RVs and the cookin' ain't easy

Sweet potato/yam soup

Simple is best.

That’s a motto that is near and dear to the heart of anyone who cooks in a recreational vehicle. RV kitchens are miniscule, making food preparation challenging. It’s pretty hard to be a gourmet cook when you don’t have room to prepare an elaborate meal.  

Most EV kitchens don’t have room to bring all the pots and pans you use in everyday cooking in a house. For example, I only had room for one of my six frying pans. I also could only bring two sauce pans. And forget about all those handy-dandy appliances, such as pasta makers and food processors. I had room only for the blender, toaster and waffle iron, only bringing them out when I needed to use them. 

Plus, only one of the three burners on our trailer’s propane stove had an adjustable temperature control. They others had one setting: high.  

Undoubtedly there are some cooks who can function under these challenges. I wasn’t one of them.

One pot/pan meals quickly became the norm, and the simpler the recipe, the better. Macaroni and cheese, and soups became my go-to dishes.

Sweet potato soup quickly became one of our favorites. It’s hearty and filling, and easy to prepare. I found this recipe online, but tweaked it a lot, adding this, eliminating that, until I found the combination we liked best

In the recipe below, I used ham chunks from a package of pieces and slices. I saved the slices for lunch sandwiches, and used the pieces in soups. You can also buy ham cubes in packages, but they’re really too tiny for this soup. The original recipe called for chicken broth, but I just mixed powdered chicken bouillon with water. The original recipe also called for just sweet potatoes, which can be hard to find, especially in small towns. We tried it with yams; it was OK, but not as good as sweet potatoes. The ideal combination turned out to be one of each, as show in the accompanying photograph.

 I don’t use measurements in this recipe, but it will feed 2-3 people easily, with maybe some left over for lunch the next day. You can easily double or triple the recipe depending on how hungry or how many people you have to feed.. Serve it with a green salad and fruit for dessert. 

Cheryl’s Sweet Potato Soup

Sauté ham chunks (4-6 ounces)  in a couple of tablespoons of oil. Sprinkle some dried minced onions over the top. Stir the ham frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom.

Peel and cut up sweet potatoes or yams.  Don’t make the chunks too tiny. Add them to the ham chunks in batches, sprinkling a heaping tablespoon of flour over the potatoes between batches; stir after each addition.

Pour chicken broth or powdered chicken bouillon mixed with water over the potatoes to cover them. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the broth is thickened and the potatoes are done. Stir frequently throughout the cooking. Salt and pepper to taste – I normally don’t add salt because of the ham, though. Ladle into bowls and enjoy!

 

RV we getting mail on the road?

What to do about getting mail on the road is an issue all longtime RVers–to-be face. Should we ask a family member or friend if we can have our mail forwarded to them and then have them send it along to us? Should we use a commercial mail service? Or?

What you decide can have implications you may not have thought of.

Many national RV organizations offer mail forwarding services, and they probably work very well. Before you go this route, especially if your mail will be sent to another state, check with your insurance companies. Some consider your mailing address to be your legal residency, which means you could find yourself having to license your vehicles in that state.

We knew from the start, we didn’t want to change our legal residency until we bought a house. We opted to contract with our local UPS store to handle our mail. We got a mailbox and they filled it with our mail. All we had to do to get our mail forwarded was call or email them, and we got it via USPS Priority Mail about three days later.  (I found it somewhat ironic that the post office was cheaper than UPS for delivering the mail.)

To cut down on the amount of mail, I requested ebills as much as possible. I also paid our bills via my bank’s bill pay. All of this worked very well, until we bought a house in another state.

We filed change of addresses with the postal service and promptly got a reply they do not forward mail sent to commercial mail receiving agencies, which services like UPS are.  Plus, these agencies are only required to forward mail for six months, not the year that the postal service does. To make it even more interesting, while the post office just slaps a yellow sticker on the envelope with your new address, they require the mailing service to pay for new postage for any mail forwarded.

Our tips for successful RV travel

We’ve lived in our 28-foot travel trailer now for almost two years, traveling back and forth between Washington and Arizona. This wasn’t exactly what we planned to do when we sold our house in Washington and headed south in December 2013. We’re buying a house just outside of Tucson and in the future will limit our RVing to short trips. 

Along the way, we learned a lot about RVing and caring for out trailer:

1.    Pack light. We brought too much stuff. The more stuff you have in your trailer the harder it will be to pull, and the lower the gas mileage you’ll get on your tow vehicle.

2.    Pack small. You don’t need a full-size vacuum; a small one will do the job and take up less room. Pillsbury makes a line of plastic kitchen tools, such as a cutting board and collapsible colander, that fit nicely in a kitchen drawer. Get a Swiffer Sweeper or something similar. It comes apart for easy storage and does a pretty good job of keeping floors clean. The generic wet pads available under the Kroger label, work just as well as Swiffer pads and are cheaper.

