agesilaus

I ordered one yesterday. Have had no word from them since. I saw the Winegard version in Camping World today and they were $209 but I assume that is a different version. I'll be PO'd if that turns out not to be the case tho...heh. It was really light but I suspect that was an empty display version.

Is there a slot on the dome for the Sim?

I got an email from Winegard mine is on the way and scheduled for a Tuesday delivery.

Well as I said that was awhile ago, and I haven't checked since. We had CN and it was about to expire and we had no renewal requests from them. I went on the net and the only place I could find it was in the FMCA and I 'assumed' you had to join FMCA which I had no plans on doing. At the time I think they were still coach only and we were towables.

But if that's changed I'll certainly look when my GS policy runs out in late spring 2020. I renewed GS as the path of least resistance this year since they offered a very low price. But I prefer CN or maybe Escapee.

Any coyote taking on our 50 lb Aussie (who are bred to take on coyotes) or our 60 pound Border Collie (likewise) are welcome to try.

But I see your point but as I pointed out I'd only use that fence when we were present outside. I have means to strongly discourage any critters smaller than Moose or Bear size anyway.

1 hour ago, LindaH said:

Could you explain, please?  I've heard nothing about CoachNet going out of business.

Last time I looked you could not buy Coachnet independently you had to join some club, was it FMCA? That was five years ago or so. Maybe they reverted but I haven't seen one of their tables at RV shows like you could before the change.

OK as I understand it all of these ERS services work exactly the same. They contract out to local tow services. Selecting enough to get complete national service coverage. In their opinion. I'm fairly sure they put it out to bid and select the low bidder in each service area. How else could they do it, it's obviously cost prohibitive to send out an army of tow truck evaluators to cover the whole country.

The only way I can see that one service can distinguish itself from the pack is to shrink the service areas and contract out to more locals. And maybe they could be ready to pull the plug on a local with complaints, quicker than the other ERS operators. But otherwise how can one be different than others.

Of course they can offer different levels of service, longer tow distances, cover all the families vehicles or not. But in the basic service they are all the same. Good local the ERS gets praise, bad local the ERS gets the blame.

I saw this after I bought a fiver from GS, they gave me a year of GS ERS but I had a year of Coachnet already so we were double covered. Out on an interstate in Arkansas that summer we got a flat. I called GS ERS, realty irritaing trying to tell the phone operator that we were X number of miles from Y exit. She just could not deal with a rural location, and that is one problem we always have with those people.

Wait 90 minutes no help after several calls they tell use sorry we do NOT HAVE a tow truck operator near there!! Called Coachnet some guy in a pickup with a generator and air pump in back shows up and changes the tire within 30 minutes.

GS went with thin coverage, Coachnet did not. I got back and complained bitterly on RV.NET and I have to give that to GS, they have people monitoring that site and I got a private reply giving me Another unwanted year of GS ERS. And a public apology form some GS Veep. I wish I could stick with Coachnet but they vanished from availability.

I'm about to order a Visible Moto G7 power and if anyone has a referral I can use I understand they get $20. I'm going to order one tonight so send me a private message by 9:30 PM EDT. First timestamp gets the worm. Don't bother after that it will be too late.

Of topic sort of, but might be of interest to people who are interested in dark sky sites. Chiefland Florida has sites near it that my telescope owning friends tell me is a dark sky site. They were selling lots for awhile there. Maybe just as dark a sky as you can get in Florida but I know they were having an annual week long gathering there of folks with scopes.

Chiefland Astronomy Village

I'm just tossing this out since a lot of people end up down here and probably never think to check for a site like that here.

If only, that dog can and has cleared a 4 foot fence without even touching it. I had to install 6 foot fencing around my back yard dog yard. He is also a wanderer and wants to take off.

Actually I should have been clearer. I was mainly thinking about boondocking sites. I can see that there is just not enough room to do something like that at almost all regular campgrounds.

I was wondering if you could use one of these on the road camping. Set up a near boundary, 50 ft or so around the camper. Assuming there is that much room. It would allow you to let the dogs run free inside that. I wouldn't trust them out there alone tho, a jack rabbit would be a powerful attractor.

My problem is my aussie's fur is so thick these haven't worked well for me but I could clip the hair around his neck which might make it work better.

How could Winegard know without taking measurements of your roof?

I won't have any problem finding places to go. Right now I'm looking at Flaming Gorge, we have wanted to boondock there for a couple years and this is our chance. And maybe three days or so in the Cheyenne/Laramie area. Looks like a lot to do around there. We generally avoid urban areas so Nashville is some place to get thru as fast as possible...heh.

What's better then? With as good a plan. We aren't major data users at the present time but who knows what will happen with the taps open instead of the CG Wifi.

