Christmas in the RV: My Bowl of Merry Menudo

If you’re planning an extended road trip, it’s inevitable that a major holiday or other important family occasion will collide with your itinerary. At some point, you’ll have to decide whether or not to interrupt your dream with a trip back to reality.

XmasDecor04.jpgWhen planning our own journey, I knew that Christmastime would present a huge dilemma. My Mexican family is big on Christmas . . . really big. Each year, dozens of relatives gather at my Mom or sister’s place each year for the big party on Christmas Eve. We gorge ourselves on Mom’s homemade tamales, empty the liquor cabinet, and wait for Santa to finish pounding shots so he can make his midnight appearance for the kids.

Last year Jim and I missed my family’s party, because Jerry had just had his leg amputated. This year, we had to decide; should we find a way to get back to L.A. to be with my family? Or ignore the holidays and keep traveling along?

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RV Living in Florida: Beware of Flying, Biting, Stinging Bugs

Ah, sunny Florida. The state name alone conjures up images of white sand beaches, sun baked old farts, golf carts, and tropical umbrella drinks.

FireAnts02.jpgBut there’s one unique aspect of Florida that the tourism guides fail to mention. Bugs! Mean bugs. Flying bugs. Stinging bugs. You name it, this state has some of the nastiest insects that we’ve encountered on our entire trip. Pest control is big business in this state, but as usual, nature bats last.

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Avoid bacon and turds for breakfast.

baconandturds.jpgThe morning we left Jetty Park for Vero Beach after discovering the shuttle launch was not going to happen, we decided to pack up quick and beat the crowds to the dump station.

It was early but we still weren’t first in line. Everyone was heading out, except for those just waking to make breakfast.

As we dumped our tanks using our new clear hose adapter, René glanced at the nearby rigs, smelled the air and said, “Yum, Bacon and Turds!”

Why did we get one of those clear dump hose adapters, you ask?

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Fulltime RV Family Discusses Life on the Road


Last Saturday while waiting for the Space Shuttle to take off, a friendly camper introduced herself to me. Her name was Kim Cunningham, and she is a fulltiming mother and wife with three children who are traveling across America right now, in search of their next endeavor.

Kim (41), her husband Regis (47), daughter Jessica (15), son Regis III (9), and Seb (6), sold their principal home in Cody, Wyoming last May. Regis is a real estate investor who for the last 25 years has taken marginal homes, fixed them up, and turned them into money making opportunities. Kim was a Creative Memories consultant for 13 years, while working together with Regis to manage their properties. This year, they had planned to leave Cody, buy another fixer-upper in Pennsylvania and settle down for a while, but when in Pennsylvania, circumstances didn’t turn out as they’d hoped, so they decided to stay on the road and keep looking.

How does a family with three kids, four dogs and one cat do it?

 

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Where Is Utopia? Finding the Ideal Community

hovenw.jpgSince June, we’ve been searching for the ideal place to live and start a business. We are talking to locals in towns across America, interviewing and taking notes, trying to get a feel for places that might come close to what we consider “perfect.”

But is all this work just a waste of energy? Are we searching for a utopia that doesn’t exist?

Tell us: What factors make up your ideal community?

As we tack on the miles, we keep seeking these answers.

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New Amazon Kindle Lightens The Book Load.


kindle2.jpgHere’s a nifty new product that should lighten the load of any fellow avid readers out there who have packed up their library with them and brought it along in their rig: The new Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device.

If you’re like us, you had a hard time deciding which favorite books to bring with you on the road. Or, you are often leaving books at campgrounds and purchasing new ones along the way.

Either way, there is likely still a stack of books taking up valuable storage space in your RV. Well, this lightweight portable e-book reader may be just the trick to lighten your load and save you money on books and newspapers. Best of all, no computer or internet connection is required!

I don’t mean to sound like an Amazon marketing exec. I just think this is really cool. Having spent the past twenty odd years of my life in the printing industry, I’ve followed the development of electronic paper for a while now and think it is fascinating. And I remember the original Newton MessagePad from Apple, and it’s troubled launch.

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Where’s All The Boondocking?

savga-walmart.jpgWe’re always on the lookout for remote off-the-grid state and national parks where we can boondock, but have had a hard time finding any since we left Wisconsin’s tornado country.

It seems like there was never a problem finding cool places to boondock out West. We often went without hookups in California, Utah and Colorado. But even here in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp we have water, power, paved roads and a few neighbors.

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Our new and improved road trip soundtrack.


A while back, one of our readers declared that the RVer’s National Anthem should be Hank Snow’s I’ve Been Everywhere. While some of you may think this is a Johnny Cash original, it’s not.

Hank SnowI’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

Well, I finally got around to adding this to our cross country road trip soundtrack of travel tunes. While I was at it, I put some elbow grease into the page and added an interactive slideshow of CDs available from Amazon that include the songs we’ve added to our list. This way we’ll be able to update our soundtrack easier and more often.

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