The lifestyle that comes along with full-time RVing can be a very free feeling. The freedom from accumulating things and trying to keep up with your neighbors by driving the right car and living in the right neighborhood.
It’s also much easier to live a frugal lifestyle as you RV.
Jaimie Hall Bruzenak shares some more reasons for trying out this lifestyle .
She has some pretty good insight into full-time RVing, since she has been living that way for a while now!
The one thing I can suggest is to try it out several times first. Take some long term trips if you can…get a taste of life on the road. I bet you’ll fall in love!
If you are looking for a last minute weekend getaway, Arkansas is one of the most beautiful states in the country.
It takes about 7 hours to get to Eureka Springs and the northwest part of Arkansas. No a bad drive in the RV for a day. That’s about how long it takes to get home from Dallas on a Monday at 5 pm!
If you like to spend your time shipping, dining and being among civilization, Eureka Springs is the place for you. It isn’t a big city, but more like a village. It’s cool in the evenings and gorgeous on the daytime.
But if you like to be outside fishing, hiking, camping and being with the animals, then Beaver Lake is for you. This lake is nestled on the border of Missouri and Arkansas. There are plenty of RV campgrounds along the way to choose from too.
Have you been somewhere in Arkansas that you’d like to share with our readers? Let us know and we’ll pass it along!
Have you ever noticed how some politicians have these really fancy motorhomes? At least they look fancy on the outside with all of those custom paint jobs.
I’d love to see what they look like on the inside.Unfortunately, I can’t find any pictures of the interior!
One thing is for sure…all of these candidates agree that if they are going to travel the country giving speeches, they are going to do it in comfort and style. A class A motorhome is the way to go!
As you may have figured out by now, RVs have different challenges than permanent homes do. One of these challenges is moisture control, or condensation.
Now that the worst part of summer has passed (YAY!) the cooler weather will cause any moisture inside your RV or trailer, to condense. This can cause damage to walls and ceilings, and it can get serious before you know it.
Here are some ways to minimize the condensation in your RV.
-leave a vent or small window open during the cooler weather
-get a small circulating fan for those parts of the RV that don’t get much air circulation
-leave closet doors open to prevent condensation in corners
-run the stove hood exhaust fan to suck in moisture caused by cooking
-run a dehumidifier
If you can’t seem to get all the condensation out, just get a towel and wipe down the walls and windows when needed.
Do whatever it takes to get rid of it and quickly, before the moisture seeps into the walls and wood of your RV. The last thing you want to deal with is mold!
If you are a member of the military, active or retired, you are eligible for a lot of discounts and perks. Well lucky for you, I found another one.
Carefree RV Resorts are located in several US states. They give nice discounts at all of their location for military folks. Check this out.
If you’re a retired or active military person and your RV travels take you to you to Florida, Texas, New Jersey, North Carolina, or California, Carefree Resorts is rolling out their carpet. In a new program, the company is making a permanent offer of 50% discounts to you and your immediate families.
Mike Rosenhagen, knows the rigors of the military life–he’s a retired U.S. Army Major who now serves as Carefree RV Resort’s Vice President of Operations. Speaking for the company, Rosenhagen says, “We value all of our customers, but it is with great pride that we get to offer discounts to the active and veteran servicemen and women who protect our country’s democracy and keep us safe.”
While the announcement is well-timed with the upcoming Veteran’s Day holiday, Carefree’s offer is a permanent one, not just for the holiday. ”All veterans need to do to take advantage of this promotion is show their military ID or other form of identification that shows their service,”Rosenhagen said, adding that the discounts also apply to immediate family members who are traveling with active or veteran military.
Carefree Resorts has some pretty nice RV resorts. So what other RV parks have discounts for folks that show their military IDs? We would like to hear about them. If you need to get an RV to take advantage of this great discount, stop in and see me!
This RV Show is September 15 – 18 and Vogt RV will be there! This is a great show that attracts 10,000 people over the four days that the show is open.
There will be more than 400 RVs to see from all of Texas’ top RV dealers. Tickets are $12 for adults, $7 for military and kids 15 and under are free!
Visit the website link above to print out a $2 off coupon.
Put this show on your calendar today. Once you get there, find Vogt RV on the map, come by and say Hi! I’ll be there!
I agree with Janet Groene, writer of the Camp and RV Cook blog. Eggs are under used in today’s kitchen. Eggs are so versatile and very easy to cook. Why don’t people eat more of them?
They used to have the reputation that they caused high cholesterol, but that was recently proven to be inaccurate. So eat some eggs!
Not Eggsactly Deviled Eggs
This delicious, one-pot meal combines deviled ham and hard-cooked eggs to make a creamy dish for four. I like to have plenty of hard-cooked eggs on hand for camping because they’re good in so many dishes. Or just put a couple in your pocket , hike to the mountaintop and peel ‘em for breakfast while you watch the sun come up.
6 hard-cooked eggs
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
8-ounce carton cream or half and half
6-ounce can deviled ham
Dash of Dijon-style mustard
8-ounce can mushroom pieces, drained
Crisp Chinese noodles
Peel and cut up eggs. Spray a large skillet and blend soup and cream over low heat, gradually stirring in deviled ham. Drizzle with a little mustard and stir in mushrooms to heat through. Place a mound of noodles on each plate and ladle hot egg mixture over the noodles.
My favorite part of this recipe is the one-pot meal part. I don’t enjoy cleaning dishes after dinner, so the fewer the dirty dishes, the better!
If you feel like you need a new RV to do your cooking in, come by and see me!
Geico Insurance Company has compiled a list of the Most Common Accidents that have been filed in recent years by their insured customers.
