Boondocking Tip – Getting a quick water refill

All RVs come with different tank sizes and filling capabilities.  For my 2008 View, it’s Fresh Water, Black, and Gray tanks are all about equally sized.  What this means in real-world use (when I’m the only one using them) is that my Black tank can go well over a week between dumps, my Gray tank up to about week, but my Fresh Water tank is usuually needing re-filling after 4 or 5 days.  If I’m camping without hook-ups (i.e. “boondocking”), that either means I must limit my stay to 4 days, or figure out how to get more fresh water into my tank during my stay.

Some trailers and RVs have a Gravity Fill water inlet allowing one to fill a water jug, and then just pour the water into the Gravity Fill spout to refill the tank.  My model Winnebago View does not have one of these…so what to do?  Well, fortunately, Winnebago did include a winterizing tube and valve.  Then, the smart folks on the View-Navion Yahoo Groups site offered the creative solution.

If your RV happens to have the same kind of setup, this can work for your boondocking water refills as well.  Here’s the step-by-step of how to do it:

1. Get a jug or two for carrying your fresh water. I bought this 7 gallon one at Wal-Mart, but just about anything with a wide-mouth fill should work fine.

 

2. Locate your Winterizer fill hose and valve. For my 2008 model H View, mine is located beneath the floor of my rear exterior storage compartment. The winterizing hose is the clear tube running parallel to the left of the blue swimming noodle (I use that to minimize vibration/noise of the water lines when the water pump is running).

3. Remove the cap from the end of the winterizing hose.

4. Place the winterizing hose into your water jug (ideally so that the hose inlet rests on the bottom of the jug).

5. Turn your winterizing bypass valve on (so that it now accepts water from the inlet hose rather than the main water fill line).

6. Now go to your water fill lever (mine is located in my external utilities compartment) and flip the lever from “Normal” to “Tank Fill”. If your water pump is turned off, flip the Water Pump switch “On”. You’ll immediately hear the pump start filling water from the jug. I usually go back to monitor the inlet hose and jug while it is pumping to ensure that all water is “sucked in” from the jug.

7. When finished, turn the Water Pump off.  If your tank needs more water, simply go refill the jug, place the inlet hose in it again and turn the Water Pump back on. Once the tank is filled, set the Water valve back to “Normal”, turn the winterizer bypass valve “Off” and re-cap/re-stow the winterizer hose….you’re done!

Imp Lake–now even better!

After stopping for a night at a commercial campground in Eagle River to dump tanks and refill water, Millie and I headed north 30 miles into the central U.P. to my all-time favorite campground, Imp Lake, discovered during my 2010 trip up north.
Arriving on an early Friday morning, I thought I might have a good chance of getting one of the prime lakefront sites at this no-reservation USFS campground.   My 2010 site (site 19) was occupied, but as luck would have it, the bigger (and even better) site right next to it was available, site 20!  This one had a nice shady spot for the View, a nice big grassy lawn for Millie, and pretty pine trees framing a gorgeous view of the lake.  I promptly pulled out my lawn chair and enjoyed the sunny day!


One of my dear T@B camping friends, Judi, had given me a cute camping flag over the winter, and this site seemed just perfect for it’s saying “Just another day in paradise”!  Thanks again Judi!


I originally only planned to stay at Imp Lake for the weekend, as I remembered the last time here, cell coverage was faint to non-existent.  Well, not so this time-- I now got a strong Verizon 3G signal!  So, I extended my stay an extra 2 nights.
I thought about driving around the U.P. to tour some of the area waterfalls,or going over to nearby Sylvania Wilderness Area to paddle their lakes, but in the end, I just couldn’t seem to leave my wonderful spot! 
Millie went swimming and I went paddling every day.  One evening, I unwisely decided to let Millie swim before going paddling—what a mess that made in the boat!  Another night, the water was as still and smooth as mirrored glass—to top it off, the loons were out fishing and calling as well.

