Relax RV Podcast

Season 2 Episode 797/22/22Gas prices vs running up and mountains. Instead of $100 fill ups we doing $150+ fill ups . Instead of 20 gallons we putting in 40 gallons at each fill up. Gas mileage went from 9 mpg to 4.5 mpg, so we were using twice the gas. Left Alexandria VA. Drove for 1.5 hrs. Got set up and started the AC. At 1030pm it was still 82 degrees. Love our AC. We found a winery close by so stopped by we're pleasantly surprised that they had a guy on the guitar playing. However even in the shade the 90° temps got the best of us we headed back to the RV. The next day we drove over to Harpers ferry West virginia. We were here two years ago just at the start of covid and everything was closed so we decided to revisit it. This time the exhibits were open so we walked around for a couple hours. However it was in the 90s so we did not redo the short hikes we did the last time. From here we headed to Gaithersburg MD to a Boondockers Welcome location. We got set up. And paid the $10 for 30 amp electric. We took a ride to Sugarloaf Mountain State Park and did a 2.5 mile beautiful hike. We think this BDW location will be our default place while visiting Brandon or DC. We then stopped at a winery near by and had a glass of wine. The next day we went to Patuxent River State Park and did a 5 mile hike. Then off to Maryland Beer Company in Elkton MD which is a Harvest Host location. We pulled in enjoyed a couple of drinks. Then walked around the town of Elkton Maryland. Really cute town and we would not mind revisiting. The next day we drove up to Barnegat New Jersey. We set up at a doctor's welcome location. Hooked up to our 20 amp. We walked around Barnegat by the beach and we're disappointed by the lack of shops. We then met my sister-in-law Jen for dinner. The next day we took a ride an hour south to Atlantic City. Along the way we stopped at Smithville. Trish visited his place a few times as a young girl with her parents. We walked around for about an hour looking at all the different shops. It was a nice little train for kids and merry go round. We then spent the day walking the boardwalk at AC and even winning a little bit of money at the casinos yay. Did you know that the game Monopoly is based on Atlantic city?The next morning we hooked up and drove to Old cedar Campground. We got set up Took a ride over and picked up a grandson kingston. We had planned on picking him up and taking him out to dinner however he surprised us with the home cooked meal which was delicious. We then headed over to the campground he wrote his bike for a little while we walked for a little while the next day you spent the day fishing and riding his bike and swimming in the pool so we had a nice relaxed day with him. The night played games outside of the RV. The next day packed up dumped dropped them off and drove home. The next day we unpacked the rig and I tinkered with stuff on the rig. We have been planning on going to Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania, so we made a reservation at a boondockers welcome location. But as the days drew near, the temps were going to be in the mid 50s and rain the whole time we were there. So we canceled that trip. Then in early July we went up to Massachusetts and New Hampshire for a few days. In August we have a 3 week trip through Indiana planned. We'll be visiting a bunch of state parks, visiting the Amish town of Shipshewana and doing a tour of the catacombs under Indianapolis. Over the summer I also took time to catch up with my Stress Management clients so I booked a bunch of days to work with them.And it's bittersweet, but I do believe this will be my last episode of this podcast. Been doing this over 4 years with just under 10, 000 downloads of the 78 episodes. I'm sure this episode will push the download total number over 10,000. I will be taking notes of our travels and posting those notes on my blog at: https://relaxrv.org/category/blog/I will continue to post pictures of our travels on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/relaxrvpodcast/And my videos on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TAAnd for now my Facebook Page will remain active at: https://www.facebook.com/relaxrvpodcast/So, be safe, drive slow and relax. So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/ Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.

Season 2 Episode 785/20/22 We visited Bardstown. We hit the 1792 Distillery. They were the only distillery that offered a free tour. We parked in Bardstown and walked 20 minutes to it. They gave a great 45 minute tour and provided 4 samples and a piece of bourbon chocolate. We bought a few bottles and some if the bourbon chocolates. We learned they are ending the tour and gift shop in June 2022. We then walked around town and had Kentucky Fried chicken and cornbread which were delicious at Mammy's. We then checked a bunch of bars and only found 2 that were having live music but neither bands were playing bluegrass. So we went to McIntyre's Winery. I liked their Corn Cob Wine which I had never heard of Lol. The next morning we drove for about an hour, dropped the rig and took the Jeep to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. We figured we would spend an hour there. Well we ended up being there for 3 hours. We took a great tour and learned about the history of the Shakers. https://shakervillageky.org/Shaker We will return. We then went to Wildside Winery which is a Harvest Host location. We sampled a couple wines and bought a couple bottles. We are 60 miles from Church Hill Downs so we watched the derby on TV. The next day we drove to Callies Campground in Red River Gorge. We checked in got set up and then headed over to natural bridge State resort Park in Kentucky. This park is a part of the Red River Gorge geological area which is in the Daniel Boone National Forest which is part of the Cumberland ranger district. We hiked the natural bridge trail which was only about a half a mile but went straight up hill for 500 ft. This is really an impressive Arch. We hiked on top of the crossed over it and hike for another mile to more viewpoints overlooking the Daniel Boone National Forest. We did a total of 4 miles which was perfect. We then drove over to Miguel's Pizza. A few people have told us you need to eat there so we did. The amazing thing is with their pizzas and they have a list of around 30 different toppings that you can add to create your own. Us being from New York and New Jersey like a thinner crispier crust and our pizza but other than that this was delicious. We then stopped in at Gorge Outfitters. We got into a conversation with the owner who gave us tips on numerous trails and parks to see. Visit them, they are wonderful. https://gorrg.com/The next day we hiked the Auxier Ridge trail by recommendation from the server at Miguel's. The next morning we decided to stay in this park for an extra night. We drove over to Nada tunnel. We had this tunnel saved on our Google maps for about a year or so and we do know that NADA means nothing. So we assumed that not a tunnel but a tunnel to nowhere. However we found out that it's a hand carved tunnel that originated as a railroad tunnel way back when. Now it's a single Lane car tunnel that is really awesome to drive through. Here is a link to our pictures of those 2 hikes. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdWrLZHsTIG/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY= And hers pics of the nada tunnel https://www.instagram.com/p/CdWwUXcMqgM/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= We also learned that this area has the second highest number of arches in the US, of course the #1 area is Arches National Park. So after hitting the tunnel we drove around to the trailhead for the Auxier Ridge trail. We knew that this was going to be a 2.2 mile hike to the edge of the Ridge and then back. But we got to a beautiful overlook had a snack and a glass of wine and sore across the valley was twin Arch. So we pulled out our maps and we realized that there's another trail at the end of The Ridge trail that joins up and takes you to the twin Arch so we changed our plans and that's what we did. So it turned out to be an 8 mile beautiful hike. The next day we decided to stay an extra night to do numerous short hikes to give our legs a break. Beautiful ! Lots of arches.From here we were going to be staying at the Kanawha State Park in Kentucky we had the campground reserved and the campsite fit a 37 ft motorhome. we had reserved this a couple of months ago. Luckily Trish was looking on line and she saw a lot of people said you'll never make it up the road in a motorhome. We called canceled our reservation and they refunded our money. We then went to Roadside Park Port Of St. Albans. (304) 722-4625https://maps.app.goo.gl/ENR6t9DctNYY8dRU8And stayed there for one night. We'll never stay there again. Too many smelly factories and super loud traffic all night long. We got up the next morning and drove to Point Pleasant WV. To visit the Mothman Museum. And to see the Silver Bridge which collapsed in 1967 people in point pleasant WV kept seeing a winged creature around a bridge in town. Shortly after the bridge collapsed. Some people say he was scaring people away from the bridge and others say he made it collapse. That sparked the movie. Are the two connected? Here's pics https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdg1WMDpwY7/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=After that we dumped and we drove about an hour and a half across Rt 60 which I did not like to Babcock State Park we pulled into our site. Set up was intending to do a walk off of a short hike. But we met a couple and got into a nice conversation with them. Hi Kenneth and Elaine if your listening. But then went back to the rig grilled some pizza and then met up with Kenneth and Elaine again and talked for a couple of hours. The next day we had a few different trails in the park totaling a little over 6 miles. Very beautiful. And then had a relaxing evening and did another walk around the campground. Want pics? Here ya go https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdg13mwJ0ku/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= The next morning we dumped filled with fresh water and drove to Calhoun county park. $20/nite with 30 amp and water. No one else there and nothing to do for 30+ miles. It was 85 degrees so we didn't want to even walk around the "park". The next day we drove to the Sweeter Side of the Feud Winery. We met and talked for over an hour with Mark Hatfield who is the great, great grandson of Devil Anse Hatfield of the famous Hatfield and McCoy Feud. We walked in and Brenda invited us over to sample some of their wines. Within walk down the bar to where Mark was standing. He started pouring samples of different Bourbons whiskeys and moonshines. Some of these samples were full shot and then I asked him about one of the other flavored ones they had and he said pour some and try it. I've never seen this before in any Distillery or Winery ever. You could walk up and down the bar and pour a shot after shot if you wanted to. Wow ! I didn't count all the different flavors but I did stop counting at 42. Unreal what a nice down to earth guy Mark is. We board our fair share and a shirt. But after we got back to the rig the one thing I wish I had done was to get a picture with Mark Hatfield. https://sweetersideofthefeud.com/We then went to Chestnut ridge winery. Porta bottle of wine had a glass on their porch. https://chestnutridgewinery.com/Then headed back to the rig for a quiet evening. It was a bit cooler than it was yesterday so we decided to walk around the campground and we grew a greater appreciation of this county park. They have a historic village hidden away. With a school house post office etc . We found these while walking around. They have a few ponds with benches overlooking them. And then we saw that there was going to be a lunar eclipse that evening. Now this county park is listed as a dark space. So we waited till around 10:00 and the eclipse was just starting It was supposed to be really bad rains but that never settled in. So I ended up grabbing my good canon camera set up a tripod focused in on the moon and got some great photos of the red moon eclipse. Then morning around 6:00 a.m. the rains came in. Around 10:00 a.m. we packed up and headed to our next stop. So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/ Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 775/6/22 We left Johnson City on 4/25/22 and arrived in Pigeon Forge Tennessee an hour and a half later. We pulled into the campground they had no record of us reserving and paying for a spot for three nights via Passport America. But they said no problem. We asked that they received our package and they said it's been laying here for 3 days and we had no idea who Paul Sebastian was lol. We are in the south. Our package was a replacement valve for leveling jacks. Hooray our leveling jacks are fixed. We hooked up relaxed for a bit in the 86 degree temps and then drove around Pigeon Forge. The downfall to this town is it seems you really need to drive from place to place. Albiet there is a trolley you can take. It's amazing how many distilleries there are in this area and how many give you free samples, too many lol. We came back to the RV I set up the grill. One of our boondockers welcome hosts suggested cooking quesadillas on the grill. We had never done that but we did it today and I'll tell you what we are hooked. Here's the link to some pictures we took as we entered Pigeon Forge and walked around. You can see the Smoky mountains in the background ttps://www.instagram.com/p/Ccyny0WsvV3/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= The next day Trish did some laundry and I drove around looking for a place to buy propane gas line connections. When we first bought our first rig I installed an extended stay connection on the rig and ran a gas line for a grill and it worked fine. This RV has a quick connect in the back hooked up to the propane tank so I assumed it was going to be working good and it doesn't get as hot. Apparently the connection for the gas grill on this rig is after the regulator on the onboard propane tank so the Weber gas grill has two regulators controlling the propane entering it so it doesn't get so hot. So I'm looking around for connections to avoid the regulator on the Weber grill. Here's a link to the Weber grill we use and have used for going on 5 years now https://amzn.to/3LnQdzu During the night the rains came in and with it a cold front. 20 degrees colder today as compared to yesterday. The rain stopped around 1pm and we took a walk on the Pigeon Forge Greenway, a walkway that follows the West Prong LittlePigeon River. Here's a link to the walkways https://www.cityofpigeonforge.com/parks-greenways.aspx So we found Pigeon Forge to be an expensive area. And very touristy. If you have little kids definitely visit Pigeon Forge.The next day we visited Gatlinburg. We liked Gatlinburg a bit better than pigeon forge. Reason for this is you can actually walk from the store to store instead of having to drive. Either town if you have young kids teenagers or you like to hang out in bars these towns will work. We parked for $15. Walked one block and then went to Gatlinburg SkyLift Park. This was a bit expensive but we figured we'll never be back to Gatlinburg so might as well experience it. Basically take a chair lift to the top of the mountain is the skywalk which is a suspension bridge great views from the top that a gas fired fire pit with lots of sheets around it I would imagine in the summer it is mobbed but here it is late April and it wasn't bad at all. We then walked around town popping in and out of shops getting some free samples of wine. We then walked down to Hillbilly Golf and played a game of mini golf. We've seen this golf course 2 years ago when we're driving through Gatlinburg with our rig and said when we come back to Gatlinburg we got to play this. You take a small tram ride to the top of a hill and you have a choice of two different golf courses as you walk halfway back down the hill and then the tram picks you up and takes you back down to the bottom. Here some pics https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc5ZaPguDa9/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=After 2 and 1/2 days of over the top entertainment we hopped in the Jeep took a ride over to The visitor center of the Smoky mountain National Park and did a 4-mile hike into the cataract waterfall. Just what we needed. Back to the woods and move our legs. We drove back to the RV threw some shrimp on the barbie. Relaxed for the evening the next morning headed out.We drove 3hrs to Fall Creek Falls state park in TN. We are now in CDT .We arrived to our campsite $29/nite with w/e. Jacks work fine leveling. Yay and cheers ! Got set up and searched out a hiking trail on Avenza Maps. We found a trail that we could walk to from the campground to a beautiful waterfall and a bridge and then to a nature center. So we went inside we actually working there for suggestions for another hike and she gave us one with views of a few different waterfalls. So our walk turned into a beautiful six mile hike lol. The next day we did 2 different hikes. A total of 7.5 miles today. This state park was beautiful. There are breathtaking views on most of the trails and from some of the parking lots too. The next day we had a confusing 3 hr drive. We kept going from CST to EST. So according to our GPS are our arrival time kept changing by an hour. Lol. We arrived at bandy Creek campground which is in bandy Creek National Park, which is in Great South Fork River Recreation Area, which is in Daniel Boone National Forest which is in the Cumberland Mountains lol.We got set up in our sleep walked around the campground, talk to park ranger and got some tips for hikes. That night it only got down to the upper 60s and we didn't have enough windows open so it made for a warm rough nights sleep. The next morning we drove about a half hour to the twin arches. We did a 3-mile hike to see the largest Arch east of the Mississippi. Wow. And a quarter mile away from it is a second Arch which is equally impressive.We then did a 8 mile hike on the Great South Fork River. Definitely a beautiful area. The campground is really big and a bargain at $25 a night for water and electric. The next day we drove North and again crossed back into Central standard Time. And arrived at Jellystone Campground, 15 mins from Mammoth Cave National Park. We have w/e for $35/nite. The CG is really big so all the attractions are spread out. We were sad to see every site in our loop was on a slope. Our 1st site we couldn't get level on so moved to a different one. The CG is 99% empty yet there was garbage strewn at each site. The campground at the National Park are $25 a night with no services. The next morning we drove to Mommoth Cave and took the Dome and Dripstone tour. 2hrs. And 500 vertical steps. 270' down in elevation. It really have us an appreciation of the size of the mapped cave system, over the 2 hr tour we only saw .025 % of the mapped cave. Here's a link to the pics of that tour https://www.instagram.com/p/CdJ3-qNM65G/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=That evening we did the Star Chamber Lantern tour. This was a neat tour which was in darkness with only hand held lanterns. It was 2 miles and 2.5 hrs. Here's pics from that tourhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CdJ44TvMhfd/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=There numerous tours which use 6 different entrances.Here's a link to the various tourshttps://www.nps.gov/maca/planyourvisit/cave-tours.htm#Descriptions_of_Currently_Offered_Cave_Tours Each of the tours were only about half full. It was really nice being here a few weeks before memorial Day. They say during the peak season you have to reserve the tours weeks in advance. Between the 2 tours we spent time in the visitor center and asked for suggestions on the various hikes within the park. The woman was not very helpful. So we ended up hiking around 5 miles, which was just ok. Later we learned the a few old churches and graveyards on the property. Too bad the woman didn't mention them to us. Oh well. The next day we went to Bernheim Arboretum in Clermont KY. They had wooden sculptures from Thomas Dambos. Here's a link to my pics https://www.instagram.com/p/CdKBBp4Mn7w/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=And here's a link to his FB pagehttps://m.facebook.com/thomasdambos/ Then off to Bardstown KY. We wanted to experience some bluegrass music. We got settled in as t Little Patch of Heaven campground. Very scenic. Then off to Heaven Hill Distillery. I sampled some of their bourbons and really liked the Apple Bourbon. We then went over to the state park called Old Kentucky Home. Apparently this house was an inspiration for the song. We walk the grounds for a little while and back to the rig cooked on the grill and sat overlooking the pond.Today we will be spending the day in bardstown listening to music and maybe hit another distillery. And I'll tell you all about that in the next episode. So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/