3.    You’ll need two garden hoses. If you bought your RV from  a dealer, they probably gave you a white hose to connect to the freshwater tank. You’ll also need a hose to connect to the black water tank to flush it out after you’ve drained it; just make sure this hose is a different color. You can get a little device at a hardware store that allows you to connect both hoses to the RV park’s water line at the same time.

4.    Sewer hoses don’t seem to last very long. We’ve gone through about six in the time we’ve been on the road.  A device reminiscent of a Slinky toy is handy to have as it will facilitate draining the tanks if you put the hose on top of it.

5.    Don’t expect to drive long distances, especially if you’ve been parked in an RV park for a month or more. It takes time to readjust to pulling the trailer again. We try to limit the first day to about 200 miles – you could do more if you have two drivers – and about 300 to 350 miles the other days. Some days we’ve only gone a hundred miles. We’ve also found that after three to four days of consecutive driving, we need to stop and regroup for a few days.

6.    Be sure to leave plenty of room between you and vehicles in front. It takes longer to stop n RV than it does a passenger car.

7.    We have our refrigerator set to automatic, meaning it will switch back and forth between electricity and propane as needed so you don’t have to remember to do this. Check with the RV manufacturer to see if it’s okay to do this with the fridge in your rig. We haven’t had any problems while traveling, and it’s nice to have cold food when you stop for the night.  Most refrigerators will keep stuff cold without power or propane for a few hours, but it takes about a day to cool the refrigerator down again if you do this.  

 

8.    To internet or not to internet, that is the question. Most RV parks these days offer free wireless. It connectivity is really important to you and you don’t want to end up in  park that doesn’t have wireless,  portable hotspot may work for you. We got one shortly after we started out; it was handy to have, but expensive. We later cancelled the contract. If a park we’re staying in doesn’t offer wireless, we’ll head to the nearest public library. If you take your own laptop, you’re not bound by their usage limits of 30 ot 60 minutes.

The fine print: The FTC requires me to tell you if I received any compensation for products recommended here. I did not; it's all stuff I bought and used.

Climbing steep hills or where's the Avon Lady?

Water jugs and Union Pass

RVers traveling around the United States will soon find out that hills are a fact of life.

Some are short gentle hills, others are steep monsters climbing over several miles. I think the steepest hill we encountered was in northern California. We were traveling east from Eureka to Redding; the climb into Weaverville, a former mining town, was short but extremely steep. We crept up it at about 10 mph. Going down the other side wasn’t a piece of cake, either.  It was a long grade with lots of curves over several miles. We had to have the truck brakes replaced in Redding.

Other steep routes we’ve encountered were i-70 across Utah, with elevations that reached more than 7,000 feet; Montana’s Beartooth Highway that connects Billings with the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park; and Highway 395 through eastern Oregon. This is a very complete list, but when you’re traveling the western United States you need to be prepared for lots of climbing 

Start with always making sure your brakes are in good working condition. Always have water and antifreeze handy in case your RV overheats going up a steepy. You can always get water from your RV’s freshwater tank, but antifreeze for the radiator may not be as handy.

Our truck, which pulls a 28-foot travel trailer, has only had one bad overheating instance in the last two years. We were driving east from Bullhead /City to Kingman in northern Arizona. It was a long, slow climb that was steeper than it appeared. We saw several overheated vehicles as we climbed. We made it to the summit at Union Pass without any problems, or so we thought. We pulled off the road at the summit to eat lunch. My husband had just gone back to the trailer when smoke and steam started pouring out of the truck’s hood. Yep, the truck had overheated.

While we were waiting for the radiator to cool down, I noticed three jugs of water sitting by the elevation sign. Tucked between two jugs was an Avon catalog left there by Amy’s Avon of Bullhead City.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take the number off the catalog so I couldn’t call her and find out how long she’s been leaving water up there for stranded motorists and how often she replenishes the jugs.

It’s more than 30 miles between Bullhead City and Kingman; I would guess the elevation sign is more than halfway, so taking water up there would be time-consuming.  I hope she gets lots of orders from grateful motorists for her efforts.  

Not all stranded motorists will have water with them, so leaving water jugs there provides a real benefit, not to mention good customer relations for Amy’s Avon.

 

 

BLM campgrounds easy on RVers' budgets

BLM campground in northern Arizona

Many RVers are on a budget and always looking for ways to cut costs. Campground fees are one area where they can do this. Private RV parks charge monthly rates as low as $10 per night, plus electricity, where they may charge overnighters as much as $40 to $50 a night.

Camping facilities operated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management make it easy on an RVer's budget with dirt cheap, even free, fees.

