Leap Year Day and Snow in March......

Happy Leap Year Day, February 29, 2012.  Today's post has almost nothing to do with camping.  Everyone has been commenting on how mild this winter has been, and in my yard daffodils have been slowly blooming for a couple of weeks.  Well as I was thinking on what would be a good post for today, I came across a file of pictures named "2009-03-02 Snow Storm Mar 2009."  Whew, what a file name, but that would mean I took the pictures on March 2nd, from a snow storm on March 1st.  If 2009 had been a leap year, then it would have been a February snow storm, which somehow sounds better.  


Now with the crazy school calender we have this year, I DO NOT WANT ANY SNOW!  I do NOT want to loose any of spring break 2012.  We have had camping reservations since August of 2011 for this year's  spring break.  If you click on the "Upcoming Trips" tab you can see where we are going.  


But just for fun on Leap Year Day, I thought I would post a few pictures from the March snow storm of 2009.  

View out the front door.

Another front door view.

Driveway lamp post.

Side street in neighborhood.

View of front yard from the street.

Daffodils in the Snow!!
















Thanks for stopping by today, and I really do hope this is all the snow we see around here in the winter of 2012.  Have a great week, and as always, Stay Safe out There.  -R,T,&J

Spring Break 2010......

Well here it is nearly the end of February, and I'm making a post about Spring Break.  Wishful thinking huh?  For our Spring Break in April of 2010, Trisha and I took the pod to Hilton Head Island, SC.  We stayed five nights at the Hilton Head Harbor RV Resort & Marina.  This was sort of a "spur of a moment" trip.  Due to bad weather back in January of that year, we weren't sure we would even have a Spring Break, but as it was, we only lost the Friday of that week.  So I called and they had a couple of openings, and as they (whomever they are) say, the rest is history.  HAHA

Here we are, all ready to go.  We stopped at a local restaurant on the way out of town for breakfast.  Of course, when we came out of the restaurant to leave, we had to give a tour of our pod.  This is something most if not all of our fellow podders know all about.  

This is the only picture I took of our site.  I guess we were in such a hurry to not be in a hurry, I forgot to take a few more pictures once we had our r-dome all set-up and lounge chairs out.  

Here's an evening view from the marina at the resort.  I say resort because it definitely was not a campground.  Ours was by far the smallest RV there, but we didn't care one bit!  We still had a wonderful time.

This is our favorite restaurant on HHI.  We liked it so much we ate lunch there three times!  The reason we ate lunch instead of dinner, is the lunch meals are the same as the dinner meals, but for about half the price.  

While we did a little shopping, we did a lot more sight-seeing.  One  day we drove into Beaufort, SC.  It's a beautiful town with a wonderful waterfront park.  Here are a few pictures.

One of the things I enjoyed best about Beaufort, was the National Cemetery.  I do enjoy visiting National Cemeteries, and have visited several over the years.  Here are a few pictures from there.

We really enjoyed our peaceful time at HHI, and hope to go back one day.  So until next post....Stay safe out there....-R,T,and J

The RV Show and IKEA

Today Trisha and I went to the North Carolina RV and Camping show at The Park in Charlotte.  It was supposed to be a cloudy, dreary, even rainy day, but it was actually nicely sunny and mild (low 60's).  I had not been to an RV show in a way long time, and Trisha had never been to one.  We were just blown away at all the different versions, brands, colors, and prices of the RV's available today!

We knew when we started walking up to the event center and saw RV's parked outside that we were in for a treat.

We show was held at "The Park" in Charlotte.  Formerly know to many as the Charlotte Merchandise Mart.  I guess they fancied up the name to  justify charging six bucks to park.  

The first camper I want to show is of course an r-pod.  It was the only one at the show, and the dealer we bought ours from had it there.  It was one of the new "rear garage" models in the new  paint scheme.

I wanted to show this little camper which as Trisha said, "This is basically one step up from a tent!" 

Then we saw this cute little 13 footer.  In fact we saw quite a few campers in this size range at the show.

We saw this really neat retro looking camper called an "Element."  There were two models a the show, a 24 ft single axle and a 26 ft dual axle.

Here's a neat A-model style that has found a new owner this weekend.  These are nice campers also.

Of course, there were rows and rows of pop-ups.

Long, long, travel trailers.

More long, long travel trailers.  And even though I didn't take a picture of any, all sort's of fifth-wheel RV's too!

Here's just one of the many, many motor homes, Class B's, Class C's, Super C's and Class A's that were at the show to look at (and buy).












After we left the RV show, we went to:

Yup you guessed it, IKEA.  We were only two of the 14 million or so it seemed people there.  We walked around, (well elbowed our way around) bought a few things, and headed back home.  


We had a fun time on our trip, and it was a great way to spend a warm, sunny February Saturday.  As always, thanks for dropping by to read this post, and Stay Safe Out There.  -R,T,&J....

More Mods.......

One of the fun things that go along with pod ownership is looking at others and making your own mods (or modifications).  I posted a few of them I have done, and today I think I will post a few more.


The first mod I want to show you wasn't hard, but took several hours. Plus it was hot (read 90's) which didn't help much.  This was the addition to stop/tail/turn lights to the fenders of my pod.  Now I am NOT going to get into all the controversy over these lights, but this is what I did.

Here you can see me wiring up the light, with my fan, and Jackson who was helping me.  I spent quite a lot of time looking for things Jackson had "moved" for me.  

This is an amber light on the front of the fender.  I chose to use stop/turn/tail lights instead of simple running lights.  These lights are LED US-DOT approved.

  Here's a picture from the rear.  I had turned on the turn signals, only to realize you can't really take a still picture of a flashing light.  I guess the heat was affecting my brain.  






The next mod was to figure out a way to use our flat-screen TV/DVD combo.  We tried, oh how we tried to use the TV that came with our pod, but it just didn't work out very well.

This is the inside of the microwave cabinet.  I took out the micro, installed additional bracing for the TV and then re-installed the microwave.  

Here are the hanging bolts seen from the outside of the cabinet.  I take the TV down between trips for it's own safety and because the TV hangs where the slide is when it is run in.

This is the TV mount I found somewhere on the internet.  It cost less than 10 bucks, until you counted shipping.  (Which was more than the cost of the mount!)

Here is the finished product.  In another post, I will post a few pictures of the 120volt outlet and cable connection I also added below the TV.  This set-up works much better for us.  






The last mod was to the wet bath.  I had looked at the extend-a-shower rods.  They were a great idea, but just were too big for the  pods shower doorway.  Here's my homemade solution.

This is what it looks like when the bathroom door is closed.  

Here is the finished product.  This mod was very simple, and it adds 5 to 6 inches of elbow room to the wet bath.  This additional space makes a huge difference in how functional the wet bath is.  


















These mods were fun to do, and I have enjoyed showing them to you.  I have more mods to show, but they are for another post.  Until next time....Stay safe out there...-R,T, and J

Some more signs......

As you can see today's post will be less words, and more  pictures.  Pictures of signs, banners, markers, stickers, etc.  I think they all have something to say.  It is our task to figure out what that may be.  Enjoy.  Until next time.  Stay safe out there....-R,T, and J