Season 2 Episode 764/24/22 So on the last episode I mentioned our leveling jacks were acting wonky. When leveling if I pushed the button to extend the right jacks, the left front would also extend. I called Lippert the their tech support guided me through some testing to ascertain where the problem was. It turns out our Cartridge Valve was bad. The transferred me over to their parts department and the leading parts said we do have it in stock and it's $165.00. Then she said it may just be the coil which is the metal around the valve. She said to check to see if that is magnetized or not. She also said to take out the cartridge valve and use an air compressor and blow it out and sometimes that gets it working. Amazing she's in the parts department and gave us advice on how to avoid buying a new part smh. Unfortunately our coil was magnetized and I borrowed a guy's compressor blew out the valve and it didn't work so we went on to e-trailer dot com and sore that they had the same valve for $128.00 so we ordered that and had it delivered to a campground we had previously reserved. So we hooked up and traveled south for an hour and a half to Walnut Cove North Carolina. We pulled into yet another boondocker welcome location it was going to be near freezing that night so the gentleman offered for us to pull the motorhome into his huge garage which we did. This is the first time we ever camped in our RV inside lol. We hooked up to his 50 amp service. We then found the local park and did a short walk and met Kathy a nurse that I used to work with years back. We had a really good dinner and sat for about 2 and 1/2 hours catching up. We then headed back to our rig had a very quiet night. The next morning we took a ride over to hanging Rock State Parkhttps://maps.app.goo.gl/ZZrcHAWDxBDFTFti7 and did almost 9 miles of hiking. Beautiful. The next day we had a 1.5 hr drive to Galax VA. We got set up and I tinkered with the rig for awhile then we walked for 2 miles on the New River Trail. The next day we went to Creek Bottom Breweryhttps://www.cbbrews.com/lil-bottom/ because we saw they had a band playing. Wow! We walked in and saw only 2 empty chairs and they were at a table for 4. We asked the couple sitting there if we could join them. The band was fantastic! And in a few minutes we were engaged in great conversation with Raymond and Danielle. We made new friends. And we learned that Galax has a fiddlers convention every year and that Mount Airy NC wasn't far away. This is where the Andy Griffith show is based on and it is home town. This wonderful couple invited us to stay with them on their property the next time we were in town. An excellent night ! The next day we visited Mount Airy NC and were pleasantly surprised. Here's a link to our pictures from our visit to Mayberry https://www.instagram.com/p/CctNwhsJD1b/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= And here's a link to Mount Airy NC https://www.visitmayberry.com/ We then pulled in to Thistle Meadow Winery. Again wow. This is a Harvest Hosts location and our home for the night. We went in and sampled some wines and bought a bottle of their chardonnay and a block of cheese from Holly. We meet a bunch of their employees and were welcomed by each of them and the owner. Here's a link to my discount page if you want to check out Harvest Hosts RelaxRV.org/discounts The next day we headed out to Buffalo mountain park. We heard that there was great hiking and views up there. We learned it was about a half hour before we would arrive at our next Harvest Host location. So we drove through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee which were beautiful rolling Green hills and mountains. We got to the road taking us into Buffalo mountain we drove up the road kept getting smaller and smaller with sheer drop offs. We got to the top and there was a sharp right hand turn it took you up a road that showed on the map as kind of like a roundabout or a lollipop. I said I am not taking a rig up there so we unhooked Trish took the Jeep up to turn around I backed the rig up that windy road just enough to turn around. There were people coming up with their cars to go hiking and they all expected me to move out of their way unreal. We got down off of that road only to find that we needed to go through a tunnel which gave us three inches of clearance on the roof and 3 inches of clearance on either side of the rig not a very comfortable long tunnel. We made it through without a hitch LOL we drove 10 minutes to the Tennessee hills Brewstillery. They said that they had a two spots for two rigs. It was in their parking lot and their limit was 30 ft long. Our rig is 30 ft long so as I was backing into the spot Trish said if we park here and somebody else comes in we will not be able to get the slides out. So we went in we talked to the host / manager he said no one else is coming in so you're free to take both spots which we did. We then went in and enjoyed a couple of cocktails which were delicious. And then we walked around Johnson City. So being we're in Tennessee it was mainly bars and breweries. But we enjoyed stretching our legs after the taxing ride in. We got back to the rig where it was 88° inside. We started up the generator and turn down the AC and right now Trish is doing a workout and I am recording and uploading this episode. From here we're going to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge where we have a campground reserved for 3 nights.So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/ Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 75 4/18/22After dewinterization the day before our trip, I noticed low water pressure in the bathroom sink. And I saw a small leak underneath it. So after some research I saw the aerator was clogged. I tried to clean it to no avail. So we bought a new one and put it in. The next day we finally got on the road for our Kentucky 2022 trip.Our 1st stop was in Lititz, PA. A 3 hour drive from home. Remember we limit our travel days to 4 hours. We stayed 2 nights at a Boondockers Welcome location. We also plan our stays at a 2 night minimum unless that says driving is very short or we are staying at a Harvest Hosts. So we pulled in and plugged into their 50amp electric. Set up our grill. And headed over to intercourse PA. and did some shopping. We then headed back to the RV and cooked shrimp skewers on the grill.The next day we went to Lancaster for a little bit then to Turkey Hill experience where the ice cream is made. It was definitely not our cup of tea LOL however for a young family it looked like it would be a lot of fun! We then drove over to the Utz potato chip factory. We took their free tour which was okay. Then we hit their outlet store and bought a few bags of chips and pretzels. Then back to the rig again for dinner tonight was tilapia and asparagus on the grill. So this was our first experience using the heat strip up on the roof that I installed in the air conditioner last year. I'll tell you what it worked beautifully. It was around 50° at night and the RV was kept around 70 to 72 all night long. We like this much better than space heaters because this system heats our rig in its entirety. Previously we were using two space heaters so those two areas were warm but the rest of the rig was cold. Prior to that we were using the gas furnace and we learned rather quickly after a few weeks on the road that electric space heaters are much more efficient for us then propane. And with the electric heat strip we don't have any condensation on the windows LOL. Here's a link to our heat strip that I installed. https://amzn.to/3uUjhsy And unfortunately we need a new thermostat when we installed that control the heat strip the gas furnace in the AC. Here is a link to that thermostat https://amzn.to/3iANi9M When we were using our space heaters we did buy thermostats for them. That worked beautifully especially at night we would put a space heater in our bedroom set the thermostat to 68° in the space heater would kick on and off appropriately. Here's a link to the space heater thermostat. https://amzn.to/3xBaVHO The next day we hooked up and drove South to Winchester Virginia. But on the way we saw Lindt chocolate factory outlet on 81 South in Pennsylvania. So we had to stop and pick up some delicious chocolates. Then we pulled into our house location. Met our host hooked up to their 50 amp. We then headed out to Old Town Charleston Virginia and walked for a bit. Then we stopped at James Charles winery. After that we headed back down to Old Town and enjoyed some live music at the Wine Room. We reached out to our host to see if they wanted to meet us there. They did and we had a great time conversating with them. And didn't get to bed till near 1am. Typically we are in bed at 1030pm lol.The next day we headed to Sky Meadows State Park. Wow. They had the best trail marking system we have ever seen. At every intersection the color coded trails were listed with the level of difficulty. We hiked 4 miles and loved it. Afterwards we hit a gas station, bought our National Park Pass and then an Aldi's then back to the rig to relax. We have the next 2 nights booked at wineries via Harvest Hosts. However we started talking and we thought about the need to make a purchase at the wineries which we usually do a bottle of wine and we would have to drive out of the park to the winery then drive into the park the next day versus staying in a campground in Shenandoah National Park. The next morning we said goodbye to our hosts and headed south. Our goal for the day was to do hikes in Shenandoah National Park. The campgrounds are first come first serve so we decided that morning we would drive through Skyline Drive and stop in at the campgrounds to see if there was vacancy. And there was. We dumped and got set up. We went to the visitor center and got info on hikes. We then hiked to a view and enjoyed sandwiches and a glass of wine. The next day we did a 4 mile hike to Rapidan Camp. This was developed to be the "Camp David" by President Hoover. Then we did a 3 mile hike up Hawksbill Mtn. Which is the highest peak in the Shenandoah National Park at just over 4,000'. Then back to the rig. Talk with a couple in the next site then took out the grill and had a great meal.The next day we headed south through the Shenandoah National Park I'm about 3 hours to Wirtz VA. For the next two nights will be here at a boondock was welcome location that has 15 amp. The next day was a was a cold rain-filled day so while Trish went over to do laundry I recorded this episode. After today we will be stopping over in North Carolina to have dinner with one of the nurses I used to work with. Then we will be hitting a state park in North Carolina then out through Tennessee.So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise?I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at RelaxRV.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TAOr you can watch them on relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/Boondockers Welcome:Here's a discount to Boondockers Welcome, when you join use the coupon code (RELAXRV) to save 10% off your membership fee.http://www.boondockerswelcome.com Harvest Hosts:Here's a discount link to Harvest Hosts, when you use it, you'll save 15% off of their annual membership fee.http://harvesthosts.refr.cc/relaxrv And Use Code HHFRIENDS15 at Checkout! I took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ for your enjoyment and edification.I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872aMy podcast can be found athttps://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcastDisclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 743/23/22I had gone to the RV show at Rockland county community college in suffern New York back in February. It seems like a lot of the new rigs out there are getting rid of valances and putting up curtains. It also seems like there's a lot more rigs out there with outdoor kitchens. Which got me thinking our first rig did not have one our second one does. And we don't use the outdoor kitchen very often. Also I noticed not one rig or camper had a topper on its slide. We love our toppers. I finished putting up the curtains in the living room which meant removing the valence and moving the light switch. A beautiful decision. Here's a link to the before and after pics https://www.facebook.com/277623782811787/posts/1115125672394923/I went to put out my awning and nothing. I then tried the over-the-cab bed also not working. All else working. Tried it on shore power, 12v batteries and generator. Same issues.I checked 12v fuses, all good. Are these 2 issues related? I'm sure they are. The first thing I did was I went to the fuse box the over the cab bed and the awning are on the same 15 and fuse. I tested the fuse and tested good but I replaced it anyway. Nothing. I called Thor support line. And so the headaches began. There was a recording that they were very overwhelmed and I wouldn't lose my spot and what I like a return call. I figured sure why not. Later that evening somebody was asking a question about Thor service so I told them my experience that I just mentioned. About an hour later I received a private message from a representative that Thor and she is assured me that she would start a ticket for me and have somebody call the next day. She also told me that I need to register the rig at Thor this way I can be notified of recalls etc. Here's the website she gave me to do that: warrantysupport@tmcrv.com The next day I did receive a call from a tech support at Thor. But for over an hour she had me looking for the over the cab bed controller. I couldn't locate it she said she would get back to me that afternoon. A couple hours later she emailed me that there is no controller and I needed to replace a relay I found four of them I took a picture of the one I thought it was. I emailed it to the tech and she said yes that's the one you need to replace. I went online I ordered it it arrived at the house a few days later. I swapped out the relay the problem continued. I emailed her back and let her know this and she had me hook up an amp meter to different connections on the relay and I emailed her the results. She's then conferred with another tech for a couple of hours and got back to me and said the relay I replaced was not the right relay. She sent me the description and a picture of the correct relay. That was inaccurate there was no other relay underneath the bed. I then sent her an email about my frustration because this has been going on for almost a week now. And I told her if she cannot resolve my issue I want to talk to the service manager. Well that never happened. So after 9 days of dealing with Thor tech I finally gave up. Our choices were to either bring it to a shop, Thor in Indiana, or call George Fry. If you listen to my previous episodes especially early on I've mentioned George's name a few times. George is a local mobile tech here in the Hudson Valley of New York. He helped us diagnose a problem with our solenoid operating our BCC battery control center on our last rig. When he found that problem he recommended we take it to four to have them fix it being a built it. And when our generator failed on our last rig he explained to me about finding the fault code and tracking down the problem while we were on the road near Canada. Here's the episode where I talk about the BCC and Generator issue: https://www.spreaker.com/user/relaxrv/relax-rv-episode-5_1Then about a year later I burst my hot water heater here's a video on that.https://youtu.be/Ttkn2dYAh8YHe suggested at that time I order a water heater myself and once it arrived here he installed it without an issue. I've talked to George numerous times regarding my furnace that wouldn't light here's my video on that. George is a phenomenal resource. Here is his website: http://tlc-rv.com/ tell him I say hi. So when I gave up on Thor tech for this issue I called George he came over that afternoon. He explained to me that the relay that Thor tech said I needed to replace was not the correct relay. So he did some testing and come to find out that relay that Thor diagnosed as the culprit ran the macerator pump for our outdoor kitchen. SMH. He then started pulling out the switches for the bed and for the awning he traced wires. How he knew which wire to trace is beyond me I'm not an electrician. He then ran some jump wires to diagnose where the brake was. At that point he crawled underneath the rig found the wire that he needed to trace and traced it all the way from the front wheel on the passenger side to the back wheel on the driver side while it was wrapped in loom along with 20 other wires. Then he said I found it! There was a bare piece of wire that had been rubbing against the frame of the RV because Thor had not secured all of the wires inside the loom. So he cut out that bad piece of bare wire put in a butt connector secured it back inside the loom and secure the outside of the loom to keep the wires securely inside the loom. While under there he also tightened up a few loose grounds.George had been here a total of 2 hours. When we were settling the bill I told George you have been here four times at my rig in my driveway. You've been a resource on phone calls when I'm traveling around. And all of that you've only charged me one call for the water heater. I explained to him that I have given you nice tips in the past but this time I want you to charge a fair amount, do not shortchange yourself. He laughed and gave me a super low ball price basically he charged me for 1 hours worth of work while he was here for two and fixed the problem and did an on-site call which should have been another charge. Thank you George I think you might be listening to this episode.So the next day I crawled underneath the rig and I secured more loom where I could see loose wires. I also tightened up another ground that I had found. And then went into the rig sort of closing everything back up putting away light switches which George was going to do and I told him I got it George thank you. So now I'm sitting in the rig with an awning that's working and over the cab bed that's working and we're leaving in 2 and 1/2 weeks or so for a 2-month trip down south through the Shenandoah Blue ridge mountains North Carolina Tennessee Kentucky West Virginia Virginia New Jersey and back home. In that time we will be picking up Kingston Trish's grandson and we wanted this bed operating for him. So here I am in the rig closing up things and said well now is a good time for a podcast episode. So right now it's 38° outside here in New York. The rig was 41 when I came into it I turned on the electric heat strip that I had mounted last full in our roof air conditioning unit. And here it is an hour later and it is now 55° in the rig. And the furnace didn't kick on at all.Last week when we discovered the awning issue I had looked underneath the rig to see if I can find a loose wire somewhere. When I got a faint smell of propane. Unfortunately when we parked the rig in the beginning of the winter I didn't turn off the propane at the tank. So I knew that I had replaced the propane line in the back of the rig for the grill quick disconnect but this was coming right near the tank. So I started taking apart connections near the regulator. I found two problems. An o-ring had a crack in it on one of the connections so I replaced that and then I took the connections off of the regulator and there should have been gas line sealing tape on two of the connections where there was no rubber seals. So I took them apart sealed them and put them back together. Problem solved unfortunately I lost a half of tank of propane over the winter. The great news is it didn't catch on fire lol. Folks you always need to look on the bright side in rving and in life otherwise you'll go mad. And now it's time to start getting ready for our RV trip yay. We started planning this trip a few weeks ago and over the course of about four evenings we had our route laid out. This is a short video showing how we plan our routes. It looks like we will be on the road for about 7 weeks. Our first stop will be a Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania. We will stay at a hand full of wineries via Harvest Hosts. And about half of our nights will be spent at Boondockers Welcome locations. All of which have at least 15 amp electric and a few have 50 amp. And 1 had a dump. The majority of the campgrounds are Passport America campgrounds which will cost us half of their typical rate.If you go to relaxrv.org/discounts there are links to memberships at all 3 of these companies. Harvest Hosts. Boondockers Welcome. And Passport America.We will be away for 7 weeks for a total cost of $650 in camping fees. Not too shabby. So the next episode will be In about 3 weeks. And we will probably be somewhere in the Shenandoah's at that time. So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page

Season 2 Episode 732/20/22Welcome to all you new listeners and welcome back to all you long time listeners. Each month the number of episode downloads just so thank you So I had just finished recording the last episode and I went to go move the RV so we could bring firewood from our backyard to our house. And the lock on the RV broke. I climbed in the window took it apart from the inside and here's a video of this easy way I removed this broken lock.https://youtu.be/NERHUQKgbNg On our last rig we had the same issue except I needed to disassemble the lock to get the door open so it took many hours here's what we did the first time on lock broke.https://youtu.be/qgLsNSM9mdg But, when the lock broke this time I just took a deep breath let it out and said I'll deal with it as it unfolds.So I ordered a replacement lock from etrailer, installed it in a few minutes, problem solved. However I contacted them about fitment and they didn't answer my questions. It is slightly smaller than the original and the only way to lock it from inside is with the deadbolt. Oh well. I started ripping out the valance in the living room. We had replaced the bedroom valances with curtains and loved it. So we figured we would replace the one in our living room too. For this room we went with a heavy insulated curtain. Why? When we sit in the recliners in the cooler temps we feel a draft so we figured why not. But, as always it's never an easy fix with a rig. When we bought this rig we had moved the light switch so Trish could reach it. I had mounted it on the valance LOL. So now I need to rewire that light switch again. It will be a surface mount light switch so I needed an extension box to hold the switch off of the wall. And it was no easy task finding a 3 way switch to work with the extension box. I also needed to get conduit channels to hide the wires. Now all the alterations that we needed have been delivered so in between our snowmobiling trips I've been working on the electrical switch movement. Next will be the removal of the valance, remounting the pull down shade to the wall and the installing the curtain rod. Speaking of snowmobile trips we went up to Forestport New York for a few days and loved it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CYujA6LprXs/?utm_medium=copy_link The reason we went upstate was there was no snow by us. We but then did a day trip to the Catskills for snowmobiling with the loved. We then went over to New Jersey to Ringwood State Park and did a day of snowmobiling there. I did a day of snowmobiling at Stuart field in Newburgh. And another day in Montgomery New York and The Promised Lands State Park in PA. Then we saw the Adirondacks was getting dumped on 11 inches of snow so we planned a 4-day trip to Lake George New york. https://www.instagram.com/p/CZp6XW5M3cF/?utm_medium=copy_linkWe realized our snowmobiling trips or much like our RVing trips. While are being if we stay in one area too long we get very bored so we've learned for us what works is two nights at any one location and then extended from there depending on how much to do in the area. So we cut Lake George short by one day so we spent three days instead of four there. And then in the middle of February we went up to Tupper Lake New York where we had four nights booked at an airbnb. But we changed it to three nights. Again a good choice. So now it's time to await more snow so it's back to the valance replacement. We are in the planning stages of our Spring trip in April to Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and who knows where else. Yay, we can't wait. Here's a link to a short video explaining how we plan our trips https://youtu.be/m17giRxNVs0 So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/ Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 72 1/16/22 RVing the peaceful wayHappy New Year everyone.We decided to install a heat strip in our roof AC. I saw that adding the heat strip wouldn't be too much work and not a ton of money. So I confirmed that our AC could be adapted. I had emailed Airxcel at rvpsupport@airxcel.com and gave them my AC model number, they replied the next day saying it could be modified with a heat strip but I would need to swap out out my controller and thermostat to have it work. They gave me the model numbers for the parts. So for $190 and about 2 hours of install work, we now have electric heat throughout our whole rig. Yay, that will save us a lot of money as compared to propane for our furnace heat.I learned this while installing the solar on my 1st rig:Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs- Henry FordI recently came across this gem of a book where I found that quote. 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By https://amzn.to/3t77fv8 It truly follows how I strive to live life. I created a friendly Facebook group for RVers, share and join if you like to share, learn and teach is a calm peaceful group. But without the drama, this group will never take off. https://www.facebook.com/groups/604984417456152/?ref=shareWe heard the upstate NY was getting a lot of snow. We thought about towing our snowmobile behind our rig and doing some camping while sledding. But the temps we going to be around -15 at night so we decided not to push our luck with our rig, so we rented a air bnb towed the sled behind our Subaru. We stayed at an AirBnB. Great host. We rode our sled (snowmobile) over 100 miles and loved it ! We booked another Airbnb in Tupper Lake New York and then another one in Pennsylvania over the next one month. Riding a snowmobile has a lot of learning curves just like rving. After all snowmobile is an RV LOL. We had her mishaps while riding like getting stuck in a pond after we broke through some ice and rolling over while going up the hill. Thank goodness no injuries to us or the sled.There are many times in life and in RVing that things don't go exactly as we hoped and planned. I believe that the key to happiness is flexible and accepting of situations that come up that we do not plan nor desire. I remember years ago passing a church and outside was a sign that said those who are flexible will not be bent out of shape. And that too reflects my philosophy on life. Now trust me I haven't been like this my whole life. There's a reason why I became a Stress Management consultant, I did not like the way stress was affecting me. And so I began the process of changing my reactions to stressors. All of this just happened to coincide with me becoming a nurse. As a nurse I could see the effects of stress on the body. I remember back in 2019 when in the middle of a cold night our furnace died and our batteries died. I took out my phone and I videoed what was going on with the rig and here's the link to that video, https://youtu.be/PzLN9qV0bu8 and a friend of mine watched that video and said he could see the despair on my face and he also said he would not have handled it so calmly. When he said that to me I reflected on how fast are stress response happens. It happened so fast to me in that video he could see the effects. However that night after making that video, I crawled into bed pulled up the down comforter and fell asleep. We cannot stop the instantaneous response to stress. But we can change how long that initial response lasts. This is why I encourage everybody to practice relaxation techniques. Here is a link to my free recordings Relaxrv.org/help One of the ways I've changed, is how I hike. When I first started hiking my Pace was fast to cover as many miles as possible. Through the years I've learned to slow down and enjoy just being present. Now some of my favorite time in the woods is when I cover the least amount of miles. That means my pace has slowed and I find myself more relaxed. I remember about 20 years ago, wow where did the time go? I was telling a co-worker about mountain biking in Harriman State Park in New York. She laughed and said did you go racing through the woods? And I said well I was very familiar with the trail so parts of it especially the downhills I was going really fast, but there are a couple of spots where I like to sit and reflect on that trail. So I was very happy to see when I returned to my car, that ride took me longer than usual because of all the breaks I took. She said, ha now that sounds like you, Pauly Wallie.. (which is what she liked to call me. Hi Lydia if you're listening. Now of course there are times that I do want to cover miles more quickly. I remember in 2018 when Trish and I were hiking and glacier National Park and we realized we were on the trail that was closed because of bear activity. Somebody or some animal had ripped down the signs at the trailhead. After hiking about two and a half miles I realized that this trail was actually supposed to be marked as closed, but we were halfway through with the hike so the next two and a half miles were very noisy, with us making lots of vocalizations and was as quick as possible in a safe manner. LOL, you want to talk about being stressed? Also on that hike we we were on a trail that was open to people when we passed a couple of trail workers that were improving a section of the trail. They said they were out there for 5 days sleeping in the tent and working on the trail during the days. So after the hike we've returned to the end and were enjoying a glass of wine when a young couple who were full timing came and joined us for a bit. They said they were doing that trail to grinnell glacier the next day. I said if I bought a six pack of beer would you be willing to drop it to those trail workers? And he laughed and said absolutely! About a month later I received an email from that full-timer with a picture of the two trail workers holding the six pack with big smiles and a nice wave. To this day that memory brings me so much joy. There are tools that we can use when stressed. But just like any other tool that we use, the more we use it the better we become at using it. So, take a nice deep breath let it out and relax. If you have gone to my website you see that I do not have any ads there. My primary goal with my website is to help people, not to make money. So no ads, no pop-ups, no distractions. And I'm sure you noticed and perhaps you even appreciate the fact that my podcast does not have any ads laced throughout it. Again I do that for you the listener. If however I come across a product that I am totally 100% believe in, I may at some point start doing advertising for it. But again if ads start appearing in the podcast they are there for your edification and benefit. On my website I updated and added a few books about RVing that helped us when we were newbies. And there's a couple there about Stress Management. Here's a link to that page:Relaxrv.org/books Here's a link to the 5 Star Tuner we installed, which helped the rigs shifting and downshifting and it too out gas mileage from 7.5mpg to 10mpg. https://amzn.to/3IdkleW At this point we have been members of Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts for over 3 years. Here's our total stays for each: Nights locationsBDW 207 95HH 18 16Here's a link to various RVing discounts: Relaxrv.org,discountsSo what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.https://relaxrv.org/discounts/ I've made some videos about improvements and fixes I've done to the RV. Here's a link to them on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on my website at https://relaxrv.org/videos/Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast If you would like to support my efforts to help others, please feel free to do so at:https://relaxrv.org/support/ Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