As we drove through Arizona and Nevada, we’d see RVs parked in the middle of nowhere, with no other rigs in sight. Camping like this on BLM land is free.  Slightly more organized are BLM campgrounds like those on the outskirts of Lake Havasu City and Quartzsite in Arizona.  At Quartzsite, especially, you’ll see hundreds of rigs in BLM campgrounds that cost $140 for three months during the winter season. Rigs must be self-contained; businesses selling propane and potable water, or collecting waste water in the black and gray tanks, come to you. I don’t know what these services cost, but they should be factored into the budget.

We boondocked a couple of days at a BLM campground a few miles out of Lake Havasu City. Located just off a major highway, you had to drive over a very bumpy road to get there. The camping area itself was not level and covered with a fine, almost sand like, gravel. We stayed there two nights, enjoying the peace and beauty, and would have stayed longer if we could have had a level spot where the trailer jacks didn’t sink into the ground.

BLM campgrounds generally aren’t very fancy, like those operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but they’re workable. Not all of them are like the BLM campground at McKays Bend, about 20 miles east of Lewiston, Idaho, on Highway 12 to Missoula, Montana.

McKays Bend campground in Idaho

McKays Bend is gorgeous, better even than some of the private RV parks we’ve stayed at. Picnic tables sitting on concrete pads, barbecues, asphalt pads for parking the RVs on, spacious sites with beautiful green grass and lots of shade trees, and full hookups, all for $18 a night ($9 if you have federal access or senior passes). Oh, it even has showers, which I’m told makes it the only BLM campground to have them. BLM generally isn’t into showers. But they were here when BLM took over managing the campground from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

And did I mention McKay Bends is on the Clearwater River? The river is just a short walk away. Strolling along the river bank at sunset is a nice way to end the day.

There's another BLM campground a few miles east of McKays Bend. We took a look at it. Sites seem bigger, but there's less shade and green grass. Still, it's nicer than some private parks we've been in, But, clearly, McKays Bend is going to ruin us for other BLM campgrounds.

Not all RV spaces are created equal

Camping at an Oregon State Park

It’s no surprise to learn that all RV parks are not created equal, but it may surprise some, especially those new to RVing, that not all sites within a park are equal. They’re not.

Some spots are gravel, others gravel with concrete pads and still others are all asphalt.  In some parks, what you pay for a site determines the surface of your spot. Some sites have lawn, picnic tables and shade trees, yet in the same park, other RVers will find themselves wilting under a hot sun.

In some parks, the sites are different widths.  It never fails that park management will put the smallest rigs in the wider spots, while big rigs get sites so narrow they can barely drive through them. I’ve seen this happen at parks where every site pays the same rate.

Some parks leave plenty of room between spaces, which is nice. Others force rigs to  park so close together, you sometimes are unable to put out your slides; sometimes rigs are so close together, you can hear the people next door snoring or making other bodily noises.

Some pull throughs are so short, the back of the trailer or the front of the truck, sometimes both, extend into the street, making it difficult for other vehicles to get through.

Price doesn't seem to matter. Two of the most expensive parks we've stayed in had the worst facilities. In both cases, we would have not stayed at these places if we'd had other choices.

Some of the nicest parks we stayed at were the least expensive with clean, nice facilities and friendly managers.

 



RV friends with casinos? You bet!

Players club cards

I’ve collected many things in my life: stamps, baseball cards (when I was a kid), souvenir wine glasses (but only if I liked the wine)…but one thing I never thought I’d have a collection of was casino players club cards.

I’ve never been much of a gambler, so I never bothered with players club cards. Then I became a full-time RVer. Casinos became a favorite stopping place when we were on the road. And not just to gamble, either.

Casinos are good places for RVers to stay overnight. Free. Some casinos have specially designated parking lots for self-contained RVs; some parking lots are paved, with spaces outlined in white lines. Others can be just dirt or gravel fields. Some casinos offer shuttle service between the RV parking lot and the casino.

Some casinos limit RV parking to players club members; others don’t care, but look upon their freeloading guests more favorably if they belong to the casino’s players club.

Players club memberships are free; many come with benefits, like $5 in free play or discounts at a casino restaurant. If we’re boondocking at a casino, we’ll usually eat at least one meal there, maybe spend a couple of bucks in slot machines.

If we have a choice of boondocking at a casino or a truck stop, we’ll go for the casino every time. We tried a truck stop one time and only one time, because we were tired and couldn’t find any RV parks or casinos. The only overnight parking was at the entrance, and trucks coming and going all night made it impossible to sleep. At 4 a.m., we said the heck with it and got back on the road.

 

 

RV breakdowns on the road

Before they even hit the road, RVers worry about what happens if their RV or tow vehicle breaks down, far away from their familiar repair shops. It’s a legitimate worry.