The Imp Lake Trail was just as delightful a hike as it had been in 2010.  Lots of interesting mushrooms and lichen to photograph.  I enjoyed it so much, that I decided to do the trail the next day after the afternoon thunderstorms had gone through…well, at least, I thought the last of them had gone through!!!
I wore my quick-dry cargo pants and waterproof windbreaker jacket, so at least I wasn’t totally unprepared.  But, the quick little bursts of rain from the afternoon were nothing like the monsoon that now opened up on us!  All I could do was find a spot on the trail that looked the most densely-covered, and just wait it out.  Poor Millie was soaked and miserable!  But the rains did make for some excellent photos afterwards!  Here are a few things we found in the forest--


The rest of the time was spend just simply lounging.  Millie spent most of her time sleeping out in the cool green grass


While I spent hours just looking and listening to the lake—ah, sweet Imp Lake!

Revisiting my first RV campsite

I first visited lovely little Cunard Lake in August of 2004.  It’s a small, rustic campground that’s part of the Northern Highland American Legion (NHAL) State Forest near Minocqua in north central Wisconsin.  The picture above was taken from my lakeside campsite during that trip, and I was hooked on RVing from then on!
That first trip was quite a learning experience, though!  Here was my fancy, schmancy setup:

After a wonderful (but very cold and wet) tent camping trip up into northern Ontario earlier that summer, I decided that I was ready to spend the “big bucks” on my first RV, a Starcraft pop-up tent trailer.  I firmly believed, at the time, that it would be all the RV I’d ever need, and really had to convince myself that this “tent on wheels” (which also happened to have a toilet/shower, furnace, and kitchen) was worth nearly $9000 more than my humble REI tent.

I was pretty sure I had remembered all the dealer had taught me about how to “pop-up” the trailer, and I proudly hitched it to my SUV all by myself and headed towards Wisconsin.  With no campsite reserved, I wisely determined that the NHAL area would be my best (and only) bet for weekend camping since it’s the only area in Wisconsin with a few hundred “first come first served” sites across various lakeside campgrounds in the region.
I arrived at Cunard Lake and saw that all lake view campsites were taken except for one, so I took it!  It was an awkward and rather unlevel site, but I figured I had “levelers” on my camper, so that wouldn’t be a problem….
So, I got to cranking…and cranking!  Once the rear “levelers” had nearly lifted the wheels off the ground, I realized “oh, these aren’t really levelers—these are just stabilizers not meant to hold the weight of the camper’s axel and wheels!”  Rookie RVing mistake # 1.   Forturnately, I only managed to bend up the door frame a little bit (and nothing worse).



After I finally managed to get the camper all set up, the rest of the weekend was glorious.  I remember falling asleep to the sound of loons calling on the lake, and the paddling was wonderful on this no-motor lake.
Fast-forward 9 years.  The View had spent all summer in my driveway untouched as I’ve been busy working and planning a big home remodeling project.  It was a hot HOT summer in Chicago and I was ready for a get-away.  But where?  I didn’t have enough time to do the really big Canadian trips on my bucket list (the Maritimes or the Canadian Rockies).  So, I decided to re-visit my favorite Northwoods and Great Lakes campsites instead!
I arrived to Cunard Lake this time, with my much more capable View, and amusing myself that I ever thought a $9000 pop-up camper was “all the RV I’d ever need”….ha!  Just as before, all the lake view sites were taken except for one…THE exact same one I’d had before!  Fortunately, I’ve learned a thing or two about leveling an RV since then, so I was able to make the odd-shaped, un-level site work (so glad to have a short motorhome that I could easily position for a perfect lake view!).


I had excellent Verizon 3G coverage from my site and just LOVED my new “office with a view” layout—I can’t believe how much more comfortable and functional the View has become now that I’ve removed the dinette table and put in the swivel-rocking office chair.  So comfy to prop my feet up on one of the dinette benches, gaze out the window, and compute away…and get paid for it!


This was Millie’s first trip to Cunard Lake, and with one word (“swimming”?), she quickly found the path down to the lake.


Millie has a favorite toy that we use for swimming, and her routine is to always try and snatch it away whenever I go to pick it up…she usually succeeds!  Here’s a little video of her afternoon fun--

Millie Swims Cunard Lake

After Millie got to do her fun activity, I got to do mine—paddling!  The lake was peaceful with lots of lily pads.  Saw a few small frogs on this morning paddle, but the loons were apparently over at the next lake looking for their breakfast.