We headed to NJ and Pennsylvania to see a reenactment of George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas day which he did in 1776. But before I get into that, on October 26th while recording the last episode, a package was delivered to the house. I did not want to interrupt the recording so I didn't check what the delivery was. It was our surge protector from progressive Industries so it took them less than a week to mail us a replacement with no email no notification no nothing except a new progressive Industries 30 amp EMS portable protector for our rig. Yay. This is our third surge protector albeit we only paid for 1. Here's a link to our surge protector https://amzn.to/3EBd1HwJohn and Kathy Huggins in the later episodes of their podcast Living the RV Dream, often mentioned having a 'exit plan'. Plan ahead of time, to know when it's time to leave the road, when to part with your RV and where to live when the times arises. I'm sure I couldn't do that. But we met wonderful folks in Vermont who are facing that bittersweet time and are contemplating their fairwell trip. My hats off to them. I think if I were in that position now, I would make plans for an epic trip but knowing I would never actually take that trip knowing it's my final trip. I would rather sit and plan of the 'someday' trip. So we I have been home for a while with the rig and we have no other trips planned anytime soon. The leveling system is working great ! It was a $1,000 fix but they are working better than ever. When we first this thing a year ago, it would not level itself automatically. No matter è many times I recalibrated it. Now it works better than ever. Yay. So now we're felling trees and splitting wood for the wood stove. Spending time with my grandson Maverik.Tweaking things on the rig and our stone and mortar house. We took delivery of our 2022 Skidoo Grand Touring Limited 2 up snowmobile. So hopefully we will be doing day trips and some overnight trips with the RV towing the sled. We plan on staying in the promised land State Park in Pennsylvania. And we found a private campground in New Hampshire that's open year-round and is convenient to snowmobile trails. Here's a video of our sled (snowmobile) https://youtu.be/TZY_D30GId4 I also returned to yoga classes this time in Goshen NY. It really helps me relax and loosen up my arthritic joints. Also I am updating the website making it a little easier to navigate. Adding links to discounts for you folks at relaxrv.org/discounts Also adding books on my recommended RVing book pageRelaxrv.org/booksAnd I added a new blog to my website. It's titled "Health Problems Related to Stress". Here's a link to it: Relaxrv.org/catagory/blog When you visit the page click on the "follow" link to be notified when I add a blog. Now let's talk about George Washington. We booked a Boondockers Welcome location not far from there. We stayed here when we visited Princeton NJ. They have FULL hook-ups with 50amp. During our last stay here, I was talking to our host about this reenactment. It had been on my list for a couple of years to see. So this conversation really whetted my appetite. And Trish's aunt and cousins invited us to Christmas eve and Christmas dinner at their places which isn't far away. So with all the plans made in the rig winterized we went out turned on our refrigerator and freezer. Turned on the heat tape and tank heating pads. And filled up the fresh water tank. We also started up the hot water heater. Next we flushed out the antifreeze that was in any of the lines. There wasn't much because I only put antifreeze into the outdoor kitchen and the outdoor shower. However to get the antifreeze there it didn't run through the lines. Once that was done I blew out the lines with air except for the the outdoor kitchen and shower. I had put in a automatic stop valve where the lines enter the outdoor kitchen and the outdoor shower so this way those fixtures are protected with antifreeze and we won't be using them in the winter.Then on Christmas Eve morning we fired up the rig hooked up the Jeep and headed south to see family and the reenactment. Here's a link to the reenactment website. https://www.washingtoncrossingpark.org/cross-with-us/ We left Orange County NY and took Rt 206 all the way down. According to the GPS it was 10 minutes longer than the Garden State parkway but has NO tolls. And NO traffic so it was actually faster than the highway. We now love taking local roads. I had been fighting a bug for awhile so we weren't sure if this trip was going to happen. But here we are on the road. We arrived at our boondockers welcome location, got set up and headed over to the D&R canal for a 4 mile walk. Then drove over to aunt and for Christmas Eve dinner. Then back to the rig. Christmas morning we had breakfast at the rig. Then to Pennsylvania for the reenactment. The actors did a great job at reliving Washington's famous crossing across the Delaware River. They do two crossings a year both in December. George Washington did it on Christmas day so that's the one we wanted to see. A great turnout. The reenactment was wonderful but the narration could have been tweaked a little bit better. But it was a really nice thing to do on a Christmas Day especially for American revolution history buffs. We were surprised at how little of the history is still at the location of Washington's launch. And we were equally surprised at how much there was on the New Jersey side at Washington's landing. We did some walking around the 2 sites. George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, was the first move in a surprise attack organized by George Washington against Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey.Here are pictures of the reenactment:https://www.instagram.com/p/CX8zf4cur8i/?utm_medium=copy_link Then had sushi dinner in Princeton as there was a family member who had contact with someone who has Covid. I was just getting over a 5 week long viral illness and we didn't want to risk infection. So after dinner back to the rig for a relaxing evening. Then the next morning we packed up. Dumped our tanks at our boondockers welcome location and headed home. At this point we have been members of Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts for over 3 years. Here's our total stays for each: Nights locationsBDW 207 95HH 18 16Here's a link to my discounts page with links to both memberships: Relaxrv.org/discounts

Season 2 Episode 70 10/26/21I met Gina in Albany NY, who runs a non profit that brings yoga and mindfulness to first responders and front line workers . That account is @courageouswarriorcoalition Changed the oil on a motorhome and the two cars. We got the rig loaded up for a 11-day trip through New Jersey. We have reserved a campground for two nights at 2 different wineries through Harvest Hosts. And five nights at 2 different Boondockers Welcome locations. Both have electric and the last one has a dump available, yay. On the way South we hopped on the garden State parkway and was very confusing about where motorhomes were allowed and weren't allowed. So we emailed the New Jersey turnpike authority and asked about any restrictions for a 30-foot motorhome towing a jeep and they responded back "no restrictions".So our first stop is old cedar Campground. We are picking up our grandson and taking him there for a haunted Halloween Walk and trick or treating.Pulled in plugged in progressive Industries EMS and our post had 136 volts. So the surge protector did what it was supposed to do. But that meant we didn't have electricity. And so they moved us to a vacant spot even though they were full. We picked up Trish's grandson went back to the rig and had T bones on the grill. Then we did a spooky walk in the campground, what fun ! This was our 1st Halloween in a campground. Then we lit a campfire and relaxed. The next day we played miniature golf, pool and such. We then walked from the campground to the local winery. Then out for dinner and back to the rig we played cards and read in the rain.The next morning we talked to the campground to see if we can leave the rig there for a while while we drove our grandson home. They said sure no problem. I then disconnected and noticed our water pump was not working. I checked the fuse that wasn't it I took out the wall panel to get at the pump. I can hear the pump pumping but not very loudly so I figured it must be a clogged filter on the pump turned off the pump closed the water valve took out the filter and voila that was the problem. So after we get back to the rig we drove a full half hour to Bellview Winery for a Harvest Host stay. Here's a is a link to a discount for Harvest Hosts, Boondockers Welcome, solar equipment and RV mattresses https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ On the way we drove through Vineland and Trish noted Vineland is the largest city in New Jersey. We bought a bottle of wine and a sangria and sat and enjoyed a glass. Then we drove over to Parvin State Park for about four and a half miles. Then back to the ring set by the vineyard and enjoyed a glass of their wine and sandwiches Trish had made, but it was too cold and we went into the rig to eat and put refectix in the windows. It was 42 degrees Sunday night. Next day we hooked up and drove an hour to Natali Vineyards in Cape May Court House, NJ. for another night at a Harvest Hosts location. But on the way, we hopped off the GSP and drove along the NJ shore and visited Sea Isle City. But to get there we had to go over a drawbridge and while we fit there was only about 2 in on each side of the rig. It was a little out of my comfort zone. We got to Natalie Winery checked in bought bottle of wine and a and a dark chocolate covered biscotti. Unhooked the Jeep and drove over to the Cape May park and zoo. https://www.capemaycountynj.gov/1148/Plan-Your-Visit They have free admission and some nice trails it was a nice way to spend a chilly windy afternoon. On the way back to the rig we stopped atJessie Creek winery, then to the rig for dinner.The next day we drove north to the Pine Barrens, to a Boondockers Welcome host location. Apparently the Pine Barrens is known as the "Blueberry Capital of the World".https://www.jerseysbest.com/community/how-the-pine-barrens-became-one-of-the-blueberry-capitals-of-the-world/ and there are a lot of cranberry Bogs here. Apparently most of the cranberries go to Ocean Spray.We were here for 2 nights and the host offered 15amp. To get here we avoided the GSP and took local roads which was nice. We got set up and drove into the pine barrens. We drove in about 3 miles and then hiked for 4 more miles. Went back to rig and cooked dinner on the grill. Our hosts invited us to join them at their fire pit. Where we had a nice conversation exchanging traveling experiences.The next day we drove 15 miles through the Pine Barrens to Batsto Village https://batstovillage.org/ . A very interesting piece of history. We then drove back into the pine barrens and hiked for 3 miles. We then went to Valenzano Winery, where we had a glass of their wine. We stopped at Russo's fruit and vegetables farm. Wow what a huge place. We bought a few different items. Then to the rig for salmon on the grill. The next day we headed north to Princeton, NJ. To another boondockers welcome host location. We chose this location for two reasons one is close to Trish's aunt and cousins. Any other reason is it's close to where my brother Mike and his wife Jen used to live. We pulled in. Met our host. We plugged in but our EMs gave an error code of reversed polarity. And talked to our host he said he's never had an issue and pulled out of voltmeter everything was wired correctly. So perhaps the high voltage reading at the campground earlier the week was false. We completed an online warranty claim for progressive Industries and we'll see what happens.We then headed over to the D&R canal hopped on or tandem bike and road for about 5 miles, stopped and had sandwiches and a glass of wine and rode back to the car. We then drove to The Tigers Tale restaurant and bar. Why? This was the place that Mike and Jen frequented. Trish and I had visited them years ago before they moved to Florida and they brought us there one evening. So we wanted to visit #tigerstaleprinceton @tigerstalenj#tigerstale and toasted Mike and Jen. It was bittersweet. We met a bunch of the staff who knew them and they shared wonderful memories of them with us. ❤ Love you guys ! https://tigerstalenj.com/ The next day we visited Princeton University. We walked around for over 3 hours looking at the architecture and such. Beautiful. We got fantastic crepes at Jammin Crepes, YUM. We then went to a local Winery but saw their prices of wine we hopped back in the car and headed back to the canal path for a short walk. Then back to the rig we cooked shrimp and asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. Yum again. The next day we visited with Trish's aunt and cousins. A great time catching up with everyone. The next day we packed up and headed home. We took local roads which added 15 mins but saved us $12 in tolls. Gotta love the north east. So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ There are discounts on my website to Boondockers Welcome , Harvest Hosts., Renogy Solar and Mattress Insider for all of your RV bedding needs https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 6910/11/21We tweaked a few things in the rig. We had a water leak whilst hooked up to city water. I thought there was a loose connection somewhere. Actually the line coming into the rig was kinked and the back pressure caused it. I took off the line straightened it out and viola fixed. Also, we installed curtains in the bedroom. Wow what a great upgrade. Heres a video showing the curtains https://youtu.be/D5Y5zNK4CzI We have stayed at almost 100 Boondockers Welcome locations for over 200 nights and 16 Harvest Hosts. Heres a link to discounts on those memberships https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ So on October 1st 2021 we pulled out of our driveway and headed north west to another boondockers welcome location about a half hour outside of Syracuse New York. We pulled in our host met us helped us get set up and we engaged in nice conversations. While I was talking to her I heard a crash inside the RV I looked at our house and I said I think Trish just dropped the coffee pot. She did. So we had plans on heading to a local park to do some hiking but instead we decided to go buy a coffee pot at Walmart near Syracuse. Then we went to Green lakes State Park and did a phenomenal hike around their green lakes. And the reason we were up here was to do the Big East powersports show at the State fairgrounds in Syracuse. The show was focused on snowmobiles. Back in February we ordered a 2022 skidoo 2 up sled. And we have concerns of when it's going to be delivered because of Chip shortage. So we headed over we actually got to sit on the sled that we ordered. And this really wetted our appetite. While walking around the show we saw a guy selling Garmin GPS's with preloaded snowmobile maps of the Northeast. We talked to him about price and then we went and looked at the GPS we had selected on Amazon and also the maps of the Northeast that I've been waiting to purchase. Buying the GPS and maps through his company https://netrailgps.com/ was phenomenally priced.We were told by a Skidoo rep that the dealers have received a list of delivery dates on some sleds. So we contacted our dealer and he said we are on the list for a November delivery. We are hoping that the sled comes in complete with all chips gadgets lights everything.The next day we decided to walk around the city of Syracuse and in less than an hour we are ready to do something else. So we went over to Onondaga State Park in road or bike for about 10 MI on the shore of the lake. Very pretty. Everything came back to the rig I looked for my phone and I couldn't find it. Trish grabbed her phone and she saw a text from my daughter that a guy found my phone. So I reached out to the wonderful gentleman got his address and took a ride to his house. Apparently when we were loading the bike onto the car I laid the phone down and left it down and left it there. And also apparently cuz I backed out of the parking lot I ran over the phone and cracked it, thank goodness it's still functioning. Paul take a nice deep breath let It go just relax. That night we had dinner and rig the next morning we said goodbye to our host. Or driving over towards Troy New York when Trish found a winery along the way so we stopped in for a glass of wine.Afterwards we pulled into our campsite in Troy New York. I ran the hydraulic levelers but it would not level. I looked and only one Jack was down. I reset the keypad try to retract that one Jack would not go up the others would not go down. I knew I could manually override the system but wasn't exactly sure how so I googled it and found the video I then retracted the one Jack that was down. So at least we were not stuck in place. I then started checking wires and fuses but couldn't find anything wrong. I had Trish run the Jack's well I sat by the motor and I could hear a metallic click I reached out to lippert they emailed me things to check but by this time we were already on our way home. We pulled in to our driveway we unpacked and remember I am no electrician I did what I thought they wanted me to do to me it sounded like possibly the motor or the solenoid. I emailed them what I found and they said nope we don't think that's your problem they suggested other things that I check I quickly got out of my comfort zone. I reached out to George fry our local RV repair guy in Hudson Valley. We have another trip down through New Jersey in a week and a half from now at the jacks aren't working and we can't get it level we can't get the slides out safely. So hopefully George will be able to guide me into a simple and inexpensive fix. The motor runs around $1,200 ugh. While waiting on George who is swamped and crazy busy. I decided to call Lippert again. They patiently walked me through testing the solenoid and motor. Our issue was a bad motor. They suggested I replace the Solenoid when I replace the motor. They switched over to their parts dept and she suggested that I replace the sealed coupler when I replace motor. So we ran down the price of motor was just under $1100, is solenoid was $98 and the sealed coupler was $31. So all the parts are $1200 then in one of their emails they gave me a code for 10% off. Which was LCIcares. My next question to them was how bad is the shipping going to be for all this and she said well in order to use that discount you have to order the parts online but she reassured me that the shipping was not going to be much at all. I went online ordered all the parts took the 10% off the shipping came out to just over $5. They had all the items in stock and they would arrive at my door in 3 days. I'll tell you what I cannot believe the customer service I received at lippert. In fact the next day after I ordered the parts I called their tech support for the third time and I said I just ordered all these parts I just want to make sure it's the motor can you guide me through how to test the solenoid and the motor again and the gentleman said absolutely it took his time because I don't know one thing from another lol. We confirmed that it was a bad motor. While I was waiting for the parts to come in the mail I started taking apart the old leveling system.The only issue with the pump motor was the mounting bolts were different than what they described in their PDF and when I called they didn't know about these two additional mounting bolts I made a video about the issue and here's a link to the video https://youtu.be/yxLx0ZQKFzQ But the leveling system now works great. And off to our next adventure. So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ There are discounts on my website to Boondockers Welcome , Harvest Hosts., Renogy Solar and Mattress Insider for all of your RV bedding needs https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 689/23/21New England 2021 2.0Over 7,000 downloads ! Awesome, I hope you are enjoying it.We left you after we visited Mt Washington, NHWe drove 2.5 hrs to Newport Center, VT. Which is in the North East Kingdom. Yep. We are at a Boondockers Welcome location for 4 nights. The next day we went to Derby Line, VT. What an interesting place ! This town borders canada. There's yellow ribbon crossing over the street at the border border patrol was sitting in their car just watching and protecting. There's also a library and Opera House which is half in Canada and half in the us. The books on the American side were in English while most of the books on the canadian side were in French. We were talking to a volunteer and the librarian assistant and had a wonderful lengthy conversation about the borderline and etc. Heres a link to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House https://maps.app.goo.gl/GrJkJfrUR3sezMuf6 Here's a link to our pictures of this town and library on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CTaoTCdsJ1z/?utm_medium=copy_link We wanted to get a little active so we hiked up Avril mountain it was only about a mile to the top but apparently Vermont does not believe in switchbacks. So it was straight up about 600 ft in elevation. But the view up there was definitely worth it. We met a woman at the top we shared some of our wine with her. We had a nice conversation about rving and it sounded like we waited her appetite for wanderlust. Hi Terry if you're listening. She is suggested us hiking up Brousseau Mtn. Which we did.http://canaanvt.com/item/brousseau-mountain/ We then headed over to Jed's Maple store. http://www.jedsmaple.com/ That evening we ate at at the East Side Restaurant, https://www.eastsiderestaurant.net/ The next day we took a ride down to Willoughby State Forest and Lake willoughby. For many many years I've been wanting to hike up Mount Pisgah. And today we did., Here are pics from our hike up Mt Pisgahhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CTe2noZMS7w/?utm_medium=copy_link We wanted to visit the Cabot cheese factory and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Cabot was closed and Ben and Jerry's were not doing tours. Then the rain came in and we had 3 hours to kill before meeting our friends from our home town for dinner, so unfortunately we canceled our dinner plans and headed back up north.The next day we went to Philo Mt. and hiked to the top. The trail was new and in my opinion it was a tab over developed. Lots of stone steps and very wide. Great views of Lake Champlain. Then we hiked down on the Devil's Seat Trail which was more like a hiking trail. Pics of Mt Philo https://www.instagram.com/p/CTkeFfuFvZs/?utm_medium=copy_link From there we visited Shelburne Farm. An interesting place. They gave no history of the farm, which was owned by the Vanderbilt's and was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who helped design NY Citys central park. A beautiful barn ! And free to visit. Here are a few pics https://www.instagram.com/p/CTmipC8MZb4/?utm_medium=copy_link The next day we went to Mud Pond Country park. We expected to do 2.5 miles of walking but the map wasn't clear so we ended up doing almost 5 miles But it was nice.https://maps.app.goo.gl/5dChCjcMhX6kMaEo8. We drove to a park and grab the bike and rode on lakefront bike trail up to the causeway it was a total of 14 mi round trip. Here's pics from the causeway https://www.instagram.com/p/CTpKn-bFCEq/?utm_medium=copy_link We had found this causeway Trail a couple years ago and we marked it on our Google maps and we are so glad we did. Here's a video of how we plan our trips:https://youtu.be/m17giRxNVs0 The next day we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts and drove to the Lake Bomoseen KOA in VT. If you watched the video of our route planning you know KOAs are our last choice, but they were doing a promotion of BOGO this weekend. So we figured sure we'll take a free night lol. So we got to site and set up. We did laundry and such. The next day we went to Mt Moosalamoo and did a 5.5 mile beautiful hike. The next morning, we paddled on Lake Bomoseen for an hour or so. The campground had a launch so we took advantage of it. We then went to Randolf, VT. to our next Boondockers Welcome location. We met our really welcoming hosts. They explained that Vermont has the 2nd lowest population of all the states, We then took a ride to the only floating bridge east of the Mississippi. It's located in Brookfield VT. Here are pics of it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CTvX445sao2/?utm_medium=copy_link As we left VT we looked back and saw that we were in Vermont for a week and a half. And out of that time we spent two nights at a campground. And of that we only paid for 1 night. So the cost to us was $54 to stay a week and a half in Vermont. We love boondockers welcome. So we went through our list of stays at boondockers welcome locations over the past 3 years. We have stayed at over 90 locations for a total of almost 200 nights. Unbelievable. We then drove 2 hours south to White Birch campground in Waverly MA.This was a passport from America's day so we got the site for half price. We met our campost and her boyfriend who were wonderful people. We arrived back at our rig and the camphost dropped off a load of firewood. The next day we drove to Greenfield and hiked to The Poet's Seat Tower and Sachems Head. This is a scenic hike that follows a ridge line. We hiked about 5 easy miles, except for a 0.25 mile section that was very steep. Pics: https://www.instagram.com/p/CT0V522gv95/ We then stopped at Pekarski's Sausage in Deerfield, MA. Delicious German meats. https://pekarskis.com/ That evening we went to Northampton walked around this great little city. We stopped in at a place called tunnel bar for a drink. https://www.thetunnelbar.com/ Pics: https://www.instagram.com/p/CT6DQwJs8YH/?utm_medium=copy_link The next day we took a very short ride to a trailhead for the Appalachian Trail. We started and saw a sign saying there was a lean to about 4 MI from the car. So we made that our destination. Here's a video of it and on my Instagram page are more pics of the hike. https://www.instagram.com/p/CT78XXQJsOb/?utm_medium=copy_link The next day, Saturday 9/18/21, we headed west to Cobbleskill, NY. Our last night of this trip was at Grapevine Vineyard, who's is a Harvest Host location. https://www.grapevinefarms.com/ We got back to the RV turned on the furnace because we were at a harvest hose location without shore power. The furnace tried to kick on then shut off. It turns out Honeywell thermostats are typically 24 volts took out the Honeywell thermostat I wired in the original mechanical piece of junk thermostat everything works fine. I then ordered a digital thermometer from Amazon made by Coleman Mach installed it and have no issues. Here's a link to the digital thermostat that I ended up going with. https://amzn.to/3o3M5f0 So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ There are discounts on my website to Boondockers Welcome , Harvest Hosts., Renogy Solar and Mattress Insider for all of your RV bedding needs https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 67New England 2021 trip, part 1.0So I installed the Maxx Air Fan 7500k in our bedroom. This RV had a fan but it didn't have a remote and it would only exhaust. We had installed and loved the 7500k in our previous rig. It's nice to have a remote fan in the bedroom. And it has a thermostat setting. https://amzn.to/3fplK5SThe install wasn't bad to do. So, the next project was ... solar ! I had installed solar in our last rig. Now this system is up and running. We have 800 watts on the roof, a 60 amp mppt charge controller and a 4000 watt pure sine wave inverter. We love solar and having an inverter. With the solar and the inverter it freezes us up to camp and more remote locations like national forests. Some places don't offer any amenities and they limit generator use so this system works great for us. I'll post a video on it soon.After that was done we cleaned and restocked the rig and finally hit the road on 8/20/21 for our Northeast 2.0 trip. Our 1st stop was at Boondockers Welcome location near Lyme CT. This had a reminded me of a book I had read a while back about the theory of the origin of Lyme Disease by Michael C. Carroll. Here's a link to that book.https://amzn.to/3m5YVIHThis drive was just under 3 hours from home which was perfect for us. On the way we stopped for gas. I was surprised when the pump shut earlier than expected so I restarted it and shut off. We had been getting 8 mpg when we bought the rig. I just rechecked it, we are getting 10mpg ! A 25% increase and again all because of the 5 Star tuner. This is a phenomenal product. It has helped the rigs transmission, which is why we had bought it. I had heard it will help with gas mileage but .... wow !! We love it even more now. Here is a link to the tuner.https://amzn.to/3jEGytbWe set up and our boondock are welcome host site. And via a recommendation from a host we drove over to Salmon River Park. We hike for about 5 miles. Then headed back to the rig cook dinner on the grill and headed over to Arrigoni Winery.The next day we visited Gillette Castle in East Haddan, CT. Wow ! Our friends told us about this place many years ago and we had to saved on our Google maps to visit. We did the self-guided tour of the castle which took about a half hour. Then we worked the grounds for another hour and a half or so. What a great State Park. Here's a link to pics of the Castlehttps://www.instagram.com/p/CS4_-f3p-cd/?utm_medium=copy_linkWe then met our friends Maureen and Jim who originally told us about Gillette Castle, for dinner. We ate at La Vita in Haddan CT. and had an excellent meal and visit. We then headed back to the rig. Hurricane Henri is expected in this area starting tomorrow morning so we hooked up the Jeep and got everything set to leave first thing in the morning. Our goal is to make it to Wordens Pond Campground in Wakefield, RI the next morning. Well we woke up early got on the road started calling the campground to make sure they were open and a half hour after being on the road they finally answered the phone and said they were open but they were encouraging everybody to leave and the roads to get to the campground we're closed by the state Rhode Island. So returned around I started heading west on 84 and we pulled up our Harvest host app and we found a harvest hose location near Waterbury Connecticut. To gravel parking lot and while they had no amenities they also had no trees to crush the RV with. So we contacted the host pulled in and set up. Rained on and off all day. The sore that the weather for tomorrow in Rhode Island wasn't going to be too bad so in the morning we hooked up and started driving east.Once we hit Rhode Island we sure the damage from hurricane henry. A lot of trees down some road closures. We got to the campground which is Worden pond Campground and we were told we may not have electric I didn't know when they were going to get it reinstated from The Storm. We pulled into the site a half hour later the electric kicked on and stayed on the whole time. This is a really nice campground. Fabulous wifi and Lots of big old trees unfortunately some of them came down during the storm and Campground staff were very busy coming up trees getting limbs off of campers. We're really glad we didn't come here the day before. In the morning packed up started heading east towards Massachusetts and we wanted to stop along the way at The Cliff Walk. We got into Newport RI and called the visitor center to find out where we could park the rig. They explained that there's a beach parking area that can accommodate bigger rigs so we drove there and found out the lot was closed because the hurricane had washed a lot of sand into the lot. So we called them back and they gave us another location to park. On the way to that location we found Newport casino and we said well that's perfect Park. We pulled in and the casinos was out of business. But there were a couple of trucks parked in the lot so we pulled the rig in we unhooked and took the Jeep over to The Cliff Walk. Here's a link to photos of the walk. https://www.instagram.com/p/CS-WMMKsAM0/?utm_medium=copy_link This is a 3 and a half mile trail (one way) that follows the cliffs. We then hopped in the cheap and back to the rig hooked up and drove over by Plymouth Massachusetts to pinewood campground. We chose a campground for this stay over because we wanted 30 amp for the air conditioning. Again a great campground. Spacious sites. And again fantastic wifi. A neighbor just told me her son was listening to this podcast. That was really nice to hear. So hi to ...... and thanks for listening. Here pics of Plymouth https://www.instagram.com/p/CTAy1yjpcdn/?utm_medium=copy_link We saw Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower 2. In 2019 we stopped at Mystic Seaport ( here's the episode https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relax-rv-podcast-episode-22-we-start-our-2019-northeast-trip/id1499279142?i=1000465761573) and we them restoring this ship. Here's an article about the move to Massachusettshttps://www.mysticseaport.org/events/mayflower-ii-departs/ From there we walked around for a couple hours. And then went back to the campground and hung out and relaxed. The next day we headed out to Coastal Acres campground in Ptown MA also known as Provence Town. This campground only offers full hookups. Walking distance to downtown Ptown. So the next day we have done our tandem bike route over into p-town spent the day hitting shops and reminiscing. We rode back to the campground less than a 10-minute bike ride. Cook dinner on a grill quick showers cuz it's been disgustingly hot. Then heading back downtown to hopefully see a piano player at a bar called Tin Pan Alley. We were here two years ago in May it was rainy and freezing out and we found this place enjoyed conversation with a couple so we went back and again enjoyed fun music and conversation.The next day we walked over the causeway/jetty. It's 1.5 miles each way. We tried to do it on our last visit but Trish had her broken toe and her foot was in a boot so we didn't quite make it all the way across the jetty. https://www.vacationcapecod.com/blog/walking-across-the-provincetown-causeway. After we did that we rode the tandem bike 3 miles to the visitor center via the dunes trail. Then another 4 miles back to the RV. We then walked to P-town for dinner and a show..... a drag queen show at The Crown and Anchor.https://onlyatthecrown.com/ The next day we ride the tandem bike for 2 hours in the CCRT (cape cope rail trail). We then walked P-town for a couple hours. The next morning we packed up and drove to our friends Bev and Axel in NH. It was great spending time catching up on life. They were allowing us to camp on their property so we took them out to dinner. We then sat in their rig and continued the conversations over the next 2 days. Thanks Bev and Axel. We drove 3 hours to Riverside Campground in Lancaster, NH. This is a pretty campground and is a Good Sam location. The next day we drove over to Mount Washington we drove our Jeep up to the top. I'm sure you may have seen cars with bumper stickers saying this car climbed Mount Washington years ago I had hiked up to the top but I was 20 years younger than so this time driving Jeep to the top he also have a cog train that will take you up but the price is more than what we were willing to spend. For the 2 of us it was $53. Which was 1/3 the cost of the cog train. We spent 3 hours on My Washington. It was beautiful ! And cold. The temp was 20 degrees colder at the top and the wind chill dropped that temp another 10 degrees. A great way to spend some time. Here are pics on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CTVteJpsTeK/?utm_medium=copy_linkSo what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ There are discounts on my website to Boondockers Welcome , Harvest Hosts., Renogy Solar and Mattress Insider for all of your RV bedding needs https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 66 8/1/21 Toilet started to smell. Previous rig I put in a roof vent which worked great https://amzn.to/2WA1ZC4 This rig didn't have any smell then all of a sudden it did. And then toilet wouldn't hold water in bowl. We cleaned the toilet seal and then applied petroleum jelly to seal and that did it, yay. -A.C. had problems. Thought it was the thermostat but it turned out to be the AC control box. I 1st accessed from roof then a friend said it's much easier to do it from in the rig. I replaced the control unit and all is cool again. https://amzn.to/3xGbrla How I deal with stressors as they pile up. Here's an example: We had gotten home from our last trip and the lever that switches from tub to shower in our stone and mortor house wasn't working and I didn't know how to fix it. So I started googling it. Then Trish said the house refrigerator felt warm and the freezer had ice in it. So I again started googling. And I also had a list of things to do on the rig, like the toilet the AC and other stuff. I started to feel overwhelmed. So I took a few deep breaths to help me relax and focus. I then prioritized problems and tackled them one at a time in priority order. And by the time we were ready to hit the road, the shower, the refrigerator, the rigs toilet and AC all worked and the list of fixes and installs in the rig were done. So we headed out Sunday 7/18/21 to the finger lakes. We stayed near Watkins Glen the 1st night. We spent the day exploring water falls. And walking town. The next day we headed into Watkins Glen State Park for 3 nights. We tried to get a site here a few times over the past few years and we finally scored them. The 1st day we hiked the gorge, beautiful ! And with all the rain we had over the past few weeks, it didn't disappoint. We think this was the best gorge trail we've ever hiked. We did over 1600 stairs over 4 miles of hiking. Our previous favorite was Robert Treman State Park and this rivalled it, so we will go back there in a couple days to compare the 2 parks. But the next day we went to Ithaca. We had visited it last year but because of Covid only half of the Cascadilla Gorge Trail was open. This year the half We had previously done was closed for repairs and the portion we didn't get to do was open. It was pretty but considering Robert Tremaine State Park and Watkins Glen State Park while it was what it was. Afterwards we went to buttermilk Falls which we had visited last year with covet and 90° weather also. This time with all the rain that's been pouring in this area the gorge was raging. We hiked up the gorge trail so we got the view of the waterfall on the way up with the aid of about 400 stairs. Then walk down the Ridge Trail through the wood s. That was a perfect way to do it on a hot day it was 85 when we did it this year. After that we went to Castel Grisch Winery. Enjoy the nice glass of wine in the air conditioning and bought a couple of bottles to go. We had stated this winery previously with our motorhome through Harvest Hosts. Then went back to the campground through some shrimp on the grill. And then walked a couple loops in the campground. The next day we wanted to revisit Robert Tremaine State Park and the temps were going to be in the upper 70s as opposed to 95 3 years ago when we last visited that park. So it's funny how we remember things one way but when we've revisited that place it's not like we remembered it. Perhaps it's because of all the other wonderful new places we've seen in the past 3 years and the fact that Robert Tremaine three years ago was the first Gorge hike we had ever done. But either way it didn't hold up to Watkins Glen. Now don't get me wrong Robert Treman is a fantastic State Park and we will hopefully return at some point in the future.So the next day we packed up and we headed off to a campground in the finger lakes region. We weren't ready to leave this area yet.We found Sned Acres campground on line. This was a Thursday morning and where we were looking for a place for Thursday Friday and Saturday nights so we reached out to this Campground. http://www.snedacresny.com/They said they just had a cancellation and I had one side available for the weekend so we grabbed it. It's in the middle of the finger lakes and we had planned to stay at some Harvest host wineries in the area but we couldn't find any. Now it's not like us to be looking for a place to stay that evening but our plans changed and here we were looking. So we decided for the weekend we'll stay at the campground. And then Sunday night will start staying at some wineries. This gives us a few days to reserve a spot via Harvest hosts and it gets us away from the busy weekends at the wineries. Now as usual if you go to my website and click on the discounts page https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ you will find information about Harvest Hosts there and there's also a discount code you can use there. The day we visited a section of finger lakes national Forest and then we stopped at a winery. Now this is July of 2021 and the wineries in the finger lakes are still feeling the effects of covid. Some of them require reservations for tastings. They'd still have empty tables between guests. And the one that we stopped at didn't have any place to sit down and have a glass of wine so we ended up buying a bottle going back to the campground and having a glass of wine there. The next day we wanted to do a hike so we went down to the finger lakes national Forest. We did a 7 mile hike which was beautiful. This trip is so different from all our other camping trips. We left home a week ago and every night has been spent within a 30 mi radius. It feels like we have been gone for 2 weeks, not just one. It feels good to slow down. That afternoon we found a winery 5 minutes from the campground, which had Jazz duo guitarists. Very peaceful listening to Jazz, with a glass of wine over looking Cayuga lake. Saturday we drove to Seneca Lake for a paddle. Unfortunately Cayuga lake has a blue green algae bloom. :( And Seneca Lake was too choppy so we up to Oak Island in Waterloo NY to paddle on the canal. The funny thing is we pulled into town and realized we had been here before. It turns out 3 years ago we stopped for a farmers market we've seen in Waterloo and then went for a short walk but it was too brutally hot to continue so we moved on. This year it was 82 and muggy but a really nice day for a short paddle. We then passed Miranda's Cheese Market and did a tasting . There was some really good cheese but not good enough for us to buy. We then headed down to She'll drink Point Winery on kyoga Lake. This is a harvest host location. We did not stay here however we found it intriguing cuz they have a dock on the lake that boaters can land and enjoy the wine. So we stopped in and bought a bottle what's that by the lake enjoyed it and headed back to the campground to cook dinner on the grill. After dinner Trish did her workout and I jumped in the pool for a little while. The next day we packed up and headed to Barrelhouse 6 Distillery which was a Harvest Host location. But to get there, we needed to go go up a narrow gravel and dirt road and so we pulled into a vacant lot and disconnected the jeep and took it up the road. We decided to not chance it. A wonderful guy named Paul came over and talked to us how steep and narrow that road was. He explained that if we drove on the left side of the road we should be able to make it. I asked, so what happens if someone comes down the hill and we are on the wrong side of the road. Paul agreed that it wasn't prudent. I asked if he knew the owner's if the vacant lot, he said he was the manager if it and invited us to park there for the night. Wow. This was to be our 1st night camping without hookups with this rig. And I started to get anxious. Flash back to Catskills 1st nite of Montana trip ...genny died.So now we were doing our 1st moochdocking and without hookups. Out to dinner at Switzerland Restaurant, fantastic food and a live band but we were sweating. 85 degrees during day with 75% humidity. Sweating in the shade. So we went back to rig, started genny and turned in AC.. ..the AC that had died rite b4 this trip. Talked with Paul some. Then drove to the north end of Keuka Lake. We threw the kayak into a canal and paddled out to the lake. We noticed the temp was cooling off. B4 bed shut off genny and AC. The nite was cool and we slept well. In AM we said out thank you to Paul. And decided to cancel our next 2 HH stays because of the temps. And headed home. So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ There are discounts on my website to Boondockers Welcome , Harvest Hosts., Renogy Solar and Mattress Insider for all of your RV bedding needs https://relaxrv.org/discounts-to-help-lower-your-stress/ Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 657/13/21We installed a 5 Star tuner. These tuners plug into your computer port on the engine under the dashboard and they set the engine settings to ones that are more economical and powerful. I looked into them and was surprised at the price. So I did some homework. I found this video of a company testing them and was very impressed. https://youtu.be/z9N5M2WhIiI So we took a Gamble we ordered our tuner. This is a phenomenal product. We love it. Here is a link to the tuner.https://amzn.to/3jEGytb I believe there is a disproportionate amount of high school bullies on RVing social media groups. It's such a shame.On June 21st we left for a trip to Indiana. We have fallen in love with Goshen and Shipshewana. In spite of being near Thor, smh.We've been there a few times, but always for Thor issues, but never for fun. And we haven't been to southern Indiana before so that's the reason for this trip.We drove 3 hours to Fantasy Island Campground in Sunbury PAhttps://maps.app.goo.gl/pG75MDBbyqDRXqJYA . which is a Passport America location so we got it for $22.50/night, now that's stress management.Sunbury, eh. But we found a BYOB pool hall, so that's where we spent the evening.the next day we drove three and a half hours to cook Forest State Park in Pennsylvania. Which is another passport America location. This one was $20 per night with electric and water. If you send me an email I can email you back a discount code the next time Passport America offers one, which they periodically. So where we are is in between Cooks Forest State Park in siskawana state forest. The North end of Susquehanna State Forest we knew there was snowmobiling up there and we didn't realize how close we are to “up there”. We then drove to Fremont Ohio. We stayed at a boondock Welcome location that we had stayed previously. Today is my birthday and my 3 yr anniversary of being retired, yay ! After dinner we went to Chateau Tebeau a winery we had visited 2.5yrs ago. We saw 2 fantastic musicians playing. The next day we packed up and drove to Goshen Indiana. When we got into Indiana we went to Shipshewana and stocked up on meats and other foods. This was the purpose of this trip. We love the prices and quality of meats found at Yoder's https://yodersmeatandcheese.com/ Our next stop was at our BoonDockersWelcome host located in Goshen Indiana. We met Rick and Amy and got setup. They offered 30 amp electric which we gladly accepted being it was in the 90s. On the way there, we went past a bunch of RV manufacturers and saw thousands of new RVs in their parking lots. We mentioned this to our host Rick and he explained those are rigs that have been built but are waiting for certain items to be installed like air conditioners or Windows. A lot of the items are on backorder so the rigs are just sitting there and this is what's creating the backlog of deliveries at RV dealers. The next day we took a ride to Bontragers. This is a great RV surplus parts store that is super inexpensive. https://bontragers.com/ That evening we went to dinner at Goshen Brewery in Goshen Indiana https://goshenbrewing.com/ with our hosts. The next day we did some walking in Middlebury IN. We found a small park with a walking path following a stream which gave us us a nice break from the 90 degree temp. We then passed a furniture store which had a coffee sign, so we went in and had a fantastic lunch. https://m.facebook.com/TheLegendaryGrind/ We then visited Linton's Enchanted Garden https://www.lintons.com/ The next day we said goodbye to our hosts. We then drove South to Speedway Campground. OMG !! This was the worst Campground we have ever seen. We pulled in and the mud to get in prohibited the RV from driving into the campground. TRhere was no electric but he offered a generator, we then left and went to the KOA of Indianapolis. I took advantage of the splash pool and we did laundry. The next day we went into Indianapolis and parked near the city market. Trish found a canal path so we walked from the city market to the canal path. We stopped for a snack at an Italian cafe right on the canal. Here are some of our pics on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CQwGzuzMheE/?utm_medium=copy_link We then walked to The Garage which has various restaurants for dinner. https://www.garageindy.com/chapatibeta We packed up and we left the next morning for West Milton Ohio. We plugged our surge protector in and it would not turn on. so I contacted the company and they are sending me a free replacement, as it does have a lifetime warrenty. Heres a link to the Progressive Industries EMS PT30 amp EMS. https://amzn.to/3klhEzf We found a place that can shuttle our kayak. So we paddled for an hour or so on the Miami River in Ohio. After that we visited Charleston falls preserve and we're pleasantly surprised. Couple of waterfalls cave sheer Rock cliffs beautiful hiking paths.The next day we went to Aliquippa, Pa. another BDW location. We were here for 2 nights and visited Pittsburgh, Pa. the next day. 1st we went to Canton Ave which is the steepest street in the continental United States. It has a 37% grade. We drove up is with the jeep. We then went to Schenley Park. Who walked from one end of the park to the other which took almost a half hour. He then had lunch at a place in the park called The Porch https://www.dineattheporch.com/schenley/menu The next day we drove about 3 hours East and arrived at our passport of America Campground which is ye olde grist Mill Campground in burnt cabins Pennsylvania. Because of Passport America we got the campground for half price water and electric for $22 a night. We had installed a curtain separating the cab area and the coach area and this curtain helped keep the rig cooler so much. Here's a link to the video on the curtain https://youtu.be/m17giRxNVs0 The next day we took a ride over to Gowans Gap State park. Very nice. The next day onto the road again for a 3-hour ride to pick up Trish's grandson in New Jersey and headed over to Old cedar Campground in Monroeville New Jersey. We had stayed here about a month ago with Trish's grandson, this will be his 1st 2 night stay with us. The weather was hot ! So we got a lot of use out if their pool. It was a nice few days if fishing, swimming, playing chess and pool. A perfect way to end our 2 and half week trip. So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know someone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2/ If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on https://relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ Boondockers Welcome: Here's a discount to Boondockers Welcome, when you join use the coupon code (RELAXRV) to save 10% off your membership fee.http://www.boondockerswelcome.com Harvest Hosts:Here's a discount link to Harvest Hosts, when you use it, you'll save 15% off of their annual membership fee. http://harvesthosts.refr.cc/relaxrv AND Use Code HHFRIENDS15 at Checkout!Here's a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a My podcast can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 64 6/8/21We did our 1st ever campground stay with friends. We stayed at J&D campground near Knoebels amusement park. Next to us was Scott and Amy, next to them Mike and Shelley. And on the other side of the campground was Scott's parent Jack and Jan in their seasonal site. It was a cold and rainy weekend. While setting up we were fighting with the rig (2017 Thor 29.4) trying to get it level. Out came the level and viola the rigs LCI leveling system was way off with the Zero Point Level calibration. I went into the Thor owners portal, pulled up our rigs VIN number and saw 7 manuals for the leveling system in it. None of the were for our leveling system. I googled our key pad, then how to zero point level it and 3 minutes later, the rig was level and the leveling system agreed with us. We wonder how long it was inaccurately calibrated. Yay. That evening with sat with our friends in their Prevost and caught up with one another. The next day me and Trish revisited Centralia pa. This is an abandoned town that was evacuated years ago due to an underground fire. Pretty wild. Then we visited Shamokin, Pa. We went back to the campground and played bingo for the 1st time in 40 yrs. Then we did a fire with our friends. The next day we found live music and fantastic food at Lost Mine(d) in Shamokin. Monday of Memorial Day we packed up and headed to Prince William Forest in VA. according to Google maps was 3 hours and 45 minutes away. With Washington DC traffic on Memorial Day it was closer to 5 hours. As always try to limit our driving to 4 hours a day and if we run into days like that it's no big deal. We stayed at Prince Edward Forest campground in Dumfries Virginia. We have stayed here before. It's convenient to visit Trish's son. We checked in had a low-key evening. The next day we headed over to the forest, and hiked 12 miles. Felt really good to do an actual hike which was way overdue. It's a beautiful Park lots of easy hiking trails following streams and waterfalls.The next day Trish had lunch with her son and then the 2 of us headed into Old Town Virginia to do shopping.Thursday we headed north to Dove Valley Winery in Rising Sun, MD.We arrived at Dove Valley Winery. We did a wine tasting and then we bought a bottle of wine. They are part of harvest hosts. So it was nice to sleep on their property in the rig. The heavy thunderstorm rolled through in the evening so it was nice to just sit and enjoy a glass of wine. Next morning we were planning on going to stay at a boondockers welcome near Trish's daughter and grandson. But that particular host did not offer electric for the rig and the temps were going to be in the 90s old day and in the upper 70s at night. So we had contacted the boondock are welcome host and explained our situation and they were very understanding. You then went online and found a campground called Old Cedar Campground in Monroeville NJ. We reserved Friday night and Saturday night with full hookups for about $55 a night with tax. They had a pond for fishing and beautiful new very clean swimming pool nine holes of miniature golf and a walking path that took you to a nearby winery. So, brought his fishing pole and we had a great time with him. Sunday we drove home and on the way stopped and visited and had lunch with Trish's dad. We got home Sunday evening a bunch of stuff I had ordered from Amazon was waiting for us. We emptied the perishables dirty clothes and such. Plug the RV in to trickle charge the house batteries. And locked it up. We have a couple of short trips plan this summer. Our next trip will be out to Indiana. Then we're going up to finger lakes to stay at a campground with our friends Mike and Scott for a night. And then we have three nights booked in Watkins Glen State Park.So I don't know when the next podcast episode of be released probably after we get back from Indiana.So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know anyone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise?I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at RelaxRV.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TAOr you can watch them on relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/Boondockers Welcome:Here's a discount to Boondockers Welcome, when you join use the coupon code (RELAXRV) to save 10% off your membership fee.http://www.boondockerswelcome.com Harvest Hosts:Here's a discount link to Harvest Hosts, when you use it, you'll save 15% off of their annual membership fee.http://harvesthosts.refr.cc/relaxrv And Use Code HHFRIENDS15 at Checkout! I took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ for your enjoyment and edification.I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872aMy podcast can be found athttps://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcastDisclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from one of our affiliates, we receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Thanks for helping to keep our podcast running!