Basically, repair shops can be a crap shoot. Some are good, others are rip-offs. In 15 months on the road, we’ve had experience with both types. A couple of times, we’ve had the luxury of asking locals for recommendations, while other times we had to settle for the first repair shop that came along.

We encountered a great example of good service in Cedar City, Utah. The truck started having problems as we neared Cedar City on Interstate 15. We stopped at a Love’s truck stop; the clerk recommended Rolling Rubber and gave directions to find it. We pulled in there. A mechanic stopped what he was doing, quickly diagnosed and repaired the problem, and we were on our way in less than 30 minutes. He refused to accept payment for the parts or his labor.

In this day of big box stores and online shopping, finding a business that provides this high level of customer service is extraordinary; it is even more extraordinary when a business goes out of its way for customers who are just passing through.

Contrast this with the repair service we received at an RV dealership in a small Arizona town. A water pipe broke and flooded the bedroom. The shop billed us more than $100 to fix the pipe. A week later, the leak was back. It turned out the repair shop had only taped the broken piece back together. This time, Jon fixed it himself with an 89-cent part he got at a hardware store.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that sooner or later you’re going to have breakdowns on the road. There are, however, a few things you can do to make the experience less painful.

One, if your RV is new or less than five years old, buy a maintenance service contract, either from the dealer or someplace else. These are expensive; ours cost $1,500 for five years, so we thought seriously about spending that much money when we bought our trailer. We’re glad we did; the first repair bill was $2,300, but our cost was only $100. So far, repair costs total more than $6,000, but we’ve only paid out $400.

Which brings us to No. 2: be prepared to make simple repairs yourself. Jon’s changed three of the overhead lights in the trailer; replaced a circuit breaker by upgrading it from 20 amps to 30 amps so we could use the microwave and the air conditioner at the same time, and fixed a broken toilet, among other things. When we were in Yuma, one of the parts guys at the RV Super Center was a whiz at diagnosing problems based on Jon’s explanation of what he thought was wrong. He knew the parts we needed as well as any special tools it took to do the repair. (Jon brought along about half his tools, so he’d have what he needed if our scooters or truck broke down, but some just wouldn’t work on the trailer.)

Three, get a roadside assistance plan. You can get these through your vehicle/RV insurance company, but they may limit you on dollar amount or the distance towed. We have Good Sam’s roadside assistance, and it’s been a godsend. You get five service calls a year for $79 plus Good Sam membership. We used it three times the first year, including for one tow that would have cost us $700. We’ve also used it when we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere, had a flat tire and no spare, and got locked out of the truck, with spare keys in the trailer, which was a hundred miles away.

Great review for Yuma snowbird's guide

My latest ebook, The Snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona, just received a very nice review from a website geared to Canadian snowbirds.

Here's what Suncruiser Media had to say about it:

Like the snippets of sample appetizers, handed out by folks at groceries store, you get a small taste of what’s available but you’re left hungry for more. It is informative and decently written; and although I would have liked it to be twice the size, the information it contains will easily save you the cost of the book 100 times over.

If you need more reasons to buy it, such as ways to save money in Yuma, check out an earlier blog.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is available only on Amazon where it sells for $2.99.
 

Six reasons why you need 'The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona'

Need a good reason to buy The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona? Here are six of them:

1.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is full of tips to make your sojourn in Yuma more pleasant. This guide is geared to first-time snowbirds to Yuma, but anyone who plans to visit Yuma will find the contents useful.

2.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona has tips on how to save money when you’re eating out. It lists Yuma restaurants that offer discounts to their senior customers.

3.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona offers a comprehensive list of things to see and do in Yuma and the surrounding area. This includes attractions, outdoor activities and visiting Mexico, which is just a few miles away.

4.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona lists all major flea and farmers markets where you can search for treasures among someone else’s trash and shop for fresh veggies for the dinner table.

5.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is more comprehensive than websites on Yuma, though not as comprehensive as the only other snowbird’s guide to Yuma I found. It does, however, contain the most recent information available, while the other publication is five years old.

6.     The snowbird’s guide to Yuma, Arizona is a bargain at just $2.99 and is available for instant downloading on AmazonKindle. Books don’t get any more convenient than this.

The joys of saving money

As RVers on a budget, we are always looking for ways to save money on our excellent adventure.

We've found numerous easy ways to save money on groceries, eating out, gasoline and RV parks.

Of course, this means we prefer tourist attractions that are free or low cost, and always ask for senior discounts. And then we hit Tucson where some of the attractions we especially wanted to see cost upwards of $20 per person, fees that our budget can't handle.