On our final evening, the skies were clear so I thought I’d try some star trail photography.  I set my cable release to take a 30 second exposure every minute for about 3 hours. 


Still learning how to process these correctly, and I honestly think I like just one of the single exposures better, but it was fun new thing to try out!

My new Traveling Office Solution

Many know that I’m usually working full-time whenever I’m on extended travels with the View.  It’s the perk I enjoy most about my job, and I’m very grateful for the flexibility to “change the view out my office window” as often as I want.

I’ve made a couple of enhancements over the years to make extended living in the View more comfortable, but it never has been as comfortable to work in as my home office with it’s nice big swivel, rocking office chair.  That is….until now!

I decided that I was fed up enough with working from the uncomfortable booth dinette and table that was too large and too high.  I started seriously considering removing the dinette entirely, but that posed it’s own set of challenges--- the furnace is located in the rear bench seat, so I’d need a new heating source; and if I removed the front bench seat, I’d need to find a way to close up the existing baggage door, find a new place to store my Lafuma outdoor lounge chair and the additional miscellaneous items currently stored beneath the seat.  Removing the dinette would also have eliminated an extra sleeping area (which still comes in handy when my mom or friends come camping with us).

So, I decided to do a “temporary” mod and just remove the dinette table.  It’s nicely stored in the garage now and can easily be re-installed later at resale time.  In it’s place, I now have a folding table and a small, rocking/swivel office chair.  For the life of me, I don’t know why I waited 3 years before doing this mod—my mobile office is now every bit as comfortable as my home office!!!

The table is a lightweight, but large folding “tv tray” called the Table Mate I.  It’s the big brother version of the Table Mate Classic I’ve been using for the past few years.  The unique thing about Table Mates is that the legs don’t criss-cross underneath the table (so you still have plenty of legroom).  Unfortunately, it looks like these larger-sized (and wood-colored) Table Mates are now on closeout, as the manufacturer only seems to be selling the much smaller white plastic version now.  So, if you’re wanting a solution like this, better jump fast on the ones TVTraysEtc is selling!

The chair is a Zeal II from OfficeMax (and wouldn’t you know, it’s now showing up $20 less than what I bought it for!)—very comfy and the brown leatherette goes nice with my interior colors.  It’s also small enough to fit thru the coach door (bigger office chairs can’t without disassembly).

Instead of a big, bulky “all-in-one” printer/scanner/copier, I have 2 small, lightweight gizmos that do the job quickly and then stow away nicely in one of the View’s overhead cabinets:

The silver Canon Pixma ip100 printer is about the same size as an iPad (but thicker of course).  It prints very quickly and does well for photo printing too. The ultra-tiny black stick ahead of it is the Fujitsu Scansnap S1100 high-speed scanner.  

I still dutifully bring the printer on longer trips, but rarely find the need to print anything anymore.  Mainly because I use a combination of the Fujitsu scanner, my iPad/iPhone, and cloud-based document storage solutions to capture and store any documents I need (see more details on that below).

When my workday is done, I can easily pack up my office gear and the Table Mate now serves nicely as a dining table

When mealtime is done and more floor space is needed, the table easily flips down.  This is also great for when we’re in driving mode and need to stow the chair, but still might want access to the table again at rest stops.

The final mod left to do is to create some wood bed slats to fit between the benches so that the dinette can be used as a bed.  I did a similar mod with my old T@B trailer and it really worked out well.

My Updated Paperless Workflow:

A few years ago, I wrote a post called “Paperless in Paradise”  and reviewing it today—it’s way overdue for an update!  So, here’s what I’m currently using to work without paper:

