America’s Newest Favorite Campgrounds?

There are many places that certainly are in the running for America’s Favorite Campground: Fort Wilderness at Disney World, Longboat Key in the Florida Keys or even Grand Canyon Village at the Grand Canyon National Park.

However, there is a new flurry of “Campgrounds” that are appearing all over the country, certainly becoming a favorite.  What is the name of this chain of new favorite campgrounds?

Yep, Best Buy Stores.  All over the country, people are already lining up for the midnight opening of Black Friday deals like these:

Not being content to just stand in line, these determined shoppers have set up tents and have become small villages.

Of course, just like in most campgrounds, there are all kinds of units, from fancy ones, to more austere styles of bare bones camping,

to downright roughing it.

Then folks have to eat, so they bring their grills.  How does one cook a Thanksgiving turkey on one?  I bet George, the amazing Weber Q Grill Chef could give these hungry folks a few pointers.

Then there are those folks that don’t want to be too far away from one of mankind’s most important useful discoveries…electricity.  Check out this contractor generator.  Do you think the noise will spoil the ambiance of this tranquil camping experience?

Maybe a microwavable meal will be worth all the noise.

With all the days of sitting, waiting for Black Friday, people have to find some way to amuse themselves, like knitting,

or surfing the Internet for hours courtesy of Best Buy’s free WiFi.  Of course, you want to find interesting blogs (like this one) to prevent dozing off.

I hope somebody remembered to bring a Porta Potty.  After all, not everyone is blessed with a cast iron bladder…

A number or years ago, even Rick did this kind of camping to be the first person to get the latest (at the time) geeky gadget.

I guess nobody should complain about RVs overnight parking at Walmart now!  ;c)

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

Not Every Day Is Filled With Cutting Edge Excitement

One myth of fulltime RV life is that every day will be an amazing, not to be forgotten great experience.  It is a free feeling lifestyle, for sure, but life still happens.  You get sick, you still have to pay bills and stuff breaks.  But don’t get me wrong, it is still a great way to live and we love it.

Recently, while I was recovering from my eye surgery, I had to take on a fix to the Journey’s sink drain.  Our kitchen sink is in a slide and the drain has to be flexible.  Well, something happened and the drain line lost its flexibility and broke off.  I found out it had broken when I noticed a drip on the outside of the Journey.  Drips are never good.  Further investigation inside revealed this.

The plastic pipe got caught in the slide due to a broken plastic tie used to hold it in place and it snapped off.

I had to remove all the drawers under our cook top to gain access.

First job was to cut out the broken pieces of pipe to a smooth, square end and cut out the 90 degree elbow.  I was able to make the cuts using just a hacksaw blade not held in the hacksaw frame.

Then off to a nearby Lowe’s for PVC pipe parts and glue.  Care to guess how many trips we made to Lowe’s?

Next was to glue new couplings to the pipe ends and attach the new elbow.

Finally, after a quick measurement (twice) I cut the final piece of PVC pipe and glued it in place.  I secured all the plastic water lines with new tie straps.

Now the line is all back in place.  I just have to think up a better way of securing the flex part of the drain other than plastic ties so it won’t get caught again and break.

Knowing me, I just can’t seem to do a repair without spilling blood.  Yep, scratched my arm on the drawer slides.  I really know how to fix things using blood, sweat and tears.

As to how many trips to Lowe’s to complete the repair?  A new record for me.  Two!  One to buy parts and one to return some of the unneeded ones.  Now if I can just get it down to one visit, or better yet, drive the Journey to Lowe’s and do the repairs in the parking lot.  That would count as one visit, right?  ;c)

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

Pin Hunting

We seem to be pretty popular with the rangers that are in the Shoreline Section here at J. Strom Thurmond COE.  They are responsible for checking the boundary lines surrounding Thurmond Lake to ensure there is no encroachment by people onto government property.  There are over 1500 miles of property line boundaries that  have to be inspected on a five year cycle, each ranger is assigned a chunk of these lines and have to inspect fifteen mile sections annually.

The boundaries have been surveyed and there are pins hammered into the ground to mark the various twists and turns of the property lines.  Each pin has a unique number on it and is plotted on a master map.

The problem is the pins often get buried in the woods, or accidently damaged or destroyed by landscapers, lawn mowers or even washed away in heavy rains.  That is why the inspections have to take place.

Marti and I set out to cover another section of COE boundary lines, much of it around a summer community next to the lake.  Here you can see orange markings on the trees showing the lines.  The dot at the top indicates there is a survey pin near the tree.

In the community, they had some additional markers placed by some of the pins making them easy to find.

Others took some searching around with a metal detector to locate them.

Sometimes you search,

and search,

and you never find the pin.  That gets marked on the map so the area can be resurveyed and a new pin put in.

One pin was deep in the ground and took a bit of digging.

And more digging,

finally finding it about a foot down, the area had been landscaped and fill had covered it.  We were amazed that the metal detector located it.

Then the lines ran off into the deep woods.  We had to be careful, going from marked tree to marked tree so we didn’t get lost.

We spent five hours and found almost every pin.  The best part was there were no encroachments, although some folks built right up to the line.  You can see the orange marks on the tree indicating the boundary.

It was a good day, we completed the location we were assigned.  We hiked around three miles and there was only one mishap.  Marti fell down crossing a ditch.  I was told in no uncertain terms that there was to be no picture taken if I knew what was good for me. :cO

We enjoy the work, getting out in the woods, enjoying the fresh air and seeing the country.  We haven’t seen much wildlife, but there was some kind of animal following us.  We aren’t sure what it is but I did get a fast picture of it before it ran off.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.