Luckily, the Tucson Visitor Center is making it possible for us to see everything we want to see here. The center offers an attractions passport that it calls the Book of Fun. The pocket-sized booklet costs $18 and offers one free admission with one paid admission.  It paid for itself on the very first attraction we visited after buying it. We've used it other times and plan to use it a few more times so we're money ahead. The visitor center told us it was only good on regular adult admission, but we always ask for the senior rate and get it.

The passport is good for most major attractions in Tucson, as well as some in Tombstone and Bisbee. When an attraction already has free admission, it usually offers a discount at the gift shop instead.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona

We began our grand RV adventure just after Christmas 2013. Three weeks later it came to a screeching halt in Yuma because of health problems. We spent the next 7-1/2 months there while I underwent an aggressive treatment program.

Yuma is filled with so many things to see and do for a city that size, it is almost unbelievable.  Winter is the best time to visit Yuma. Temperatures are just right -- not too hot and not too cold. This desert southwest city does have four seasons; hot, hotter, hottest and hotter than hell. My husband used to joke he wished he could go to hell because it just had to be cooler than Yuma.  Many tourist attractions close down in the summer because of the scorching temperatures, making winter an even better time to visit.

Our stay in the desert southwest provided me the time to write a book for other first-time visitors here. The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is a great introduction to this city of almost 100,000 year round residents.

Yuma is a city that  has something for everyone, regardless of their interests. Snowbirds need to make some tough decisions on how to spend their time year.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is filled with tips and recommendations designed to help snowbirds make the most of their time here. It is geared to the first-time visitor to Yuma, as we were, though returning snowbirds are sure to find useful information in it, too.

The snowbird's guide to Yuma, Arizona is available for Amazon Kindle for $2,99, If you're planning to head south for the winter, this 11,000-word book will come in handy.

Another must-have tool for the RV

Anything that makes living in an RV easier when you're on the road quickly turns into a must-have tool.

My latest "joy" that meets this criteria is something that I've thought about getting for the last several years, but never got around to it because I didn't want to spend the money on something that seemed so silly.

I recently bought it and discovered to my amazement that it's not silly, but does one heckuva cleaning job. That's the Swiffer wet mop. After using it a few times in our trailer. I am kicking myself for being so stupid about buying one earlier.

I've always used a sponge mop to clean floors. Don't ask my why, because I was never really happy with the way it cleaned. It seemed like I was just rearranging the dirt on the floors. If it hadn't been for my toes, I probably would have kept on using the sponge mop anyway. When it became imperative that the trailer floors be kept clean and disinfected, the sponge mop went; in came the Swiffer.

It does an amazing job of picking up the dirt, not that that much dirt accumulates since I'm Swiffing twice a day. I feel more comfortable going barefoot in the trailer now.

It's pretty easy to use: Just put on a fresh mop cloth, glide the Swiffer over the floor and then toss the dirty cloth.

There are a couple of things that Swiffer doesn't tell you, though. One is that the cloths are pretty saturated with cleaner, You need to hold the head over the sink while you attach the cloth, but you're still going to end up with sticky fingers. The second thing is how expensive the cleaning cloths are.  Swiffer brand cloths cost about 75 cents each. We bought a supermarket house brand that was on special; the cost worked out to about 25 cents a cloth.

The floors in our trailer have never been this clean since the day we got it.

Disclaimer: Federal law requires me to tell you Swiffer did not provide any compensation to me for writing about their product.

Goodbye Yuma! Hello Mile Post 147

The view leaving Yuma

To say that we were eager to leave Yuma, our home for the last 7-1/2 months would be an understatement. Fifty-three minutes after we walked out of the doctor’s office, we were pulling out of the RV park; that time, by the way, included the half-hour drive from the doctor’s office to the RV park.

We had already made up our minds that we would leave Yuma that day, even if I wasn’t released by the doctor (I wasn’t, which means we’ll be driving back to Yuma next week for what, hopefully, will be the final appointment). Everything was all packed, and all we had to do was take in the slides, turn off the electricity (we hadn’t unhooked that because we needed to have the air conditioning on for Chester), so some last minute site cleanup and leave. We were just starting the cleanup when the maintenance manager came by and told us not to worry about it. So we just hopped in the truck and took off.

 

Sonoran Desert

We had a grand trip until just about half-way to Tucson, when the truck broke down at Mile Post 147. Now the last thing you want to do is break down in the middle of the Sonoran Desert when there is an extreme heat emergency warning in place. We immediately got on the phone with Good Sam Roadside Assistance for a tow truck to come rescue us. We are sitting in the truck, sweating away, because the breakdown took out the air conditioning, when we learned Good Sam would only cover towing of the truck. I immediately got on the phone to our insurance agent in Kennewick to see if we had tow coverage on the trailer. We did, but it only paid if that company made the tow arrangements. I was brusquely told I should have called the insurance company first, and suggested I cancel the tow truck on the way and have the insurance company make new arrangements. However, they would only tow the trailer in.