Season 2 Episode 635/25/21So we got the rig home and I never thought to open up the awning but I did two days after we got home and it would bang on the way out.And Does not close all the way.Grabbed a ladder and saw 2 loose screws on the roller.I then climbed into roof and saw they did not calk above the front door.And when then installed the gutters they didn't screw the screws all the way down nor did they caulk the screws.So I called Connecticut Motor Cars and spoke to Brian the Service Manager.I told him about the three problems. He said they always test the awning and it had worked fine. And the screws for the gutters had probably loosened while driving the rig.We drove up to the shop. Left rig for 4 hours. When we came back the awning was fine and all of the screws were tight. He told me I was not allowed of the roof of my rig while on their property. He said would you have wanted be in the shop and checked every screw on the gutter as they put them in? I said yes if I had known it wasn't going to be done right. he said we're all human and nobody's perfect.I explained to him that I have to spending tens of thousands of dollars that I'm very disappointed about the level of service at his company.I highly suggest you do not use Connecticut Motor Cars and coaches for service unless you don't care about the quality of the work being done.As the old adage goes, if you want something done right do it yourself.Then 2 weeks later, just before heading out on a 2 week trip to West Virginia, Covid hit. Both me and Trish tested positive after having symptoms. Now I know there's a lot of people who don't believe in the masks nor covid and we are on the fence about all of it but we have almost a dozen people that we know personally that have died from covid. You need to do what makes you feel most comfortable and less stressed.So our trip was postponed. We followed the self quarantine order. We re-planned our route and left in early May. We drove 3 hours to Armstrong Valley winery in Halifax Pa. They are a Harvest Host. We did tastings of their wines and talked with the host for over an hour. We bought a bottle of their Pinot Grigio and some Lavender Mustard. They offered free 30 and 50 amp service. The next day we drove just under 4 hours (which is the max I like to drive in the rig) to Blackwater State park in WV. We set up and went for a 5 mile hike to a fabulous view. We had no signal in the campground so we drove to the lodge and downloaded movies on Hulu and Netflix. The next day we did a 4 mile hike in the rain to an underwhelming Balanced Rock. We then went back to the Lodge to stream Trish's sons graduation at the Metro PD.We were wet and cold (it was 40 degrees out). So we went back to the rig. Changed, warmed up and made dinner. That night there was live music at a great place called the Purple Fiddle in Thomas WV.Saturday it was snowy, sleeting, then bright sun all day long. Chilly 44 degrees. Did a 8 mile hike. Then dinner at the rig. We weren't every impressed with Blackwater State Park. Short hiking trails, bad hiking map. But a pretty water fall. Not overly impressed with Blackwater SP.Sunday, off to a boondocks welcome location in Albright WV. But the location was too sketchy for us to drive to so we went to Coopers Rock State Forest and camped there instead. On the way there we saw a sign for the smallest church in the 48 states. So we parked and walked over. Considering it's the smallest church I was surprised that it was as big as it was.We arrived at Coopers Rock State Forest WV. We did a couple small trails in the rain. On Monday we did a total of 8 miles hiking. This was a beautiful park. It reminded us of Nelson Ledges Park in Ohio. We walked along cliffs with fantastic views and then hiked at the base of the cliffs. We did some scrambling around the rocks. And met a group of women from Michigan and had a nice conversation with them. We are still experiencing lingering symptoms of Covid and we get winded easily and I get periods of chills and fatigue. This virus is no fun. Tuesday we drove a bit over an hour to Pennsylvania and stayed at a Boondockers Welcome location. We visited the Greendance winery. They had beautiful grounds and good wine. But no covered outdoor seating. It was a cold day so walked the grounds for a bit. The next day we went to Ohiopyle State Park in Pa. If you are any sort of an outdoor activity lover this place is for you. Rafting, hiking, biking, skiing, snowshoeing. We hiked almost 5 hours and covered 8 miles past various waterfalls. Then had a ice cream in town. There are also some snowmobile trails so I'm sure we will be back in the winter. I installed and love the Jensen Car8000 radio. The HUGE screen is wonderful especially when used the rigs cameras.https://amzn.to/3fix83N Link to avensa mapshttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Avenza So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know anyone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise?I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at www.RelaxRV.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2 If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube atwww.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on www.relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ I took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRV Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ for your enjoyment and edification.www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a