Most of these come as no surprise to me, hopefully none of them will ever happen to you!
1. Fire!: The chief cause, LP gas leaks.
2. Blown tires: Of these, the most common causes are under inflation or overloading.
3. Awning and step losses: Apparently we’d be surprised at the number of RVers who pull out of camp before retracting the steps or rolling in the awning.
4. Low bridge! Not knowing (or properly observing) how tall an RV is leads to plenty of claims for clobbering bridges and gas station canopies.
5. Brake and steering problems: Again, mechanical issues aren’t necessarily the blame, but rather, not loading the rig evenly leading to drive-ability problems.
6. Slide out slaughter: Not unlike #3, driving off with the slide out deployed can lead to serious claims consequences.
7. Infest-a-pest: Bugs, rats, mice, a squirrels, all of them find stored RVs irresistible, especially wires and plastic lines. [RV Travel]
You may want to print this out and keep it in your rig to refer back to every once in a while. It may keep you from making a dumb mistake that could cost a lot of money!
If you find yourself with a broken down RV, bring it into Vogt. We’ll get you back on the road in no time!
Do you ever wonder why people that own diesel trucks or RVs, leave their engines running all the time…like 6:00 in the morning? Surely they aren’t required to do this every day.
This guy decided to write into Cummins Diesel engine to get their official position on this topic. This should straighten out some myths that are out there about diesel engines.
I couldn’t run the complete reply because it’s too long for this article but here are the key parts:
The definitive reply is contained in your Operation and Maintenance manual for the engine. The guidelines are set for extreme conditions such that the engine is protected if one follows the guidelines.
<snip>…. your engine will last relatively longer or shorter depending on how well you abide by the suggestions in the O&M manual. If it’s not severely cold out and you’re using high quality, clean 15W-40 engine oil or 10W-30 below 70 deg. F, you may start the engine, let it idle for 10-15 seconds and slowly drive away (at modest power levels) with no ill effects.
If running hard or pulling up hill, the engine may need to be run as long as 5 minutes at idle to uniformly cool internal components and reject heat away from turbo bearings; running slowly off the Interstate ramp and driving at low power levels to the fuel stop counts for some of this time, but if running on the highway, it’s a good idea to idle for a couple of minutes before shutting down.
Cummins does NOT recommend excessive idling of the engines, since it can cause excessive carbon buildup on the pistons, piston rings, injector tips, valves, etc.
Over-the-road truckers and bus operators keep their engines running to keep the heaters and/or air conditioning going, however, they run the engines up to about 1200 rpm or so and that will usually keep the coolant temperature in the 140 to 160 range. It still is not recommended by Cummins…
For RV applications, it is recommended that the vehicle be driven for an hour rather than be started and ran at idle for an hour. <end snip>
I have received a few e-mails from readers that tell me their motorhome requires as much as six minutes to build up air pressure in the braking system. Here’s my reply.
“You’re right, of course about building up air pressure for your motorhome’s braking system. That issue is not specifically ‘excessive engine warm up’, which was my complaint, but is a reason for idle at startup.
However it’s not an excuse to annoy your neighbors. Especially if you’re one who likes to leave the RV park at the crack of dawn. Many diesel motorhomes have an auxiliary air compressor and so do not require the engine to be running in order to build air pressure. It’s my opinion that responsible owners of diesel powered motorhomes should have auxiliary air compressors.”
A few RVers have the idea that because their RV came from the factory with a noisy diesel it’s somehow not their fault when they wake the neighbors while leaving the RV park at 5 a.m. I just thought someone should say, ‘it is your fault and you have an obligation to mitigate the noise as much as you possibly can.
Diesel engines are a powerful and smart choice when it comes to buying a RV. There are many positives and negatives for both diesel engines and non-diesel engines.
When you are ready to explore those differences, come on out to Vogt. We’ll set you straight!
According to USA Today, one of our very own North Texas RV families won the “Best of the Road” contest. Their adventure encompassed the best that the RV lifestyle has to offer.
Congratulations to them and to all the other RVers who have had the guts to leave their current lives in search of adventure and fulfillment on the road!
Jason and Nikki Wynn ( “Gone with the Wynns”), a Dallas area couple who traded in their urban lifestyle in February to travel the country in an RV for a year, are the winning team in the Best of the Road contest, sponsored by Rand McNally in collaboration with USA TODAY.
Jason, a photographer, and Nikki, a makeup artist, won $10,000 and a new SAAB 9-4X for coverage of a three-week, cross-country trip that took them to six communities competing for the title of “friendliest town.” The winning towns in that category and four others – most beautiful, best for food, most patriotic and most fun – will be announced Thursday at the Destination Marketing Association International’s annual convention.
A panel of judges said the Wynns “mastered American travel from driving over 5,000 miles to experiencing a Mayberry police car, a century old fire truck, a private plane, a speed boat, and a hot air balloon. In each location, they dug deep and captured everyday friendliness, from community member interaction to the hospitality they received from local businesses and residents. They even interviewed local teenagers in each of the towns to gauge their opinions about the places they live.”
Do you think you could ever quit your jobs and leave your current lives to go out on the open road? It sounds more enticing every day doesn’t it?
When you’re ready, stop in at Vogt, we’ll get you started on your way!
Mike and Mindy love traveling and seeing new places in their RV. They love to share their stories with you, along with any tips and tricks they pick up along the way. Follow them and their adventures across the country.
Mike and Mindy love traveling and seeing new places in their RV. They love to share their stories with you, along with any tips and tricks they pick up along the way. Follow them and their adventures across the country.