Give me a break! We’d only been sitting in a hot truck (doors open and windows down) for two hours and weren’t about to sit there another two hours, especially since it was 120 degrees out. Actually, we wouldn’t have been allowed to. About that time, an Arizona Highway Patrol officer stopped and informed us he was taking us to a truck stop about four miles up the road. We said we were told we had to stay with the truck and trailer. He told us to call the tow company and have them pick us up there, and if they said they couldn’t do it, he’d talk to them.

So that is how Chester got to ride in a cop car and be a K-9 officer for four miles. Not that he knew or even cared what was happening.  He was so hot he was gasping for breath, and then he collapsed; we thought we’d lost him. We waited at the truck stop for about 15 minutes before the tow truck arrived. It took about 35 minutes in the air-conditioned cab before Chester stirred again.

While we were waiting, Jon had called an auto dealer in Casa Grande about getting the truck repaired. However, the tow truck driver suggested we use a repair shop next door as it was more reasonably priced and did good work. After dropping me, Chester and the trailer off at an RV park, he took Jon and the truck to this shop.

And now begins the most exciting part of our day. The repair shop was really great, quickly diagnosed the problem and called for parts. The only catch was that they didn’t accept credit or debit cards; it was cash only. They had one of their employees drive Jon to the RV park to get me, and then took us to the local branch of my bank to use the ATM. Why is this exciting? Because the guy drove like a maniac – talking on his cell phone, talking to us, waving both hands around all the while speeding down city streets, changing lanes with no particular rhyme or reason. Jon, who was in the front seat, was hanging onto the “oh shit” bar for dear life. When we got back to the repair shop, he left us in the car while he went to check on the truck. I whispered to Jon, “are we still alive?” He replied he thought so, and then said the driver never went under 60 mph, even though the speed limit was 35 mph. We later determined the driver had graduated summa cum laude from the Beijing Taxi Drivers Training Academy.

The repair shop was great, and stayed past closing time to get the truck done that night. We stayed in Casa Grande a couple of nights, and drove into Tucson this morning.

 

 

The joys of RV showering

The shower in our RV

Keeping yourself clean is a never-ending job as well as a challenge when you’re living the RV life.

Almost all recreational vehicles today have showers of some size, from very small to almost as big as what you had at home.

The challenge is to make the most of what you have. If you’re dry camping, you have to be more conservative with your water usage than if you’re hooked up to an RV park’s water system.

Showers have a hand-held shower head that can also be hooked up to the wall. Positioning the shower head can be tricky if you’re using it at its full height. In our trailer, this isn’t such a good idea as the water sprays over the top of the shower, down the wall and onto the floor.

Just under the shower head is a horizontal button to control water flow. This is very important when you’re dry camping and you need to make the water in your fresh water tank last as long as possible  You just slide the button back and forth to turn the water off and on. Turn the water on and rinse down, then turn the water off and soap up. Turn the water on and rinse the soap off.

If you need high water pressure to feel really clean, you’re probably not going to get it in your RV shower. Most RV parks have public showers for guest use. I’ve used these in the past, but mostly I’m too lazy to carry everything over to the shower and back.

No matter how frustrated I get with the shower in our trailer, I only need remind myself of our first trailer which had no shower or toilet facilities. We used to go camping at a place that was very dusty, dirty, dry and hot in the summer. I’d be ready for a shower after a couple of days. Since I consider sponge baths a waste of time, that left bathing in a glacier-fed creek as my only option. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

 

Something every RV cook needs

Old colander, new colander

I found something today that anyone who does any cooking in an RV or other small kitchen needs to have: a collapsible colander.

The regular size colander I have is great if you’re in a regular size home kitchen, but it takes up too much room in the limited cupboard space our travel trailer has. I didn’t want to toss it because I use it several times a week, but I was getting tired of moving it around in the cupboard as I looked for other utensils and dishes.

Collapsible colander

After an unsuccessful few hours of running around Yuma this morning for a tool Jon needed, we were on our way back to the RV park when we passed Wally’s World (no relation to Wal-Mart that I am aware of) on 32^nd Street in Yuma. Their street sign boasted tools for sale, and Jon found what he needed for his project.  The store has much more than tools. It has a wonderfully eclectic mish-mash of a little bit of everything, including this plastic collapsible colander.

While this colander isn’t as big as my other one, it will do the job. It is small enough to fit in a kitchen drawer. It collapses and expands easily. Though I’ve never seen something like this before, it should be found easily in other stores, since it bears the Pillsbury logo.

Disclaimer: The federal government requires me to tell you that neither Wally’s World nor Pillsbury provided any type of compensation for mentioning them in this article.

 

Staying connected on the road

View from Foothills library

We’ve been spending a lot of time at the Foothills library recently. Partly because it’s a lot cooler than our trailer and partly because of the free internet. It also has better views out the windows than our trailer does.

We have a mobile hotspot (Verizon Jetpack)  that allows us to get internet service wherever we can get Verizon cell phone service. It’s a handy little device to have, but expensive to use. The rate is based on the amount of data you use. Initially we signed up for 4 gigabytes of data usage per month. Go over that amount, and the cost zooms from $50 to $80 a month. I upped our plan to 6 GB a month for just $10 more total. Still expensive, but we can usually manage on that amount.

We were managing pretty well on 4 GB a month, but that was when I was in treatment five to seven days a week at the hospital. Jon used to bring his laptop and watch youtube videos for two to four hours a day on the hospital’s internet connection. Videos eat up so much data that I won’t let him watch them at home. Since we no longer make daily trips to the hospital, he needed another internet connection. Hence, the daily visits to the local branch of the Yuma County Library District, so he can watch videos to his heart’s content.

Like most libraries, this one limits internet time if you use their computers. Bring your own laptop and you can be online all day. The Foothills branch is a really nice library, and is bigger than the main branch of the Mid-Columbia Library back home in Kennewick, Washington. One side of the building is nothing but windows with a wonderful view of the mountains that surround Yuma. The library also sells snacks, such as sandwiches, bagels, chips, soft drinks and candy bars, so you can munch away while you’re online.

Staying connected on the road is important. We both do more than just email. I use the internet to research articles for the clients I write for, as well as for my own writing projects. Many RV parks offer internet service, but it’s usually not free. Plus, you have to sign up for each park’s service and that can get to be a hassle. We got our portable hotspot after one park’s service said my bank refused the credit card charges – this is after I’d spent an hour on the phone with a tech just trying to get to the web page where you sign up – while the bank said the ISP never submitted any charges, so how could they refuse them. Multiply this by a different park every night or every week, and it’s just not worth the trouble.

The convenience of not having to go through this every time we change RV parks is worth the extra money. We hope to be back on the road in the next few weeks, and I’m looking forward to researching campgrounds while Jon is driving. That’s something you can’t do with a standard modem.

Disclaimer: The federal government requires me to say that I did not receive any compensation from Verizon for mentioning their service in this article.

 

 

Doing laundry on the road: save those quarters!

Whether you live in a stick-built house or a recreational vehicle, doing laundry is a necessity unless, of course, you’re one of those people who wear clothes until they get so dirty they stand up by themselves and then you throw them away.

It just isn’t as much fun on the road. Few RVs have room for even a small washer and dryer, which means you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the RV park’s laundry room. Before we left home, I scoured the internet for manual washers. I found one that was hand cranked and used only two gallons of water. It could hold a couple of pairs of jeans and four t-shirts or a sheet. Unfortunately, it did not come with a wringer. I looked into getting the wringer off an old wringer washer, but those things are considered antique now, somewhat hard to find and not cheap if you do find one.

During the season, doing laundry is a social activity in that you get to meet other RVers doing their laundry. There’s also a good selection of magazines left by other RVers when they’ve finished with them, so if you’re the only one there, you’ve got lots of reading material to occupy your time.

Coming up with enough quarters to do our wash can be a hassle. We put every quarter we get into a special jar; if we’re lucky, we have enough quarters saved up by the time to do laundry again. If not, we have to leave the park to get more. However, not all RV laundry rooms take quarters. One park we stayed at required campers to buy tokens from them in $5 increments. In our case, $5 wasn’t enough to do one session of laundry, but $10 was too much. Unfortunately, park management won’t buy the unused tokens back. I’m told some parks require RVers to use their special pre-paid cards in amounts of their choosing. Supposedly, they also won’t buy the unused portion back. If you can’t sell the tokens or cards to other RVers, I guess you’ve just bought yourself some souvenirs.

Our first encounter with an RV park laundry room was in Redding, California, on New Year’s Day. The weather was sunny and balmy, and we enjoyed sitting by the pool while their machines did our work.

So far, we’ve only encountered immaculately clean laundry rooms, though I was distressed about finding “out of order” signs taped to half the washers and dryers at an older RV park. Of course, a lot of people wanted to do laundry at the same time I did, which meant a long wait for the machines. Just as I was putting my last load into a washer, a man carried eight laundry baskets in. I was so furious when I saw him rip off the out-of-order signs, put his quarters and laundry in and the machines miraculously worked.

What I’ve learned from doing laundry on the road is never to take a home washer and dryer for granted again.

 

 

Yuma, Arizona: Summertime and the livin' ain't easy!

Skies definitely are blue in Yuma.

To paraphrase that beautiful ballad from Porgy and Bess is almost  like ruining the song, but the words describe what a summer in Yuma is like for snowbirds who stay on after the season is over.