Season 2 Episode 62 4/11/21WOW this podcast is 3 years old. 1st episode was released on 3/9/2018. 62 episodes !! When I was getting ready to retire I wanted to continue to help people. And this podcast had allowed me to do that. The podcast had come a long way in 3 years. Here's a summary of the number of downloads this podcast had....1st month - 8 downloads6 months -100 downloads1st year - 1000 downloads2nd year - 2000 downloads3rd year - 3754 downloadsFor a total of 5,754It's amazing. My 1st episode took over 3 days to produce. My learning curve started with how the mic worked. Then how to load into the software on the computer, editing it, uploading to the host site and my website. And then as time went on, the process sped up but I was still hand writing notes which could take an hour or 2 for each episode. Now I used a voice recorder for my notes and from the time I finish recording an episode it takes about 15 minutes to get it published. And my website has grown too. It's had over 2,000 visitors from countries like china, canada, france, ireland, philippines, UK, india, vietnam, hungary, japan, germany, mexico, netherlands, EU, italy, australia, thailand, ukraine and singapore.and another 11 countries that had 1 visitor from each.I wonder if anyone listening has listened to every episode ?-ordered cabinet door in Oct 2020 . Emailed many times sometimes without a response. Finally the last day in Feb it is ready. Not sure if Covid, Thor or Camping world is reason for the 4 month wait time. But I do know there was a lack of contact from camping world Rv in Connecticut Motor Car and Coaches. Stripped, painted, and stickers applied. We are having them install gutters for us.We picked up the rig on 4/8/2021 And the repairs were covered by GEICO https://www.geico.com/ Here's a link to the photos on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=277623782811787&set=a.921581291749363 Our friends Bev and Axel said that he brings his motor coach to Blue Beacon and he knows other RVs that bring their rigs there to get washed and they've never had an issue very strange.So being we won't be traveling for at least another month or so with the weather and the rig still at the shop. Over the past few months we've been out hiking and snowshoeing. We've noticed during our travels. Some hiking trails are marked great. And Some terrible. And for someone who is new to an area it can be very frustrating trying to find the correct hiking trail. We really appreciate when people take care in marking a trail. I was talking to a volunteer who was marking a trail in Harriman State Park in NY. He said he likes to do what he calls a confirmation marker ... so after the trail takes a turn he likes to place a marker that confirms to the hiker which trail they are on. If you aren't sure what I mean by the term "trail markers" or are unsure what they mean here's a helpful guide I found for ya: https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/how-to-read-hiking-trail-signs-markers-blazes Speaking of hiking and exploring the National Park Service has a new app which includes all 420+ parks monuments seashores etc. Great free app where you can save parks you have visited, download park maps and info. We were amazed to see how many parks we have been to. I'm not sure about apple but here is the android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.nps.mobileapp Also for hiking, there us a wonderful way to lower your stress. I have been hiking for many many years and recently found Avenza maps.Some free some nominal fees. You download the app then find an area you want to discover and download the map.This has introduced us to some wonderful hikes. And while hiking you can track exactly where you are on the trail map. You do not need Wi-Fi or data to use the map it uses the GPS in your phone. We love it ! We even found a map of NY City and Central Park for 0.99¢ usd.https://www.avenzamaps.com/mobile-maps?campaignid=10221828697&adgroupid=102940455500&adid=453328850375&gclid=CjwKCAjwxuuCBhATEiwAIIIz0XHDpBLDmJHeSH0fEowaCoAyFBlpgeFuGEhrKg47yQSlaAb9bsv1SRoCxpEQAvD_BwE On my website www.relaxrv.org click on Discounts to lower your stress.Discounts to:Mattress InsiderBoondockers WelcomeHarvest HostsEMS outdoor gear So what do you do to help manage your stress? Do you know anyone who would benefit from listening to a stress mange exercise?I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at www.RelaxRV.org/stressed-2-2/stressed-2 If that ain't your thing I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA Or you can watch them on www.relaxrv.org/videos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-modifications/ I took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRV Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ for your enjoyment and edification. https://www.spreaker.com/show/relax-rv-podcast I'm on Instagram as @relaxrvpodcast https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=hsxp0gjpugbz&utm_content=5h4872a

Season 2 Episode 61 Released 2/5/21Grandpa ! My grandson Maverik was born at 11:17pm on 1/8/21 . He was 7lbs 5.5oz And 20.5"What a joy. When you're fixing your RV and something overwhelms you try to break it down into attainable tasks. like I did with my solar.But if it seems like it is way too much, let someone else do it like I did with the water heater in our rigSo quick recap on RV finish- Blue Beacon washed the Rig and our finish was ruined. Geico (https://www.geico.com) agreed to cover the damages. We brought it to Connecticut Motorcar and Coaches (http://ctmotorcars.com/) on 1/4/21. They tried different compounds to no avail. Geico said go ahead with the repair. So Brian at Ct. Motor car stripped off the stickers on both sides and has begun the repainting. It's a good feeling that the damage that was done to the rig will be fixed. And it's perfect timing with the lack of winter travel.Our rig is not yet winter ready. Heated tanks yes, not plumbing yet.We are still waiting for the cabinet door from Camping World. I have 3 free Stress Management recordings at RelaxRV Audio Recordings.I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube. Or you can go to relaxrv.org-Videos.I took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRV Facebook page for your enjoyment and edification.one of the things I added to our list of things to add and do with the rig is to put fans blowing on the windows and maybe like Little heaters too blow on the windows. Then going through Facebook I saw her gentleman complaining that Thor put fans in a bad location for these windows. Somebody suggested picking up Rain-X anti fog spray. So I so I pick some up and when we get the rig back from Connecticut will give it a shot.So being we won't be traveling for at least another month or two with the weather and the rig still at the shop we've been out hiking and now that the Hudson valley just recently got 20 in of snow we're going to do some snowshoeing. We've noticed drawer travels. Some hiking trails more great. Some terrible. And for someone who is new to that area and can be very frustrating trying to find the correct hiking trail.

Season 2 Episode 60 1/8/21Episode 60!!Wow 60 episodes.This podcast had grown since I started it in March 2018.It's been downloaded well over 5000 times.So our rigs finish. The picture on this episode shows our rigs finish after the wash at Blue Beacon.Blue beacon said they did not cause this damage ...Geico said No to covering the damage...Attorneys won't get on board, no water samples Etc.So either I let it go or let it eat at me. I'm a Sebastian and we have a tough time letting things go. So my initial reaction is fight this everyday until I win. which will only lead to high blood pressure, increase pulse, tension, headaches, sleepless nights.Better off recognizing that parts of the rig just aren't as shiny as it was.We will never go back to Blue Beacon.And at the end of the day we love our rig and it's going to take us to wonderful places.Stress is going to happen. Try to interrupt it having negative biological effects on our body.Ah a nice deep breath.And then Geico accepted our claim. Dropped the rig off in Connecticut in 1st week in January 2021.I won't drone on about Covid restrictions .... you know them as well as I.If you are traveling, be safe.If you are staying at home, be safe. And we plan to be home 4 awhile BUT wish we were traveling more...also our rig is not yet winter ready. Heated tanks yes, not plumbing yet-towel holders in bathroom-ordered a cabinet door for under dinette-firewood-XC skiing High point nj. Hi ChrisI have 3 free Stress Management recordings at RelaxRV Audio Recordings.I also made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube. Or you can go to relaxrv.org-Videos. I also took some pictures and posted them on the RelaxRV Facebook page for your enjoyment and edification.

Season 2 Episode 59 Released 11/30/20So we finally got our rig registered. It had been sitting for weeks so the first thing we wanted to do was to make it look nice and pretty.We went to Blue Beacon Truck Wash in Montgomery New york.We paid almost $50 by the time they were done it was dark out so we drove home.Next day went out to look at the rig and WOW there were areas on the rigged where the gloss and shine has been stripped off it looked chalky and dull.We went back to Blue Beacon.Show the manager. He submitted it to corporate.We decided we would hire an attorney to sue them. Our friend Scott suggested instead to go through the insurance for the damage repair.They sent an adjuster over to look at the rig and he said all that needed to be done was to Buff it back to a shineHe said the paint was faded. I explained to him that prior to the car wash the paint was not faded at all and looked great just dirty.We got two estimates each one was just over $5,000. they said that the finish needed to be compounded. Then rewaxed.One of the shops that we took it to for an estimate said he wasn't sure that even that would work and in his estimate he wrote this is a preliminary attempt to fix it.But after a short period of time if the luster fades becomes chalky again then it will be revaluated at that time.We submitted the estimates to the insurance company.We are now waiting to hear back from the insurance company.Then took the rig to Ford for the dash heat issue.We picked up the rig from Ford. Ford said that the heating issue was not a Ford issue. They said to contact Thor . I called Thor and they said to call Pro Air. Jim at ProAir was very helpful he gave me wiring diagrams and explained different things to check. He said that it sounded like the motor switch was bad. When he gave me instructions on how to test it I'm no electrician.Went to Scott in Pa.It wasn't that so according to Jim it was the head unit.So we cut the yellow wire and viola we have heat.If we want cooling we will reconnect yellow wire.Well do that for now because it's a $350.00 part.Then I moved slide lock for the front slide from the bottom rail to the top one. Much easier to put it in.We found out our rig doesn't have heated tanks :( In the spring I will put heat tape on plumbing. But for now I Ran electric line from outdoor refrigerator Because that outlet can be powered by the inverter. Bought 3 12v heater pads for the tanks. never wired 12 volt circuit before. Figured I would use the fuse that was marked "tank heat pads"But that wired for the macerator. The macerator fuse block wasn't wired to anything so that's the one I used.Replaced reverse lights with LEDs to help with backing up.The next bigger project was heat ducts.the Slide blocked 2. Moved them to front.Replace another that was torn in half when Thor installed it We had been wondering why we didn't have heat in the bathroom. SMHWe then wanted to take the rig for a run . went to Woodstock NY. Because until we get heated tanks or cold temps at night go up our camping will be very limited not only due to covid.I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube. You can find links to the videos on the relax RV page on Facebook or by going to relaxrv.org click on the videos link or copy and paste this address into your browserhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA I also took some pictures and posted them on the relax RV Facebook page for your edification.And here's a link to the Relax RV facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/?view_public_for=2776237828117877

Season 2 Episode 58 11/13/20Picked up the rig and drove to a campground about an hr away. On the way, I noted the gas gauge was at less than a quarter tank and there was no water in the fresh water tank not a fresh water hose.The turn signal cameras and the radio weren't working. AND there was no heat coming from the dash.We spent the 1st day getting gas, buying a 7pin to 4pin adapter for the toad, fixing the cameras and radio which was checking all the 12v fuses and finally resetting the radio with a paperclip.Then we visited the Yankee Candle store in Deerfield Ma. Wow spent an hour. Then had dinner GiannaFig also in Deerfield. We walked around town a met a local guy and his wife and chit chatted for a good half hr. We went back to the campground and got the tow bar installed on the rig.The next day we headed home and worked on a bunch of small fixes. Lubricated the slide, awning, front sliding windows, basement and front door locks, and engine lid. It seemed like none of these things were maintained at all.We saw there was going to be a couple of nice days so we booked a site at Promised Land State Park in Pa. .The list of modifications and things to fix continues to grow, but alas it is an RV. So when we got home, I dug in and started doing modifications. The big one was ripping out the jack knife sofa and putting in a Rec Pro reclining loveseat. We changed the shower head to a higher pressure and low gpm. We also did the same for the bathroom faucet. The next thing i did was took out the living room TV and put in a fire TV. And then we ripped out the TV on the outside, painted the compartment, out in some wood and polypropylene padding, some glass holders and viola... we now have an outdoor bar lol !We have a gas grill connection on this rig. But the gas flow was minimal I made some modifications to the gas line and made a video explaining what I did and it's on YouTube on the relax RV page.But as the list of things to do to the rig grows, we saw that in a couple of days the weather was going to warm up a bit so we planned a day to take a break from the rig fixes and take a hike. I find that if I don't get a day to enjoy nature it affects my mood. Now taking a day off isn't easy for me. I also have to force myself to do it, but once I do my patience is higher, my sense of humor returns and I feel better about myself. We went to the Ashokan Reservoir and rode our bike for 9 miles then walked another 4 miles. This reservoir feeds NYC drinking water.The following day it took out the small ineffectual entrance step light that Thor had mounted and replaced with a motion detector brighter light.We put dimmer lights over the headboard of the bed for reading. Then I took the original Puck lights that were over the bed, which had not enough button on each light, and put them over the dinette in the living room. because Thor in their infinite wisdom put the on/off switch for those lights over in the kitchen.Installed the backup camera for the Garmin GPS that we use. We installed a privacy curtain behind the cockpit area so when you walk into the rig the curtain will be on the right providing a little bit more temperature control from the cab area and it really accentuates living area.The one of the first things we noticed with the rig is the ceiling light switch is on the side of the cabinet as you come in the door so you have to stand on either the edge of the stairwell or in the stairwell and try to reach this light switch which is one of five switches period so I picked up some wire and another switch and moved it down a good four feet so when you enter the rig the switch is right there.The next project was heated tanks. When we saw this rig advertised the brochures showed that the 2017-29.4 theories had heated tank pads and heated tanks. I looked and looked and I could not find any switches for the heating pads so I called Thor they ran my VIN number and told us this rig did not have any heated tanks at all. We were crushed. one of the things that we knew that we definitely wanted was heated tanks. We love to Winter camp. So I did some homework I found a set of three rec pro tank heating pads and it came with lighted switches so that when you turn the pads on the light on the switch lights up. I'm going to take some reflectix and secured to the bottom of the tanks covering the heated pads this way that heat will definitely radiate back up into the tanks.Next big project is I want to heat the water lines that run through the basement. Our last RV Thor 27.1 had heated tanks that were heated with vents coming from the furnace. so in order to have heated tanks you had to run your furnace which can get really expensive on a cold winter's night using all of that propane. Almost 3 years ago we went to old forge New York for a weekend and went down to -5° F. In those three nights we went through 26 gallons of propane. So what I am planning on doing is pull out the water lines that go from one side of the rig to the other side wrap them with heating tape put foam wrap around it and reinstall the water lines.This rig has a 1000 watt inverter that was put in when they made it. This inverter runs two outlets one is the outdoor refrigerator and the second one is the outlet by the passenger front seat in the dashboard. So I figured we will never be turning on the outdoor refrigerator in the winter so I ran an electric line from the outlet at the outdoor refrigerator which is wired to a 3 prong plug I then ran the line underneath the rig to the basement compartment where the plumbing lines are. At the end of the electric line I put in a outlet to plug in heating tape. Insulating the pipes is going to have to wait because drum roll please .....We had bought the rig on Oct 2nd and it took 6 weeks to get into DMV.So we are planning a short trip to parts unknown in the next week or 2. We also have an appointment at Ford to get our dashboard heat fixed. I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube. You can find links to the videos on the relax RV page on Facebook or by going to relaxrv.org click on the videos link.Or copy and paste this address into your browser https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TAAnd here's a link to the Relax RV facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/?view_public_for=277623782811787

Season 2 Episode 58 11/13/20Picked up the rig and drove to a campground about an hr away. On the way, I noted the gas gauge was at less than a quarter tank and there was no water in the fresh water tank not a fresh water hose.The turn signal cameras and the radio weren't working. AND there was no heat coming from the dash.We spent the 1st day getting gas, buying a 7pin to 4pin adapter for the toad, fixing the cameras and radio which was checking all the 12v fuses and finally resetting the radio with a paperclip.Then we visited the Yankee Candle store in Deerfield Ma. Wow spent an hour. Then had dinner GiannaFig also in Deerfield. We walked around town a met a local guy and his wife and chit chatted for a good half hr. We went back to the campground and got the tow bar installed on the rig.The next day we headed home and worked on a bunch of small fixes. Lubricated the slide, awning, front sliding windows, basement and front door locks, and engine lid. It seemed like none of these things were maintained at all.We saw there was going to be a couple of nice days so we booked a site at Promised Land State Park in Pa. .The list of modifications and things to fix continues to grow, but alas it is an RV. So when we got home, I dug in and started doing modifications. The big one was ripping out the jack knife sofa and putting in a Rec Pro reclining loveseat. We changed the shower head to a higher pressure and low gpm. We also did the same for the bathroom faucet. The next thing i did was took out the living room TV and put in a fire TV. And then we ripped out the TV on the outside, painted the compartment, out in some wood and polypropylene padding, some glass holders and viola... we now have an outdoor bar lol !We have a gas grill connection on this rig. But the gas flow was minimal I made some modifications to the gas line and made a video explaining what I did and it's on YouTube on the relax RV page.But as the list of things to do to the rig grows, we saw that in a couple of days the weather was going to warm up a bit so we planned a day to take a break from the rig fixes and take a hike. I find that if I don't get a day to enjoy nature it affects my mood. Now taking a day off isn't easy for me. I also have to force myself to do it, but once I do my patience is higher, my sense of humor returns and I feel better about myself. We went to the Ashokan Reservoir and rode our bike for 9 miles then walked another 4 miles. This reservoir feeds NYC drinking water.The following day it took out the small ineffectual entrance step light that Thor had mounted and replaced with a motion detector brighter light.We put dimmer lights over the headboard of the bed for reading. Then I took the original Puck lights that were over the bed, which had not enough button on each light, and put them over the dinette in the living room. because Thor in their infinite wisdom put the on/off switch for those lights over in the kitchen.Installed the backup camera for the Garmin GPS that we use. We installed a privacy curtain behind the cockpit area so when you walk into the rig the curtain will be on the right providing a little bit more temperature control from the cab area and it really accentuates living area.The one of the first things we noticed with the rig is the ceiling light switch is on the side of the cabinet as you come in the door so you have to stand on either the edge of the stairwell or in the stairwell and try to reach this light switch which is one of five switches period so I picked up some wire and another switch and moved it down a good four feet so when you enter the rig the switch is right there.The next project was heated tanks. When we saw this rig advertised the brochures showed that the 2017-29.4 theories had heated tank pads and heated tanks. I looked and looked and I could not find any switches for the heating pads so I called Thor they ran my VIN number and told us this rig did not have any heated tanks at all. We were crushed. one of the things that we knew that we definitely wanted was heated tanks. We love to Winter camp. So I did some homework I found a set of three rec pro tank heating pads and it came with lighted switches so that when you turn the pads on the light on the switch lights up. I'm going to take some reflectix and secured to the bottom of the tanks covering the heated pads this way that heat will definitely radiate back up into the tanks.Next big project is I want to heat the water lines that run through the basement. Our last RV Thor 27.1 had heated tanks that were heated with vents coming from the furnace. so in order to have heated tanks you had to run your furnace which can get really expensive on a cold winter's night using all of that propane. Almost 3 years ago we went to old forge New York for a weekend and went down to -5° F. In those three nights we went through 26 gallons of propane. So what I am planning on doing is pull out the water lines that go from one side of the rig to the other side wrap them with heating tape put foam wrap around it and reinstall the water lines.This rig has a 1000 watt inverter that was put in when they made it. This inverter runs two outlets one is the outdoor refrigerator and the second one is the outlet by the passenger front seat in the dashboard. So I figured we will never be turning on the outdoor refrigerator in the winter so I ran an electric line from the outlet at the outdoor refrigerator which is wired to a 3 prong plug I then ran the line underneath the rig to the basement compartment where the plumbing lines are. At the end of the electric line I put in a outlet to plug in heating tape. Insulating the pipes is going to have to wait because drum roll please .....We had bought the rig on Oct 2nd and it took 6 weeks to get into DMV.So we are planning a short trip to parts unknown in the next week or 2. We also have an appointment at Ford to get our dashboard heat fixed. I made some videos about the improvements I mentioned and I posted them on YouTube. You can find links to the videos on the relax RV page on Facebook or by going to relaxrv.org click on the videos link.Or copy and paste this address into your browser https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TAAnd here's a link to the Relax RV facebook pagehttps://www.facebook.com/Relax-RV-277623782811787/?view_public_for=277623782811787

