Recreational Vehicles

Lesson 3: A Day on The Road!

Driving is the Easiest?

Driving is probably the easiest part of the day except if you miss your turn or wind up on a wrong road and have to improvise. Remember you are probably close to 50 feet long and you can’t just turn around anywhere. If everything goes well, with a couple of rest stops, lunch and a couple of stops for fuel, you cover your 350 miles and arrive at your camping spot for the night.

Now you get to hook up the power, water and sewer, satellite TV, stabilizer jacks down, front jack down, slides out, grill started, cold beverage in hand. Life is good - you’re done for the day and if you play your cards right you will be in your campsite before everyone else arrives. Arriving at your camping location early has a couple of advantages: first, you get first choice of spots. Second, you get to watch your neighbors struggle to get their RVs into their spots.

If there is a good breakfast bar near where we spend the night we will take advantage of that to perhaps allow us to only require a light snack at lunch, say at one of our rest stops. Some things to remember while you are on the road: you need to communicate with your partner whether or not you are in the same vehicle. Every time you stop run your hand over each tire to be sure that you don’t have a tire that is getting hot. A hot tire is an indication of low air pressure and low pressure is one of the leading causes of tire blowouts.

Let's talk a little about staying safe on the road. Always keep in mind that you are not in familiar territory. Stay in touch with your surroundings - notice what is around you. If the Wal-Mart has a chain link fence around it and bars on the windows, you might want to think about boondocking down the road a bit. It doesn’t take much to stay safe: not all people out there are bad guys, but some do see you as a rich vacationer that might just have all your money in the RV with you. Think about where you are and you should be OK.

For Homework, find and discuss at least two uses for a GPS system.

Here are some tips:

1. Watch gas prices as you drive. If is cheap fill it up.

2. Buy gas every time you eat or eat every time you buy gas: it saves time.

3. Consider online banks - they pay good interest and they refund ATM fees.

4. Buy a new grill every season. When you leave throw the dirty one away and use the new clean one while you are traveling.

5. Use truck stops. Most now are RV friendly and have a separate fuel island for us.

6. Don't carry a lot of cash with you. Use your bank card as a credit card. Also there are ATMs almost everywhere when you do need cash.

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