trailertraveler

Isn't Georgia one of the states that suspended the fuel tax? That would account for about $0.33 of the decrease in diesel. Here in central Florida, the prices are still going up. $5.09-5.19 yesterday for diesel.

I also use a router. The printer, multiple smart TVs and Roku devices are all setup to connect to it so that I never have to change their settings. The router I use is capable of connecting to 2.4 and 5 GHZ wifi, ethernet and by tethering a phone or tablet. I find that tethering provides faster speeds than connecting to the phone or tablet. Before you buy the cable, make sure your phone supports the use of one. Despite specifically asking Verizon for a phone that supported HDMI, I found that the Samsung phone they sold me does not. I can mirror cast to my Roku devices by wifi and it counts as on device data. At times the connection is funky and has to be restarted. It also seems that the phone needs a faster connection when mirror casting than when viewing on the phone. It is my understanding that all I-phones support HDMI.

I-78 to I-81 to I-83 to I-695W to I-95 may be a little bit longer, but will avoid the tolls on the PA turnpike, DE/MD section of I-95 and the Key Bridge on I-695E. In my experience, traffic on the beltways around Baltimore and Washington is always a crap shoot. Mid-day is best, but no guarantee.

Another mystery to me is the sometimes large variation in price between stations located close together. Yesterday in the Daytona area, $4.99-5.19 seemed to be the going rate for diesel. Buc-ee's and Sam's Club were $4.35. I think that is about the largest price difference I have seen in one local area.

We have been in Central, Fl (Ocala/Clermont areas) for 3 weeks and will be here another 5 weeks. Deisel was $3.86 last Wednesday (lowest price I could find locally). Same station $5.59 today, Topped off the tank at $4.99 at another local station that was not the cheapest last week.

I have noticed similar behavior even at private parks that do not have a gate. Another fairly common practice I have observed is to pull into a campsite, hookup and dump and then leave without registering or use the dump station without paying. I remember one time an RVer went on a rant because the dump station sewer cover was locked. A Casino in New Mexico had a significant enough problem that they installed a system that requires an access code or credit card payment to unlock the dump station sewer connection. Another fairly common practice has been to overstay the day limit on public lands open to dispersed vehicle camping. This became a serious issue a few years ago on the Coccinino National Forest with fairly large numbers of RVers moving from one area of the Forest to another. The Forest Service tried to use an existing regulation prohibiting living in a National Forest originally intended to prevent homesteaders from building cabins in remote areas to address the issue. One of the prime advocates for this practice posted several times on this forum and created significant fears that if one did not have a stick and brick home somewhere that you could be cited. One of the members of this forum even met with Forest Service personnel in the Washington Headquarters Office.

There are a few. Not sure how many are open yet. One is in Columbia, SC. Jimmy Buffet is opening Margaritaville RV Parks. Love's is partnering with KOA to open campgrounds at some of its Travel Plazas. They also have added RV parking spaces with water and electric at 9 of their travel plazas. There is a relatively new campground in Webster, FL. Since the start of the pandemic, we have been to several parks that are adding additional spaces. For example, the Thousand Trails Park in Orlando is adding a new loop. Here is a link to an article about new and expanding RV Parks in Florida. This is from a February 2021 FMCA article:

Speculation about the number of RV travelers, the availability of sites and the impact of high fuel costs and inflation in general on travel plans was what sparked the discussion about income. Anywhere close to Smokey Mountain National Park will likely be crowded, particularly on weekends. We have not found a lot of choices near Chattanooga, but the campground at the Camping World use to be first come first serve. Kentucky State Parks have a reservation system you can checkout. A park close to some friends of ours had openings in May and June as of today. We had no trouble finding overnights in Kansas last August. We found sites at COE parks, county and city parks during the week. The COE parks were pretty well booked on weekends. As I am sure you know, there are a lot of small towns in Kansas that allow overnights in their city parks. Some even have electric and a dump station. The Ultimate Public Campgrounds Project lists most of them and includes information about the amenities available. Late Summer early Fall last year, areas in the higher elevations of New Mexico were difficult to find spots so the cooler areas of Colorado and Wyoming may be the same.

Others have given you good answers. Like Kirk, a part of my employer pension has not increased since I retired in 2004. A second part of my pension does get cost of living increases. However, because the calculation is based on a formula that does not include highly volatile commodities like food and fuel it often does not keep pace with the real rate of inflation. My share of my employer provided health care usually goes up every year. Some years more than the cost of living increase. I am not eligible for Social Security and because of federal law cannot receive spousal or survivor benefits. I have to pay for Medicare (which usually goes up every year) out of pocket. It is pretty well documented that the value of the dollar has declined over the years. The buying power of my retirement income is not really "fixed", it is declining.

This may be true. But who has all this money? Is it the Seniors on fixed incomes and the families that like to RV on weekends and for vacations? In my past experience, these groups made up the majority of RV travelers that we met. It is not just the cost of vehicle fuel that has increased. Energy in general has increased dramatically. Heating oil was $3.69/Gal in early Feb. Propane is as high as 4.50/gal in some places in the mid-Atlantic Region. Electric rates have also increased. Aside from the shortages, food prices have increased significantly. Yesterday at Publix, the rotisserie chicken that was $4.99 not long ago was $8.99 if you could get one. Finding campgrounds is not the only challenge facing travelling RVers. Parts and services for repairs are in short supply. It took six weeks, starting in December to get a new Dexter axle. It took a month just to get an appointment with the service facility. Not a trip stopper, but it took 3 weeks to get an awning motor and switch. Many mobile RV techs are booked two or more weeks out. How long these conditions will persist is anyone's guess at this point. How long Rvers will continue to travel at the current numbers is also unknown. One thing i did notice on our Southern journey down I-95 this week was that the two Camping World/Gander RV dealerships we passed had lots packed with RVs. So perhaps demand has slacked off a bit.