You see we are now on season 2, this because we are now on RV #2. We decided to sell our rig and buy a newer one. The episodes numbers will continue the same sequence so this is episode 57, can you believe it??We placed our ad on RV trader and cost $250. It was sold in 1 month. I've always heard how much RVs depreciate. When we sold this one we got back our purchase price plus the cost for all of the solar and the cost for the two ceiling vent fans etc. I think the big thing is stay on top of the problems as they arise with the ring then when you're ready to sell you don't have a list of things to fix.Prior to selling it we got it detailed from National Detail Pros in Draper Utah, for almost $700. . They have contracts with local detailers and they sent a mobile guy to us here in New York. However there were a couple of issues with his service. He said he would be here for most of a day. It took him almost 2 days and he missed some areas. When I contacted the company they basically ignored my complaints. And not in a nice way. They also threatened to sue me for slander if I give any false reviews. Unreal !!!! So, I highly recommend you do not waste your money using this company.We had it on the market for a month. We had a few offers and deposits but then it seemed like they got nervous and backed out. Then we got a solid offer and sealed the deal. So now we are back to looking at newer rigs to buy. We found one at RCD RV Superstore in Sunbury, Ohio. We explained we wanted to see it and would be there in 2 days. They said it may be sold by then but if we put $1000 down they would hold it for us. So we did and drove over 8hrs to see it. Now, this was the 1st time I did a 8hr drive in one day in almost 20yrs. Yuck NOT for me but we know many folks and you may be one of them who love to drive long distances in a day.We arrived there Met George. Got the keys and .... saw a wet spot on the passenger side floor. Not a small one either. Carpet was soaked with water, from a leak. Then we tried to level it but the jacks wouldn't go down. Trish was outside and said there was Hydraulic fluid pouring out. And the slides wouldn’t operate.It's a real shame what dealers will try to sell. When we told them we didn't want to buy this rig he said but we're going to bring it in the shop tomorrow and fix everything.Imagine if somebody didn't know anything about RVs and was super eager to buy that one they would have jumped on band wagon and bought it.So we explained to George that we wanted our deposit back. We then went to look for other rigs in the area but didn't find any that matched what we're looking for. We headed back to New York and back to square one. We were trying to figure out exactly what we wanted and didn’t want in our next rig. It seems like every time we found a rig it got sold quickly.So we figured what we would do is find a bunch of RVs for sale in one area. Which meant we may have to fly down in Florida and look at a bunch. we were going to do this because there's a lot more RVs for sale in Florida than in Orange county New York LOL. We then went back on RV trader.com we found an RV that was a little bit above our highest price that we could go. But the floor plan matched exactly what we wanted. What we wanted was a living room with a sofa and a dinette and over the cab bed a self enclosed bathroom and a bedroom that was Private with a door not an accordion door and had enough wardrobe storage for our clothes. We found a rig up in Massachusetts. I sent the gentleman an email asking what would be the lowest price you could go period and his low price matched our upper end price exactly.We received our $1,000 deposit from the dealer in Ohio. And then we received confirmation from Bank of the West that are loan application was approved for the rig in Ohio. So we sent a $100 deposit for the rig in Massachusetts site unseen. This is all very new for us we don't like buying expensive this way. But these are weird times aren't they? 2 days later we drove up to Massachusetts we looked at the rig instantly fell in love with it. We were told to fax over 15 pages of information that Bank of the West requires along with a note stating that we lost the deal on the other rig in Ohio. Now of course we don't have a fax machine but my daughter and son-in-law do. so we gathered up the papers to fax to Bank of the West. It always seems like things happen all at once and sometimes I find myself in the need of talking to a stress Management consultant so it's easy for me I just start talking to myself.So I first figured out my priorities then addressed each one of them in order. Eventually I got to my daughter's I tried faxing the papers over the bank at the west. However after an hour and a half of trying more than 20 times. Trish texted me and said she's going to call Bank of the West. After a 45 mins on hold, she spoke to a woman he said oh you can just email those papers to us you know not to fax them.WELL Bank of the West has the best rates around for us for an RV loan BUT they are nothing but a pain in the neck to deal with. When we bought our last rig almost three years ago I ended up emailing two of the top people and Bank of the West to complain about the service. And it seems like we're dealing with that all over again.Finally we got everything to them and they said they would need to send an inspector over to look at the rig. Then they said they wont be doing that.We then got a text message from the seller saying he really wanted the rig gone quickly. He said when he bought it everything was done in one day and he doesn't understand the delay. He expressed concern of selling it quickly otherwise he may lose out on the warmer rving weather and miss opportunities to sell it. I then called the seller and explained we have the loan. It's going to take a little bit of time to get everything done with the bank , but the RV is considered sold and we do not want to miss out on this rig. We knew we were going to put down $8,000 on the rig so I told the seller mail him a bank check for our $8000 deposit and if need be I would drive it the 3 hours to him to hand it to him. He said we can overnight the check to him. We did, but he didnt check his mail until the following day. You know, in today's world it seems that instant gratification is definitely a thing. And meanwhile our rig was sold but was still sitting in the driveway because Bank of the West has not sent the release of lean to us. It took them 2 weeks for us to recieve it. Then the bank over nigted paperwork to us and the seller. We had ours back in the mail within 2 hrs. It took the seller 3 days to get his into the mail. I thought he was in a rush? Hmmm. But we figured we would deal with his headaches as opposed to flying to Florida (where there's a high count of corona cases), traveling all over the state and renting a car looking at rigs and then having to fly back down when a loan was approved to drive our rig back home from Florida. So we just deal with his headaches.A few days later our rig pulled out of the driveway for the last time. we sold it to a great couple from Pennsylvania and we wish them lots of happiness with it and safe travels. When they got home, we sent them a text to look in the storage bin - where we had left them a bottle of wine and a card wishing them joy. It was very bittersweet watching it pull away.. There's been a lot of memories in that RV and headaches too, but a lot of memories!!!! And we're looking forward to making new memories in our next rig. And a big part of our trips is ... the planning. Setting a destination and then a route.The Bank of the West sent the sellers a bank check (which took them another 2 days to get deposited in their bank). And the wont release the rig until the bank check clears. So, according to their website Bank of the West says they close on RV loans in 7 to 10 days it's now almost 3 weeks. So the delays with the seller and Bank of the West finally ended We picked up the New To Us rig. It's a Thor 2017 ACE 29.4. So until next time ....

You see we are now on season 2, this because we are now on RV #2. We decided to sell our rig and buy a newer one. The episodes numbers will continue the same sequence so this is episode 57, can you believe it??We placed our ad on RV trader and cost $250. It was sold in 1 month. I've always heard how much RVs depreciate. When we sold this one we got back our purchase price plus the cost for all of the solar and the cost for the two ceiling vent fans etc. I think the big thing is stay on top of the problems as they arise with the ring then when you're ready to sell you don't have a list of things to fix.Prior to selling it we got it detailed from National Detail Pros in Draper Utah, for almost $700. . They have contracts with local detailers and they sent a mobile guy to us here in New York. However there were a couple of issues with his service. He said he would be here for most of a day. It took him almost 2 days and he missed some areas. When I contacted the company they basically ignored my complaints. And not in a nice way. They also threatened to sue me for slander if I give any false reviews. Unreal !!!! So, I highly recommend you do not waste your money using this company.We had it on the market for a month. We had a few offers and deposits but then it seemed like they got nervous and backed out. Then we got a solid offer and sealed the deal. So now we are back to looking at newer rigs to buy. We found one at RCD RV Superstore in Sunbury, Ohio. We explained we wanted to see it and would be there in 2 days. They said it may be sold by then but if we put $1000 down they would hold it for us. So we did and drove over 8hrs to see it. Now, this was the 1st time I did a 8hr drive in one day in almost 20yrs. Yuck NOT for me but we know many folks and you may be one of them who love to drive long distances in a day.We arrived there Met George. Got the keys and .... saw a wet spot on the passenger side floor. Not a small one either. Carpet was soaked with water, from a leak. Then we tried to level it but the jacks wouldn't go down. Trish was outside and said there was Hydraulic fluid pouring out. And the slides wouldn’t operate.It's a real shame what dealers will try to sell. When we told them we didn't want to buy this rig he said but we're going to bring it in the shop tomorrow and fix everything.Imagine if somebody didn't know anything about RVs and was super eager to buy that one they would have jumped on band wagon and bought it.So we explained to George that we wanted our deposit back. We then went to look for other rigs in the area but didn't find any that matched what we're looking for. We headed back to New York and back to square one. We were trying to figure out exactly what we wanted and didn’t want in our next rig. It seems like every time we found a rig it got sold quickly.So we figured what we would do is find a bunch of RVs for sale in one area. Which meant we may have to fly down in Florida and look at a bunch. we were going to do this because there's a lot more RVs for sale in Florida than in Orange county New York LOL. We then went back on RV trader.com we found an RV that was a little bit above our highest price that we could go. But the floor plan matched exactly what we wanted. What we wanted was a living room with a sofa and a dinette and over the cab bed a self enclosed bathroom and a bedroom that was Private with a door not an accordion door and had enough wardrobe storage for our clothes. We found a rig up in Massachusetts. I sent the gentleman an email asking what would be the lowest price you could go period and his low price matched our upper end price exactly.We received our $1,000 deposit from the dealer in Ohio. And then we received confirmation from Bank of the West that are loan application was approved for the rig in Ohio. So we sent a $100 deposit for the rig in Massachusetts site unseen. This is all very new for us we don't like buying expensive this way. But these are weird times aren't they? 2 days later we drove up to Massachusetts we looked at the rig instantly fell in love with it. We were told to fax over 15 pages of information that Bank of the West requires along with a note stating that we lost the deal on the other rig in Ohio. Now of course we don't have a fax machine but my daughter and son-in-law do. so we gathered up the papers to fax to Bank of the West. It always seems like things happen all at once and sometimes I find myself in the need of talking to a stress Management consultant so it's easy for me I just start talking to myself.So I first figured out my priorities then addressed each one of them in order. Eventually I got to my daughter's I tried faxing the papers over the bank at the west. However after an hour and a half of trying more than 20 times. Trish texted me and said she's going to call Bank of the West. After a 45 mins on hold, she spoke to a woman he said oh you can just email those papers to us you know not to fax them.WELL Bank of the West has the best rates around for us for an RV loan BUT they are nothing but a pain in the neck to deal with. When we bought our last rig almost three years ago I ended up emailing two of the top people and Bank of the West to complain about the service. And it seems like we're dealing with that all over again.Finally we got everything to them and they said they would need to send an inspector over to look at the rig. Then they said they wont be doing that.We then got a text message from the seller saying he really wanted the rig gone quickly. He said when he bought it everything was done in one day and he doesn't understand the delay. He expressed concern of selling it quickly otherwise he may lose out on the warmer rving weather and miss opportunities to sell it. I then called the seller and explained we have the loan. It's going to take a little bit of time to get everything done with the bank , but the RV is considered sold and we do not want to miss out on this rig. We knew we were going to put down $8,000 on the rig so I told the seller mail him a bank check for our $8000 deposit and if need be I would drive it the 3 hours to him to hand it to him. He said we can overnight the check to him. We did, but he didnt check his mail until the following day. You know, in today's world it seems that instant gratification is definitely a thing. And meanwhile our rig was sold but was still sitting in the driveway because Bank of the West has not sent the release of lean to us. It took them 2 weeks for us to recieve it. Then the bank over nigted paperwork to us and the seller. We had ours back in the mail within 2 hrs. It took the seller 3 days to get his into the mail. I thought he was in a rush? Hmmm. But we figured we would deal with his headaches as opposed to flying to Florida (where there's a high count of corona cases), traveling all over the state and renting a car looking at rigs and then having to fly back down when a loan was approved to drive our rig back home from Florida. So we just deal with his headaches.A few days later our rig pulled out of the driveway for the last time. we sold it to a great couple from Pennsylvania and we wish them lots of happiness with it and safe travels. When they got home, we sent them a text to look in the storage bin - where we had left them a bottle of wine and a card wishing them joy. It was very bittersweet watching it pull away.. There's been a lot of memories in that RV and headaches too, but a lot of memories!!!! And we're looking forward to making new memories in our next rig. And a big part of our trips is ... the planning. Setting a destination and then a route.The Bank of the West sent the sellers a bank check (which took them another 2 days to get deposited in their bank). And the wont release the rig until the bank check clears. So, according to their website Bank of the West says they close on RV loans in 7 to 10 days it's now almost 3 weeks. So the delays with the seller and Bank of the West finally ended We picked up the New To Us rig. It's a Thor 2017 ACE 29.4. So until next time ....

So my back ache started in January. Turns out it's mainly arthritis with very minor bulging discs. So thinking back to when the pain had started and I think it was from being too inactive. We had started our 2019 southeast trip and it was cold, so we weren't very active and so I was sitting a lot more than I typically do. I do believe that's what caused the flare. I had been in PT for 6 weeks and it's feeling much better now.So we decided to hit the road for a little bit. We drove out to Pennsylvania and we stayed at Starr Hill winery which is part of harvest hosts. When we went in, there were no other customers. We did a free tasting. Bought a bottle of their wine. Their Wines were very good and not expensive at all. And then headed over to town to take a walk on the river. But the pouring rain came in and that ended that. We went back to the winery and we took a walk for about an hour through the back country roads. For a harvest host location this winery is very unique and had 50-amp hook-ups albeit they charge $10 a night for it but considering it was in the mid-to-upper 80s we figured we would splurge LOL. The Next day we had it over Mantua Ohio for a couple of nights at a BDW location. We met our hosts Pete and Karen and talked for awhile about life and travels. They offered us a 15amp extension cord which we accepted. Even though we have the solar and inverter if electricity is offered to us we always accept it, because you cant totally rely on bright sunny days. We then took a ride over to Barrel run crossing winery where we got a glass of wine delicious pizza and a cheese and meat board. we invited our hosts to join us, but they had other plans.The next day we took a ride to Punderson State Park. We kayaked for about an hour and we reminisced how difficult it used to be getting our tandem kayak up on the Jeep where were take a half hour to get it up or off which really stopped us from kayaking a lot when we first started traveling 2 years ago. After the kayaking we hiked some of their trails. we then packed up a sandwich and a glass of wine and we sat outside the Inn overlooking the lake and enjoyed our lunch then did more hiking and headed back to the rig.We find it interesting how varied the pandemic rules are in each area as we travel. Some restaurants have indoor sitting some don't. Some stores "encourage face masks" others don't.So with the limited available places to visit and increasing travel restrictions being put in place by New York State. We decided to head home and stay off the road for a while and see how all of this pans out.Then for the next few weeks we had stayed home too much and I started going stir crazy.You know .... Cabin Fever !It seemed that the more I sat around, the MORE I wanted to sit around. Inertia had settled in.A Sedentary lifestyle is that nice comfortable way of living that comes from doing nothing. Just sitting or lying on the sofa watching TV and not bothering with life that is happening outside.So once I recognize this, I made a conscious decision to be more active it took the kayak out paddling a couple of days. We went on a few hikes and being the temps for super high these hikes included waterfalls. We took out our tandem bicycle and we paddled through a couple of towns and made a nice day of it. And 3 or 4 times a week, we walk 3,4 or 5 miles a day.So now I feel better about myself and I am more eager to remain active.My advice, get active. Find a hobby that includes activity. Remain in contact (wither on the phone or in person -6 feet apart) with friends and loved ones.

So my back ache started in January. Turns out it's mainly arthritis with very minor bulging discs. So thinking back to when the pain had started and I think it was from being too inactive. We had started our 2019 southeast trip and it was cold, so we weren't very active and so I was sitting a lot more than I typically do. I do believe that's what caused the flare. I had been in PT for 6 weeks and it's feeling much better now.So we decided to hit the road for a little bit. We drove out to Pennsylvania and we stayed at Starr Hill winery which is part of harvest hosts. When we went in, there were no other customers. We did a free tasting. Bought a bottle of their wine. Their Wines were very good and not expensive at all. And then headed over to town to take a walk on the river. But the pouring rain came in and that ended that. We went back to the winery and we took a walk for about an hour through the back country roads. For a harvest host location this winery is very unique and had 50-amp hook-ups albeit they charge $10 a night for it but considering it was in the mid-to-upper 80s we figured we would splurge LOL. The Next day we had it over Mantua Ohio for a couple of nights at a BDW location. We met our hosts Pete and Karen and talked for awhile about life and travels. They offered us a 15amp extension cord which we accepted. Even though we have the solar and inverter if electricity is offered to us we always accept it, because you cant totally rely on bright sunny days. We then took a ride over to Barrel run crossing winery where we got a glass of wine delicious pizza and a cheese and meat board. we invited our hosts to join us, but they had other plans.The next day we took a ride to Punderson State Park. We kayaked for about an hour and we reminisced how difficult it used to be getting our tandem kayak up on the Jeep where were take a half hour to get it up or off which really stopped us from kayaking a lot when we first started traveling 2 years ago. After the kayaking we hiked some of their trails. we then packed up a sandwich and a glass of wine and we sat outside the Inn overlooking the lake and enjoyed our lunch then did more hiking and headed back to the rig.We find it interesting how varied the pandemic rules are in each area as we travel. Some restaurants have indoor sitting some don't. Some stores "encourage face masks" others don't.So with the limited available places to visit and increasing travel restrictions being put in place by New York State. We decided to head home and stay off the road for a while and see how all of this pans out.Then for the next few weeks we had stayed home too much and I started going stir crazy.You know .... Cabin Fever !It seemed that the more I sat around, the MORE I wanted to sit around. Inertia had settled in.A Sedentary lifestyle is that nice comfortable way of living that comes from doing nothing. Just sitting or lying on the sofa watching TV and not bothering with life that is happening outside.So once I recognize this, I made a conscious decision to be more active it took the kayak out paddling a couple of days. We went on a few hikes and being the temps for super high these hikes included waterfalls. We took out our tandem bicycle and we paddled through a couple of towns and made a nice day of it. And 3 or 4 times a week, we walk 3,4 or 5 miles a day.So now I feel better about myself and I am more eager to remain active.My advice, get active. Find a hobby that includes activity. Remain in contact (wither on the phone or in person -6 feet apart) with friends and loved ones.

We visited Trishs' daughter and grandson in south Jersey. Then visited with with a friend in PA. Then went up to the Finger Lakes NY for a few days. We installed a Easy Start in the roof air conditioner and can now run the A/C off of the inverter.

We visited Trishs' daughter and grandson in south Jersey. Then visited with with a friend in PA. Then went up to the Finger Lakes NY for a few days. We installed a Easy Start in the roof air conditioner and can now run the A/C off of the inverter.

