38:19 -0400, Poco Loco
wrote: I'd have to buy a generator if we took the trip. I understand, from others who've done it, that spending the night by the side of the road is pretty common. Although, now that I've got most of my bulbs replaced with LED's (Thanks, Harold!) the drain on the batteries is much lesss. === LEDs are great power savers but I think you'd want a generator for emergency battery charging and heat if nothing else. Do you use 12 volt refrigeration? |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 14:30:04 -0400, Poco Loco
wrote: Looks almost like Mildenhall Glacier outside Juneau: http://tinyurl.com/n4lgnfk === We flew up there by helicopter as one of our cruise ship excursions, expensive but worth it. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:33:48 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote: On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:38:19 -0400, Poco Loco wrote: I'd have to buy a generator if we took the trip. I understand, from others who've done it, that spending the night by the side of the road is pretty common. Although, now that I've got most of my bulbs replaced with LED's (Thanks, Harold!) the drain on the batteries is much lesss. === LEDs are great power savers but I think you'd want a generator for emergency battery charging and heat if nothing else. Do you use 12 volt refrigeration? No, refrigerator is either 120v or gas. Doesn't use much gas though. I know I'd need a generator - will put that Honda on my wish list. Keep hoping Luddite's going to decide he doesn't need his, but he's in love with it. Must be a good one. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:38:11 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote: On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 14:30:04 -0400, Poco Loco wrote: Looks almost like Mildenhall Glacier outside Juneau: http://tinyurl.com/n4lgnfk === We flew up there by helicopter as one of our cruise ship excursions, expensive but worth it. We were kicking our butts for not having done that when we went up. |
For you campers out there in rec.boat land
On 10/2/2014 11:27 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:33:48 -0400, Wayne.B wrote: On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:38:19 -0400, Poco Loco wrote: I'd have to buy a generator if we took the trip. I understand, from others who've done it, that spending the night by the side of the road is pretty common. Although, now that I've got most of my bulbs replaced with LED's (Thanks, Harold!) the drain on the batteries is much lesss. === LEDs are great power savers but I think you'd want a generator for emergency battery charging and heat if nothing else. Do you use 12 volt refrigeration? No, refrigerator is either 120v or gas. Doesn't use much gas though. I know I'd need a generator - will put that Honda on my wish list. Keep hoping Luddite's going to decide he doesn't need his, but he's in love with it. Must be a good one. Sorry John but I am not giving up the little Honda. In fact, I am thinking about getting another one just like it. One eu2000i has enough power to keep two full sized refrigerators running plus a couple of lights, the Direct TV box and a LED TV going. During the only extended power outage we had a couple of winters ago (4 days) I tried running the furnace and recirculating pump as well. That was a bit too much for it so I think I'll get a second one just for running the heat if needed. Best thing is that with the loads described above, most of the time it runs at the "idle" speed, burping up for a second only when a compressor starts in one of the refrigerators. I can fill up the gas tank (only holds about a gallon) at 9 pm and it will run until 7am or so the next morning. |
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