• In place of a paper notepad and pen, I use my iPad with an app called Penultimate along with a rubber-tipped Targus stylus.  My notes stay backed up automatically in the cloud to my free Dropbox account so I never need to worry about losing them.  If I wish to search/read these notes later via my laptop or iPhone, I can easily export either a single page or an entire “notebook” as a PDF file.
• For any incoming paper I’ll need to refer to later, I scan it into a PDF document using either my Fujitsu scanner or a nice little iOS app called Scanner Pro.
• All of the solutions above have auto-exporting features to Evernote, which continues to be my primo electronic file-cabinet of various documents and web-page clippings.  Evernote has free and $45/yr Premium solutions, and allows easy document searching, viewing, and organization from a PC/Mac or web browser, a smart phone (iPhone/Android), or iPad.  Probably the coolest feature of Evernote is that it can search for text within images (such as my handwritten scrawl from my Penultimate notes or a photo taken from my iPhone while out shopping or exploring when I find something interesting  I want to remember for the future).
• I used to use a Wacom tablet and PC software to annotate PDF files (e.g. to initial and date expense receipts or put my signature on documents), but iPad apps have improved tremendously in this area over the past year, so now, I just use my iPad and stylus to annotate.  My favorite app for this at the moment is Good Reader as it also has nice integration to Dropbox and Google Drive (Google Docs) if I happen to have a PDF stored there that needs annotation.

Nearly every small RV has storage space and cargo capacity limitations, so not hauling heavy paper files around (or bulky all-in-one printer/scanners) really helps!

The Newbie Nutritarian

It’s been nearly 2 months since I’ve been home after snowbirding in the Southwest all winter.  Transitioning from one home to another is always the opportune time to try doing something a bit different and not simply falling back into the the same old routines.  So when I got home and stared at my empty fridge and pantry, I knew this was the ideal time to to make a major lifestyle change— to become a VEGAN!!!

Meeting fellow View owners, Evelyn and Steve, this past winter, I started learning more about their recent change to a plant-based “nutrient-dense” vegan diet.  Evelyn also introduced me to fellow RVer, Tessa, who Evelyn had been getting lots of tips and information from.  They encouraged me to get the book “Eat to Live” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and watch the video “Forks Over Knives” to learn more about this way of eating.

After failing so many diets in the past, and feeling totally helpless to control my weight (or my ever-worsening cholesterol, BP, and glucose numbers), I knew I had to do something radically different if I wished to slow down or reverse the pathway that I was on towards diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Over a year ago, I stopped eating most meat (but continued to eat fish and dairy).  I thought this vegetarian diet was a step in the right direction, and it probably would have been had I not ate so many sweets and salty frozen/fast-foods in place of the meat!  Consequently, becoming vegetarian wasn’t enough of a change to reduce my weight or improve my health.

But a quote while watching “Forks over Knives” really stuck with me. The doctor said that while many Americans think moving to a vegan diet and eating only whole, unprocessed food is “radical”, they don’t seem to consider how radical it is to have their chest opened up and undergo bypass surgery as a result of abusing their bodies with the “standard American diet” for so many years!  The movie compared our health statistics to many other countries and the results were sobering—our diabetes and cancer rates are off the charts compared to countries that eat primarily plant-based whole foods.

So after a bit more web research (and continuing to only find positive feedback on this kind of eating), I decided to give it a try.

I’ve now been eating this way for 1 month, and with no changes other than the food I’m eating (i.e. absolutely zero exercise this month), I’ve already lost 12 pounds!

Now that my body is finally getting real & sufficient nutrients, I’ve got a ton more energy and “mental alertness” and no longer suffer the “yo-yo effect” of sugar levels spiking up and down all day long.  Best of all, my 3 meals a day are now providing so much nutrition density, I no longer get hungry in-between meals and no longer crave sweet or salty snacks.  Since there’s no sense of deprivation, this is truly a way of eating that I can stick with for the rest of my life. 

This month, I’m starting to re-introduce exercise again.  But now, I can pick and choose activities that are fun since I know I can control my weight-loss with food alone (rather than having to do lots of slave-driven boring repetitive exercises just to lose weight).

Evelyn and Tessa have been fantastic coaches for me throughout this transition, and my success has apparently been motivational to them as well!  The 3 of us RVers have started a blog called Vegan Vagabonds to track our progress and serve as a spot to store the book/video/web resources and recipe’s we discover.  We also have a Vegan Vagabonds Facebook page to share daily news stories and collaborate with readers. 

If you’re interested in giving this “nutritarian” way of eating a try and regaining your health, give the blog’s Getting Started and Resources pages a look!