Sure, the lines at the Walmart prescription counters are a lot shorter. Instead of standing in line for an hour, at least, to drop off prescriptions and then another hour or more to pick them up, you can be in and out in mere minutes. I, however, would be willing to stand in these long lines if it meant lower temperatures outside. Temperatures have been in triple digits here since early April. I swear I’ll scream if I hear a permanent resident tell me one more time, “If you think it’s hot now, just wait until July.”

Keeping cool is paramount

 

Life in Yuma these days is a mad dash from an air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned building and back again. (Some Walmarts and the local mall have covered parking.)  I’m beginning to see why siestas are such an important part of Latin American culture, though I’m finding it too hot to sleep in the afternoon. Even running the air conditioning full time in our trailer, temperatures don’t get cool enough to sleep comfortably until about 4 a.m. By 6 a.m., the temperatures are moving from searing to scorching, and the day goes downhill from then, even though the temperatures are only going uphill.

We’ve taken to doing our laundry in the middle of the night because the laundry room isn’t air-conditioned. Plus, we used to do laundry every week, but now try to go at least two weeks between washing. A hose connects our trailer to the city water system. Cold showers have become the norm because water comes out of the cold tap warm enough that you don’t have to turn on the hot water tap.

Our awning would provide some shade if we could use it. High winds can come up at any time in Yuma and will bounce the awning around, damaging it. (There have been times I’ve put the awning down at 6 a.m., only to bring it in at 6:30 a.m.

 

Avoiding dehydration is important

 

Dehydration is always a risk in hot weather. Our bottled water bill has quadrupled since the temperatures started soaring. While we may leave our American Express card at home when we go out (well, we would if we had one), we never leave the trailer without cold bottled water, frequently in a small ice chest. A bottle of frozen water can go from ice to too hot to drink when left in my scooter's drink cup holder even for a few minutes.

There’s less to do in Yuma in the summer months. When we arrived here back in January, I was too sick to do many touristy things. Now that I’m better and can get around more, the attractions are closed until fall. That includes one of our favorite spots, Martha’s Gardens, an organic date farm that serves the most delicious date milk shakes.

So when will we be leaving Yuma? Who knows? Our intent was to be here only a few weeks, but my medical problems have kept us here longer. We’ve quit guesstimating when we might be able to leave; every time we think we might be out of here in a few weeks, I have a setback. Note to snowbirds: If you’re looking for excellent, senior-friendly health care, Yuma is the place to be. The main facility where I treat is considered one of the best in the country, and on the cutting edge of medicine.

The joys of RV cooking

At least these pancakes didn't get burned!

Cooking in an RV’s small kitchen is proving to be a challenge. Not only is there inadequate preparation space, storage space for pots, pans and ingredients is limited. No siree, cooking is not a lot of fun these days.

The stove has a cover you can put down and sink covers that are supposed to provide additional counter space, since the counter space is in inches, not feet, like a house’s kitchen. In theory this sounds good, but in reality it’s not. If you’re cooking one dish while preparing another, you can’t have the stove cover down. Not to mention that I hate this stove; it runs on propane, and only one of the three burners has an adjustable temperature. When I have to use more than that one burner, I frequently end up burning a lot of food. (My apartment at China Daily had a gas stove, and I never burned so much food in my life. It probably didn’t help any that the temperature dial notations were in Chinese!)

I suppose I could cook one dish at a time, but that means the first-cooked dishes would be served cold. I suppose I could warm them up in the microwave, but running the microwave at the same time the air conditioner is on trips a breaker in the fuse box and we have a trailer-wide power outage. It’s such a hassle to go back and reset clocks, computers, etc. We have the AC running most of the time because of Yuma’s triple-digit temperatures. (109-degrees in April? You better believe it!)

I also don’t do as much baking as I used to, mainly because you have to get down on your knees, stick your head in the oven, and wave a lighter around to ignite the pilot light. I can usually sweet talk Jon into doing this, but that means I can’t surprise him with treats.

As I was packing up my kitchen in Kennewick, I organized my spices, herbs, flavorings and other ingredients into plastic boxes by the frequency with which I used them. I then placed them in the trailer cupboards in that same order. This turned out to be another thing that sounded good in theory, but in reality doesn’t work out. It is such a hassle to get the boxes out of cupboards I can barely reach unless I stand on a shaky step stool.

Even if the ingredients were more easily reachable, I don’t have the necessary pots and pans for cooking like I used to. At home in Kennewick, I had two woks and six frying pans, each used for a different purpose, and the same amount of sauce pans. Due to limited storage space in the trailer, I was only able to bring three frying pans (two small and one medium-sized) and two sauce pans. It just isn’t enough to do the type of cooking I want to do.

We eat a lot of sandwiches for dinner.