LindaH

All I will say is, if the government does shut down, I hope the national parks ARE closed in order to avoid the problems they had last time (which wasn't just limited to Joshua Tree, although that seemed to get the most coverage).

I just tried this again this morning and found that the URL for the spot beam maps already have "retired" in it, but the maps don't show up.

When we were there, we stayed at the campground in the Monument. I've read about a lot of people staying at Goulding's Resort RV & Campground in Utah. There's also the Monument Valley KOA in Utah.

We've never made a deposit on an RV -- or any vehicle -- until such time as we actually purchased it. There's absolutely no reason the dealer needs a deposit before they run your credit. Sounds like a scam to me.

Ford makes a very comprehensive towing guide for each year. You can find the guides for 2003 through 2018 here: https://www.fleet.ford.com/towing-guides/ Spend some time looking at the conventional tow/payload ratings for the various configurations. Soon, you'll get an idea of which truck you should be looking for.

You're used to traveling solo, right? Then a trip to Alaska will be no different than traveling solo to other places. As 2gypsies said, it's not a difficult trip, it's just long. The two books 2gypsies mentioned: https://www.themilepost.com/ http://www.rollinghomes.com/alaska%20book.htm Both of these books can be bought on Amazon. The best time from to start depends on how long you plan for the trip. The last time we went to Alaska, we crossed over the border at the end of May and didn't return to the lower 48 until the first part of September. We spent most of the time boondocking, but between the two books mentioned above, you'll find lots of campgrounds/RV parks. If you are an Escapee, I highly recommend paying the nominal fee for the Day's End Directory which has lots of listings for free or inexpensive places to park throughout Canada and Alaska. https://daysenddirectory.com/#/ Don't be in a hurry...for one thing, there are places along the road where you're going to have to go slow (the aforementioned frost heaves and road construction) and you're going to want to stop and see stuff along the way. Take some time to go through both the Milepost and Mike & Terri's books finding out what's along the road and stuff you might want to stop and see. We rarely drove more than about 150 miles in a day and often a lot less...it took us nearly a month to traverse through Canada before getting to Tok.

Thanks! They should put this link on the Kindle Unlimited page!

Great! I've read some of his books, but not all...I'll have to look for them! Thanks for the info on Kindle Unlimited. I still haven't found any information on Amazon's site as to exactly how it works, but maybe I'm just not using the right search terms...it's certainly not on the KU page that I saw. I can live with the 10-book limit.

I've tried to find the answer to this on Amazon's site, but haven't been successful. Amazon is having a special this month where you can sign up for Kindle Unlimited free for 3 months. Thereafter, it's $9.99 per month. My question is -- are these books not the complete book (abridged) or do you get to read them for just a limited amount of time and then they disappear from your Kindle? The reason I ask is when you select a Kindle Unlimited book, you have the choice of buying the book for $x.xx. That leads me to believe there's a catch that's not clearly laid out on Amazon's site. I mean, why buy the book if you can get it for free? Anyone with experience with this?

Thanks, Jack! From just a quick perusal of the document, it looks like I have a lot of the stuff assembled already, but there were a couple of things I hadn't thought of, so I emailed the document to myself to explore in depth later.

Thanks for all the ideas, folks. My main purpose for a BOB is if we have to leave the house or the RV in case of emergency -- like a fire. I'm not really looking at an "end of the world as we know it" scenario.

I know this subject has been discussed here before, but I wasn't able to find it on a search. I'm in the process of gathering all the information needed for a bug out bag. I've scanned items like driver's licenses, credit cards, passports, etc. to a thumb drive. Haven't yet done so, but will be scanning items like the titles for our car and house, marriage certificate, etc. We'll also be making extra keys to our house, car, and RV to keep in the bag. For those of you with bug out bags, 1) Do you keep the original documents in your bag, or only scanned copies on a thumb drive? 2) If you keep original documents in your bag, what do you put them in so that they don't get wet, crumpled, etc.? 3) What type of bag do you use? I've seen all types of bug out bags (mostly the backpack type) that come with a lot of things, most of which wouldn't be relevant to us.

Have you looked at the Desert Fox made by Northwood (Arctic Fox, Nash)? They have a couple that are under 30'. Their longest is 32'. https://northwoodmfg.com/toy-haulers/desert-fox/

Looks like BulletSaloon edited their original post and replaced it with the shorter question.

We had the JT Strongarm stabilizers installed on a fifth wheel we had. They did a very good job of stabilizing the rig, even when the washing machine was in the spin cycle.

Hmmm...the OP has not visited here since s/he posted on June 7.

As Barb said, you can register your vehicles by MAIL. No need to even go to Texas.

No, I have no interest in an ERPU site. I was just curious as to why Dream Catcher is no longer listed as having ERPU sites since I know they used to have them.

Look for a Class C with sleeping arrangements over the cab and a dedicated bed in the back for both of the adult couples (you'll have to flip a coin to determine which couple gets which sleeping space ). The girls can sleep on the dinette which converts into a bed.

There's an android version, too.

The Rainbow Park in Deming, NM used to have ERPU sites. Do you know why they no longer do?

They do. It's called the Boomers. (Although you don't *have* to be over 55 -- but most are -- and you don't *have* to be fulltimers -- but probably the majority are.)

We usually boondock, but occasionally stay in an RV park. Whether or not we make reservations depends on the circumstances. When traveling from one place to another, we normally don't...we just pull in early in the day (by 2 or 3). But there are times when we do make reservations. For example, we had a wedding to attend in Oregon south of Portland this spring and we did make reservations at an RV park because there was really no place to boondock for 4-5 days in the area. We also are attending a high school graduation in Tacoma and we made advance reservations there, too, because again, there's no place to boondock for several days in the area.

Each year there is a discussion on traveling to Alaska in the Travel forum. Here is this year's discussion: Alaska 2019 You can search in the Travel forum for other years' discussions by search for "Alaska 20xx."

No way would I ever rent out our RV!