Episode 54 6/6/20Here in New York restaurants are still closed downwe are hoping to travel at some point this summer but we are no rush to get somewhere where everything is closed. Our restaurants are just starting to open and they're packed with people. We're trying to use our best judgment in avoiding large crowds but still trying to enjoy ourselves.We go on hikes but we pick places that are not popular heights. We live a little over 1 hour from the George Washington bridge so we get a lot of folks from the city in this area who won who enjoy the hiking also. We've done a pretty good job avoiding crowds on the trails. We've also taken our kayak and thrown it in local Marsh and reservoir without issue.Now if you remember or towards the middle to latter part of our last trip to the southeast I was complaining of back pain and I thought it was from sitting too much and the bad couch and it turns out I have two bulged discs. When we returned home we started cutting a lot of firewood and my left elbow started hurting and it turns out I have tendonitis and fluid on the elbow.so as it turns out being home during this. Is a good time to have everything addressed.It's interesting us and probably the whole world is experiencing quite a lot of stress with the coronavirus. and at this time my website has its lowest number of visitors ever. I do know that people do not like to reach out for help with stress and stress Management. It's all very interesting , human nature that is. when we were returning home from our Southeast trip in March everything was beginning to shut down so I knew that I would be missing out on the opportunity of helping a lot of people at schools and clients in Hudson valley. Been really busy working on the RV. I put in a divider curtain and and new shocks all the way around. a buddy of mine suggested new shocks when I was explaining to him how the wind affected the RV and the jarring pounding of the RV when we hit potholes I explained to him that are RV only has about 28,000 miles on it but he explained that it is 7 years old. he asked me if I was going to do the shocks myself and I said no I do not have a lift and he said that you don't need a lift for the shocks. I pulled up a video on YouTube and it's pretty straightforward so I bought for koni shocks which were a little bit more expensive but I figured if I'm going to do it let me do it right. So I swap them out man what a difference they make. So much smoother on bumps a lot less way going on and off of entrance and exits on highways. And a lot less jarring. I will post pictures of that soon also put a link in the show notes for it. However on spreaker I cannot put active hyperlinks in the show notes. but what I will do is I will put the link to my Facebook page with pictures be located and unfortunately you'll have to copy and paste them into a browser sorry about that. Perhaps I'll on my website relaxRV.Org I will put links to the photos on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/watch/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ ). I started using Instagram and I'm wondering if I should put photos on there or continue on my Facebook page. On Instagram my username is relax RV podcast (https://www.instagram.com/relaxrvpodcast/) , Me and Scott put into automatic switches the first switch controls generator and shore power if neither of them go on it'll kick over to the second switch which is the inverter. this way the inverter is isolated from the generator and shore power no more burning out inverters by plugging in or turning on the generator I've done it twice and I've done it for the last time LOL. Thanks Scott.I put a new battery charger in the RV it was making odd noises and was charging the batteries intermittently the changeover was pretty straightforward and easy and everything seems to be working beautifully. Trish noticed was that when the slide was not going out when we were running it off of the coach batteries.But plugged it or turned on the inverter or ran the generator the slide worked beautifully. So now that I replaced the battery charger the slide works beautifully on coach batteries. Yay. And finally

Episode 54 6/6/20Here in New York restaurants are still closed downwe are hoping to travel at some point this summer but we are no rush to get somewhere where everything is closed. Our restaurants are just starting to open and they're packed with people. We're trying to use our best judgment in avoiding large crowds but still trying to enjoy ourselves.We go on hikes but we pick places that are not popular heights. We live a little over 1 hour from the George Washington bridge so we get a lot of folks from the city in this area who won who enjoy the hiking also. We've done a pretty good job avoiding crowds on the trails. We've also taken our kayak and thrown it in local Marsh and reservoir without issue.Now if you remember or towards the middle to latter part of our last trip to the southeast I was complaining of back pain and I thought it was from sitting too much and the bad couch and it turns out I have two bulged discs. When we returned home we started cutting a lot of firewood and my left elbow started hurting and it turns out I have tendonitis and fluid on the elbow.so as it turns out being home during this. Is a good time to have everything addressed.It's interesting us and probably the whole world is experiencing quite a lot of stress with the coronavirus. and at this time my website has its lowest number of visitors ever. I do know that people do not like to reach out for help with stress and stress Management. It's all very interesting , human nature that is. when we were returning home from our Southeast trip in March everything was beginning to shut down so I knew that I would be missing out on the opportunity of helping a lot of people at schools and clients in Hudson valley. Been really busy working on the RV. I put in a divider curtain and and new shocks all the way around. a buddy of mine suggested new shocks when I was explaining to him how the wind affected the RV and the jarring pounding of the RV when we hit potholes I explained to him that are RV only has about 28,000 miles on it but he explained that it is 7 years old. he asked me if I was going to do the shocks myself and I said no I do not have a lift and he said that you don't need a lift for the shocks. I pulled up a video on YouTube and it's pretty straightforward so I bought for koni shocks which were a little bit more expensive but I figured if I'm going to do it let me do it right. So I swap them out man what a difference they make. So much smoother on bumps a lot less way going on and off of entrance and exits on highways. And a lot less jarring. I will post pictures of that soon also put a link in the show notes for it. However on spreaker I cannot put active hyperlinks in the show notes. but what I will do is I will put the link to my Facebook page with pictures be located and unfortunately you'll have to copy and paste them into a browser sorry about that. Perhaps I'll on my website relaxRV.Org I will put links to the photos on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/watch/Relax-RV-277623782811787/ ). I started using Instagram and I'm wondering if I should put photos on there or continue on my Facebook page. On Instagram my username is relax RV podcast (https://www.instagram.com/relaxrvpodcast/) , Me and Scott put into automatic switches the first switch controls generator and shore power if neither of them go on it'll kick over to the second switch which is the inverter. this way the inverter is isolated from the generator and shore power no more burning out inverters by plugging in or turning on the generator I've done it twice and I've done it for the last time LOL. Thanks Scott.I put a new battery charger in the RV it was making odd noises and was charging the batteries intermittently the changeover was pretty straightforward and easy and everything seems to be working beautifully. Trish noticed was that when the slide was not going out when we were running it off of the coach batteries.But plugged it or turned on the inverter or ran the generator the slide worked beautifully. So now that I replaced the battery charger the slide works beautifully on coach batteries. Yay. And finally

Stayed in (and liked) Billings Montana then off to White Sulphur Springs and it was cold, sleeting and snowy and this was in August 2018 !!!!!!  Remember you are in the Rockies. We wanted to get out the cold and figured a glass of red wine would help so we looked and found 2 bars, "The Lane" and "The Sockman". We figured Stockman sounded more like Montana so we went in a met a couple of locals (transplants from PA). We sat, talked, laughed, and made life longs friends with Kevin and Dee. We find that even with the stresses, RVing is fun and fantastic !

We visited the Mall of America (the largest mall in the US) then stayed in Wisconsin, nice.  We visited the Badlands National Park in South Dakota where Trish developed Heat Exhaustion !!!! It was over 100 degrees when we did an easy (for us) 4 mile hike.  Then off to Montana (big sky country) and the Purple Mountains Majesty. 

We ripped the topper on the slide Ugh.  Batteries still dying too fast because of the Battery Control Center and it looks like the generator will be dead till its fixed. But we are seeing lots of things and places.

We started our 1 year long road trip on July 8th 2018, but befoe we left I fried our battery cutoff switch and blew the solenoid behind the BCC (battery control center) which killed our camera system on the rig (back up and side view) and is killing the house batteries faster than normal.And if that ain't enough stress, our generator died in 90 degree weather.  So with the hot weather we are staying in more campgrounds than we expected and thus spending more money than we expected.The stress continues.

After weeks of working on the solar we finally get it installed, but we still need to wire the inverter to the rig.  All that while heading into the final weeks of my career as a RN. All of this is new to me, RVing, solar, retirement, podcast production etc. So, be patient I will continue to tweak this podcast. Paul, remember to breathe .....

I am preparing to retire and installing 800 watts of solar on the roof, a charge controller, 300 amp of batteries, and a 3000 watt sine wave inverter.  Whew ... talk about STRESS !!!  So, I then talk about stress management tools.

Stayed in (and liked) Billings Montana then off to White Sulphur Springs and it was cold, sleeting and snowy and this was in August 2018 !!!!!!  Remember you are in the Rockies. We wanted to get out the cold and figured a glass of red wine would help so we looked and found 2 bars, "The Lane" and "The Sockman". We figured Stockman sounded more like Montana so we went in a met a couple of locals (transplants from PA). We sat, talked, laughed, and made life longs friends with Kevin and Dee. We find that even with the stresses, RVing is fun and fantastic !

We visited the Mall of America (the largest mall in the US) then stayed in Wisconsin, nice.  We visited the Badlands National Park in South Dakota where Trish developed Heat Exhaustion !!!! It was over 100 degrees when we did an easy (for us) 4 mile hike.  Then off to Montana (big sky country) and the Purple Mountains Majesty. 

We ripped the topper on the slide Ugh.  Batteries still dying too fast because of the Battery Control Center and it looks like the generator will be dead till its fixed. But we are seeing lots of things and places.

We started our 1 year long road trip on July 8th 2018, but befoe we left I fried our battery cutoff switch and blew the solenoid behind the BCC (battery control center) which killed our camera system on the rig (back up and side view) and is killing the house batteries faster than normal.And if that ain't enough stress, our generator died in 90 degree weather.  So with the hot weather we are staying in more campgrounds than we expected and thus spending more money than we expected.The stress continues.

After weeks of working on the solar we finally get it installed, but we still need to wire the inverter to the rig.  All that while heading into the final weeks of my career as a RN. All of this is new to me, RVing, solar, retirement, podcast production etc. So, be patient I will continue to tweak this podcast. Paul, remember to breathe .....

I am preparing to retire and installing 800 watts of solar on the roof, a charge controller, 300 amp of batteries, and a 3000 watt sine wave inverter.  Whew ... talk about STRESS !!!  So, I then talk about stress management tools.

Released 5/13/20Podcast moved to Podbean. Then moved back to Spreaker. A tad more money but SO WORTH IT. You can still access it anywhere. 2 different battery monitors Bayite DC 6.5-100V 0-100AVery accurate. No State of Charge (SOC). No indicator that showered level of charge. Cost was $16I then bought the Victron Energy Battery Monitor, BMV-7002 wires just plug in. SOC and battery level indicator. No bluetooth at this level but love it. $145Then after I installed the battery monitor, we noticed sometimes the batteries were fully charged and other times they were not. At first I thought it was a solar charger that was the culprit. But then I talked to Scott and George Frey and they both said no it's the onboard battery charger converter. So I ordered a new one from Amazon and its supposed to be delivered today, we shall see. When i install it I will put together a video on the install. you can check out my videos on YouTube relax RV.We will be heading to our friends Scott and Amy's in Pennsylvania so Scott could help put into automatic relay switches which will help protect on verdure from Knuckleheads like me who turned it on when we're the plugged in on the generator is running. These switches will operate automatically for Plugged In online generator or on a inverter and they will isolate each energy source. I may or may not do a video on the install if I do it'll be on YouTubeHow am I. Ive noticed some people I've been talking with have had a shorter fuse and quick to anger. Do a self inventory and look at yourself. But sometimes we dont recognize stress symptoms in ourselves so ask a friend or family member if they see a change in you .... ask them "How Am I Doing"? If you see stress symptoms in loved ones share that information gently with them.Go back and listen to episode 52 for a list of some of the symptoms.I recommend going to the CDC or world health organization (w.h.o.) for health advice not the news or social media.restrictions are starting to lift - be careful out there

Released 5/13/20Podcast moved to Podbean. Then moved back to Spreaker. A tad more money but SO WORTH IT. You can still access it anywhere. 2 different battery monitors Bayite DC 6.5-100V 0-100AVery accurate. No State of Charge (SOC). No indicator that showered level of charge. Cost was $16I then bought the Victron Energy Battery Monitor, BMV-7002 wires just plug in. SOC and battery level indicator. No bluetooth at this level but love it. $145Then after I installed the battery monitor, we noticed sometimes the batteries were fully charged and other times they were not. At first I thought it was a solar charger that was the culprit. But then I talked to Scott and George Frey and they both said no it's the onboard battery charger converter. So I ordered a new one from Amazon and its supposed to be delivered today, we shall see. When i install it I will put together a video on the install. you can check out my videos on YouTube relax RV.We will be heading to our friends Scott and Amy's in Pennsylvania so Scott could help put into automatic relay switches which will help protect on verdure from Knuckleheads like me who turned it on when we're the plugged in on the generator is running. These switches will operate automatically for Plugged In online generator or on a inverter and they will isolate each energy source. I may or may not do a video on the install if I do it'll be on YouTubeHow am I. Ive noticed some people I've been talking with have had a shorter fuse and quick to anger. Do a self inventory and look at yourself. But sometimes we dont recognize stress symptoms in ourselves so ask a friend or family member if they see a change in you .... ask them "How Am I Doing"? If you see stress symptoms in loved ones share that information gently with them.Go back and listen to episode 52 for a list of some of the symptoms.I recommend going to the CDC or world health organization (w.h.o.) for health advice not the news or social media.restrictions are starting to lift - be careful out there

Episode 52  - Released  4/4/20These are strange and trying times.It seems that people who are "not essential" are experiencing new stressors at this time of change...lack of income..frustrations of try to negotiate super inundated systems like unemployment..kids and adults are stressed with isolation from their friends..adults are dealing with working at home OR being an essential employee..hard to get comfortable with the uncertainty of when their lives will go back to the routine they are comfortable with..try to keep needed supplies in the household"Essential " people may be feeling overwhelmed because of being overworked or fearful because of possible exposure to the virus.Either way These ARE trying times.Signs and symptoms of stress overload:Anxiety or panic attacks, A feeling of being constantly pressured, hassled and hurried, Irritability and moodiness, Stomach problems, headaches, or even chest pain, Allergic reactions, such as eczema, Acne  or asthma, Problems sleeping too much or too little, Over or under eating, Increased drinking, smoking or doing drugs, Sadness or depression, Feeling like you are losing control or need to take control, Having difficulty relaxing and quieting your mind, Feeling bad about yourself (low self-esteem), lonely, worthless, and depressed, Low energy, headaches, Upset stomach, including diarrhea, constipation, and nausea, Aches, pains, and tense muscles, Chest pain and rapid heartbeat, Nervousness and shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet, Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing, Clenched jaw and grinding teeth, constant worrying, Racing thoughts, Forgetfulness and disorganization, Inability to focus, Poor judgment, Being pessimistic or seeing only the negative side.Things that will help you to relax:..Find diversions..start new or do old hobbies..read..jigsaw puzzles..crafts..clean..paint..fix or repair things that have been on the "honey do" list..plan or explore options for your travel plans when the restrictions are lifted..TALK on the phone..play games with family or Solitaire..work on the list of things broken in your rig or do modifications that you have wanting to doCheck out and share:episode 49 which is an introduction to stress     50  is a progressive relaxation exercise   51 is a way to take 7 minutes of calm for your well being

Take 7 Minutes to Relax I recorded this many years ago, I hope it helps you to relax. Do NOT listen to it while driving or operating heavy equipment. Find a safe comfortable location. Use headphones or earbuds if available. 

Progressive Relaxation  I recorded this many years ago, I hope it helps you to relax. Do NOT listen to it while driving or operating heavy equipment. Find a safe comfortable location. Use headphones or earbuds if available. 

An Introduction to Stress I recorded this many years ago, I hope it helps you to relax. Do NOT listen to it while driving or operating heavy equipment. Find a safe comfortable location. Use headphones or earbuds if available. 

Episode 48 - Released 3/26/20We visited Centralia Pa on our way to Bloomsburg Pennsylvania.  Centralia is a town had an iron field under it and had caught in fire many years ago.  We then arrived at our Boondockers Welcome host site, and met our hosts Scott and Amy.. They invited us to join them for dinner the next night we said absolutely and we would bring wine and dessert. We looked online and found Dalos bakery in Berwick, Pennsylvania.The next morning Scott reached out and asked if our generator was working. Scott came out and after some finagling he noticed a wire dangling behind the carburetor. We spliced them together and voila it started and runs without a hitch.  The next day we got all packed up then our goodbyes lasted another hour. It's nice when we leave a place knowing you have new friends.  We already have plans to get together with them.We drove 2 hours home along the way we dumped and filled up with gas. We tend to fill up on every leg of our trip. Which means we have about 20 gallons to fill when we are at 3/4 of a tank.After taking out stuff that could freeze I winterized it, following my own directions and hopefully this time nothing will freeze and break.On this trip, we were gone 3.5 months. The number of nights we spent at each were: Boondockers Welcome 64. Campgrounds 32, Harvest Hosts 5, and no casinos, Walmarts, Cracker Barrels etc.    And because of that we only spent a total of $1,050 on Campground fees, and some of the boondockers welcome hosts charged either 5 or $10 a night for electric. Not too bad for a 3.5 months. We had some Problems.  BUT Our Fun out weighed the stressors!Places we visited and things we've done: Christmas vacation house, Assateague  wild ponies, ocean city, Charleston, OBX, Myrtle Beach, Savannah, St Augustine, Disney, Miami, Clearwater, Tampa, the Keys, the Everglades, Destin, saw Manatees, the highest point in Fla, Mobile Alabama, New Orleans, The Tabasco factory, Eunice Louisiana, Helen Ga, Smoky Mountain National Park, Harpers Ferry and Centralia.And that doesn't include all the things we've learned and the wonderful people we've met.So now that we're home the podcast will go back to a less frequent release and I will talk more about Stress Management and with North America being turned upside down, I see my clients and friends are showing a heightened level of stress or anxiety.    Everyone is being affected, full timers, part timers, vacationers, workers, parents, children, adults, loved ones and yes me.I won't be talking about the corona virus - if you want to learn about that  read any of your emails from your bank, grocery store or if you must ..... the news.  Try to limit the amount of time you watch or listen to the news your mind needs a break from itThere is a short guided imagery at the end of this episode, DO NOT listen to it while driving or operating heavy machinery. However to help you deal with your stress, in the very near future I will release  3 episodes. They will be an introduction to stress, a progressive relaxation exercise and a guided imagery. Please listen to them while in a safe place to relax and share them with anyone who needs to relax.Be safe everyone and .... laugh as often as you can.  Peace.

We visited Bays Mountain Park & Planetarium. The next stop was in Hardy Va. We stayed at a BDW and visited the Booker T Washington National Monument. We then stayed at Devault Vineyard a part of Harvest Hosts. We then took a ride over to Lynchburg Virginia. We stopped in at a restaurant called Bootleggers. The next morning and drove to Gordonsville Virginia and stayed at Honah Lee Winery. We hooked up to 30 amp and had a water hookup which is totally atypical of a harvest host.     The next day we drove to Messicks Farm in Bealeton Va. Which is another HH. Tuesday 3/17 we packed up and drove to a BDW in Keymar Md.We were pleasantly surprised when we met out host that we had met them at boondockers welcome site in Defuniak Springs Florida. We drove over to the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emetsburg Md which is beautiful and peaceful. The next day we went hiking in Catactin Mountain Park we visited a rock formation called the chimney rock then we headed over to Cunningham Falls and took a hike there.   We went over to Harpers Ferry. The National Park office was closed so there was no admission charge. All the shops in town were also closed.Then on our way to our next boondocking welcome site in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania, we stop the Camping World in Harrisburg Pennsylvania to pick up the dipstick oil cap for the generator. Which didn't solve the problem.We then pulled into our last bdw place in bloomingburg PA. And that's where I'll leave you for this week...