We stayed at Shadow Mountain for 3 days over the 4TH of July weekend this summer. I worried a little bit about the rutted access road since it was raining every day, but it dried out a little the last day which was dry. I thought it was a fantastic site. We were at site 15 on the lower section and I hear there are more in an upper section but one look at the steep rutted road told me I'd have to drop the TT to explore ahead. But we didn't need to.

The Ranger at the visitor center in Jackson also gave us a map of of some more boondocking sites to the north near some dude ranch, I don't recall the name but it is east of that cabin site off the road.

Further north there is Grassy Lake road with lots of sites in between Tetons and YNP

I'm about to buy the TOGO antenna and AT&T package late next week. Anyone got any reasons why I shouldn't? All the reviews seem to be very positive.

Kirk you sure changed our plans for this summer, from Colorado and Utah boondocking to a run up to Wyoming then across to the Sawtooths and then into Oregon with a dip into the Peoples Republic for Lassen and then up to the Cascades. Heh

Trying to figure out where to kill a week before the Escapade.

Got a tiny no name popup back in the late 1980's followed by 2 more Viking popups each a little bigger, that followed by a Trailmanor which is a giant super popup in a way.

Driver was killed supposedly warning others: RV Travel Newsletter

Rather disturbing clip.

That's true, I'll have to re-think this.

Plus most would want to pay with insurance and I don't that will fly w/o a physician involved. And I understand the insurance paper work is a big deal with doctor offices have one or more specialists dealing with it.

Not a fulltimer yet but I am a FL Resident and I don't see why Florida cares where you store your stuff. You didn't mention voter registration tho. The only thing that county cares about is your tag registration fees, insurance, and your drivers license. They don't even care if you use a mail forwarding service for the address.

There is a recent thread on FL domicile that you may want to read.

WE plan to be in that class tho late joiners. My wife can retire and qualify for early SS in September 20 but we will hit the road in late May.

We live in north Florida, and have done extensive camping. I think we started in the 1980's tho I had done quite a bit before I got married. We started tent camping with a trip up to the Wind River's, YNP and Craters of the Moon. I don't actually recall everywhere we stopped on that trip.

Over the years we worked our way thru the towable inventory: several popups, a hybrid Trailmanor, a 35 ft fiver and our latest AF 25Y TT. We visited all 48 states with the kids over the years as my seniority and thus my vacation time grew.

The kids have all ejected and I retired and so we downsized to our Arctic Fox TT and are very happy with it. We did almost 9000 miles in it this summer. And except for some stupid mistakes on my part and some minor problems in the RV it was a successful trip.

Right now I'm working on a todo list for the AF including getting the 400W of solar hooked up and running. We did some boondocking this summer and want to do a lot more. Plus we are interested in workcamping intermixed with traveling.

I'd like to go to the National but it is very far off and the timing is bad since we can't leave here until Memorial day so I think we'll have to wait this one out. We do plan to do some of the eastern Boondocker BOF meetings this winter which are just about in our backyard. I looked at the GA chapter meeting but the agenda does not appeal so that one is problematic.

Our travel will have to be mixed with returns to the home area so my wife can get her hit of grandkid time. Most likely around the holidays for sure. That would be a great time to workcamp at one of the local state parks but I understand they are flooded with volunteers starting around that time since the snowbirds are flying south.

Looking forward to meeting some or a lot of you.

On 10/7/2019 at 12:08 AM, 2gypsies said:

I totally agree with Orvil.  Xscapers will use Facebook rather than an online forum.  The younger generation is totally different with communication than when we were that age.  They also are not into volunteering as much and do different, more active activities. They're not into clubhouse activities of coffees and games.  They are also workers from their RVs.  They have found their own niche and that's good.

Maybe but FB is an overwhelmingly female affair while, altho I have no data, I suspect that RV forums are the opposite. I am on a number of photography lists and they are dead. But so far as I can tell RV.NET and iRV2 are alive and thriving. I have not been and Escaper long enough to judge these forums but they seem to be healthy.

One of our favorite spots in New Mexico, the Catwalk National Trail is repaired and back in operation. This is a actual metal Catwalk built along the side of a canyon wall off Hwy US 180 about 60 miles north of Silver Springs. The walk is easy and leads you thru a cool narrow canyon up to an area of pools in the river, or actually more like a creek, with short falls. Good for a dip. We had visited several times and were planing another when the news reached use that flash floods in 2013 washed the catwalk away. I decided to check it's status tonight to find it has been rebuilt (for the third time) and has reopened.

Catwalk NFS site

Going north from Silver City or Deming? I urge you to check this place out. It's a short trip maybe an hour or two depending on whether you take a swim.

Bolt cutter works just fine on either the metal swagged on ferrules or the lock on a cable. Tho I have one of those locks which shows minimal shank metal.