Thanks for all your help!! It is really appreciated. I tried the above and still could not access the Nanostation. As I said, I was able to access the Nanostation through my old WFR Go and even accessed the internet connected to my phone and WFR Spruce. After that connection failed, I could not reconnect and the Go would not reconnect to the Nanostation. I am going to give up and contemplate purchasing a new Nanostation, probably an M5 as more and more parks have 5mhz systems. Thanks again for all the time you spent helping me!!!

Well, success was short lived. After about a half hour, the boost(Nanostation) went offline. Reconnection failed with either no association, no IP, or no data error messages even though the Go said it was ready to use. Reboots of both the Go and the Nanostation did not change the results. May be time for a new Nanostation.

That's the one I have. The screens are not the same in Windows 10. I don't see a "Local Area Connection Properties Screen". One thing I noticed is that my old shortcut went to 192.168.2.1 not the 192.168.1.20. I am not sure what to type in the IP4 boxes? I hooked it up to my old Go and it configured as a Boost successfully and connected to my phone. I am using as I type this. So, at least some progress.

I think I did a reset. Pressed the recent button for more than 10 seconds. Lots of flashing lights on the nanostation. I cannot find any instructions for setting up for Windows 10. The screens are not the same as windows 7 and I am having no luck trying to figure it out.

I tried Opera, no luck. I downloaded Putty and accessed the Nanostation. The command lines were a little different. Both httpd and httpd.https were both enabled. I added the httpd.port=80 line and disabled httpd.https. Still could not access the control panel. Windows diagnostics said everything was configured properly but the Nanostation was not responding. I tried disabling the windows firewall, no luck. I have no idea how old it is. I got it when they switched from g to n and was using it with the original black Wifi Ranger instead of their Boost. So, it has served me well. I've read some bad reviews about the Nanostation lately but not sure there is anything better out there. Thanks for all your help!!!! It is greatly appreciated.

Thanks I'll give it a try.

I installed Chrome and stil get the same message "ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH". When I click on the details, instead of going to the Nanostation control panel, I get the message "Unsupported protocol The client and server don't support a common SSL protocol version or cipher suite."

I know from past topics that there are a few on this forum who have used a Nanostation to boost wifi signals. I have not used mine since November. When I try to connect to the Nanostation control panel, I get the usual message that the connection is not secure, but instead of being able to proceed to the control panel I get a message that the protocol is not supported. I have tried using Edge and Brave. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am intrigued by pictograms and petroglyphs. I envision an ancient artist or teenage graffiti artist working for hours to create their masterpiece(s). Often on the side of sheer rock faces well above the round. The images depict the activities of their lives or conjure up speculation of extraterrestrial encounters. One of my favorites appears to depict an individual in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. This in the American dessert Southwest. There are so many amazing sites on public lands.

Not sure what the profit margin is, but within the past 2 years oil has gone from a low of -$37/barrel in April 2020 to the current $90/barrel. That has to wreak havac on any business model.

Based on recent reservations at locations that we stayed last year, I would say yes. Some are doing things like charging a couple of dollars extra for 50 amp, charging a fee for using a credit card and or charging a reservation fee. A park that we have stayed at many times in the past now has a 2 night minimum if you want to make a reservation online or by phone.

We went to Yellowstone in the Fall of 2008. Diesel was $4.45/gal in and around the park. There were significantly fewer RVers than in the previous and subsequent years. That might also be the case this year, Hopefully, easing the availability of campgrounds resulting from rapid increase in the popularity of Rving during the pandemic.

We are heading 1,100 miles South to Florida on Saturday. Topped off the truck yesterday at $3.85/gal. Up from $3.57 two weeks ago. Predictions now are that oil will go to $125/barrel this Spring. In the Spring of 2008, oil was $129/barrel. The average price of diesel was $4.45/gal. We have 3 months of reservations so we are going to bite the bullet and go. Will likely try to cut back on some in and around travel and try to limit other expenditures.

I got my first credit card in the 1970s. I have had one time that a credit card was compromised. This was about 5 years ago. The card was cancelled and a new card received the next day. The 2 credit cards that I have provide alerts by email or text for any purchase made without the card being presented and any purchase above an amount that I can set to any amount from $1 up. They also provide free credit monitoring. I have on occasion received inquiries from my credit card companies as we travel cross country to verify that the charges being made at different locations are really mine. Because my information was thought to be in some of the major data breeches of private companies and government agencies, I also have free monitoring from Experion and a government contracted monitoring service.

Like yours, our return is simple. With the increased standard deduction we also do not itemize. Schedule B (for interest income) and Schedule 1 (for early withdrawal penalty) were the only forms needed in addition to the 1040. I had no problems related to these schedules. There is no 1040SR in the online forms that I saw. The program creates blank 1099 & W-2 forms that you have to enter data into. The problems encountered all involved the creation of extraneous blank forms (1099R & W-2) that did not immediately show in the onscreen list and the failure of the program to recognize the entries in the drop down State field of several addresses. How long did it take to get your return?