Kirk W

1 hour ago, Chalkie said:

While I am not totally sure about that I think that with the Purple Heart and Disabled Veterans Equal Access Act of 2018 that will have changed.

I got the list of who is allowed use of Camp Carlson from their website.

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We serve all Active-duty military, retired military, National Guard, Reserves, DoD Civilians and their Families.

As of last year they still would not allow holders of this ID card.

That is the card issued to those who have been enrolled in the VA healthcare but are neither retired or disabled. There is a newer one now that also doesn't work.

One thing that I don't believe was mentioned is that if you join the Escapee RV Club and are assigned an SKP number and then drop out, you will keep that same number if you later rejoin but you would need to let them know of your previous membership and if possible what your number was. The software that they use isn't the best at avoiding duplicate member numbers so even if you have not been an active member for years, let them know what your member number was. We have active members on these forums who have not been current for more than 20 years but even those numbers could be reactivated if the owner chose to do so. 

Has anyone here ever seen these or know anything about the company? 

We will do all that we can to help. I suggest that you begin by reading the article, The Issues of Domicile to help understand what is important. If you are a member of Escapees RV Club you can use their South Dakota Services and if you are not you might want to consider becoming a member. As to other questions, if you are more specific about what you are asking I am sure someone here can help.

The only military RV park that I know anything current about is the one at Ft. Knox, KY.  Camp Carlson Army Recreational Area is on the base but not inside of the gates and is next to US60 as it crosses the less developed area. They are open to Active-duty military, retired military, National Guard, Reserves, DoD Civilians, but not to ordinary veterans who didn't stay to retire, even with a VA medical ID. We have stayed there many times as guests of our son who was stationed there and has since retired there. It is a very nice park, quiet and attractive. It is located about 10 miles from the business section of Radcliff, KY and probably 5 miles from the main gate of Ft. Knox. 

Dutch has it right. Let us know if you get it. 

6 hours ago, Tulecreeper said:

are there ever any actual discussions between military veterans, retirees, or Active Duty on here?

There used to be but not so much anymore and the veterans who served but didn't stay to retire have not always felt welcomed. And the share of the membership that are veterans is declining just as is true of the country's population. 

5 hours ago, