Our front cargo doors seal well — they never leak. With that comes an inconvenience. Sometimes the seal sticks and it is difficult to open the door. The doors don’t have handles. So sometimes I would have to press upward on the key while it was in the lock and lift/pull with the key to open the door. Eventually I would have probably broken the key. So I needed a solution.
After a 250 mile drive to our campsite in Nevada to enjoy a week-plus Thanksgiving vacation and escape the Black Friday insanity, we unhitched the camper and began our quick set-up routine. As I was outside beginning to lower the stabilizers, I heard some funny noises as Joyce was extending our powered slide-out dining room.
Entering the trailer, I saw that one side of the room was partially extended and the other was still in the closed position – the slide out room was cocked and wedged against the frame. Oh, oh. Smartly, Joyce had stopped trying to open the slide. I pushed the button to retract the slide so I could investigate the problem and unfortunately, as I discovered, the drive chain on the working side created extra slack and wrapped itself backwards creating extra force and breaking one of the cables. As Trump would say, a Disaster!
Our slide-out was one of those things you just don’t think about until it breaks. So I thought I would share some thoughts on what I should have done (e.g., learn how it works mechanically and inspect/maintain it) and what pre-emptive steps I could have done.
Most important learning was I didn’t have a spare cable and if I had, I didn’t own the necessary tools to repair.
Continue reading It’s Probably A Bad Day When Your RV Slide-Out Breaks
Back in June I wrote a post, Please Help Save Off-Trail Hiking in Anza Borrego.
In October I posted an update, “We the People…” made a difference at Anza Borrego, where I stated,
The State indicated that the management of Anza Borrego State Park will continue to administer the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Cultural Preserve Management Plan of 2012, which is a huge victory.
The biggest challenge for “We the People” is the State is not transparent and it is often difficult to find out about the stuff they pull such as the proposed ban of off-trail hiking in Anza Borrego.
I am always dubious of statements made by politicians and government hacks, and have been looking for news to confirm my last post. What these politicians and hacks say they will do often does not happen. Today I received good news via an email from the California Department of Parks and Recreation:
Continue reading Update on Off-Trail Hiking in Anza Borrego State Park
I suspect most RV owners don’t realize they need to do maintenance on their roofs. With our two tent trailers, which had aluminum roofs, it was fairly easy. Just wash with soap and water, rinse, and check for any problems where the center seam was covered with a metal trim piece.
Our Milan, like most newer RV’s, is different. It has a thin membrane that requires more attention and maintenance.
It’s that time of year when bloggers are posting articles about gift ideas for the special backpacker in your life — you know, backpacking gear. This is a dumb idea and you should ignore these suggestions. The same goes if that special person in your life is a camper.
Continue reading Christmas Gift Ideas For Your Favorite Backpacker
I am going to share an incredible story with you. Any story should start at the beginning, so let’s start there.
It is probably a good guess that most people who live in urban and suburban areas don’t pay much attention to wildlife in their neighborhoods, which are mostly birds. After living in my house for a few years, I was one of those people. But it wasn’t always that way. When I first bought my house in 1979 there were few neighboring houses. Our tract has nearly 2,000 lots, the smallest being around 10,000 square feet. In 1979 more than 80% of the lots were vacant. A few minutes’ walk from the house is open desert; thousands of vacant acres. During those first few years there was plenty of wildlife to observe – birds (especially road runners and mourning doves), jack rabbits, a plethora of lizards, a variety of snakes to include rattlesnakes, and of course coyotes to control wildlife population. Then the building boom during the 80’s, 90’s and thru the present left less than 5% of vacant lots. House and fences replaced most of the wildlife. There wasn’t as much to watch and I was busy with work, backpacking, and camping. Now that I am retired, there is more time to watch what wildlife remains.
Continue reading Backyard Wildlife and an Epic Bird Invasion
It’s a pretty common complaint among RV owners — it takes forever to fill my fresh water tank and the water keeps “backing up” while filling.
This was a big problem for us. We have two 50 gallon fresh water tanks and it would take an hour to fill them. The Owner’s Manual warned of this and states to fill the tanks slowly with the water bib turned to a low volume. This was completely unacceptable.
I finally devised a solution that cost very little money and will not take much time for anyone to adopt.
Yep, eight days in the Nevada desert. No shopping for me!
I read that Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the busiest shopping day of the year. Not only is it the start of the Christmas shopping season, but large numbers of Americans have a 4-day weekend – especially if you are a government employee.
Just got back from an extended camping trip in the desert in Nevada and my website had a bunch of “ping-backs” from this post by Andrew Skurka.
A ping-back is when another website refers a reader via a link. Andrew was very complementary about this website and Dave Chenault’s Bedrock and Paradox as blogs with some quality content, although not a lot of content, and both sites are not monetized; that is they do not generate income.
I want to clarify this and state again as I did on October 16th, that popupbackpacker.com now incorporates affiliate marketing, which generates a small amount of income for me.
Ostensibly it is pretty common for backpackers to bring an extra pair of shoes for crossing streams and/or to use at the campsite after a long day of walking. So I thought I would share how I do this. This does not apply to winter hiking, which I shall define as daytime temperatures below freezing and lots of snow. For those trips, this is my shoe system.
Continue reading How to Choose Backpacking Water and Camp Shoes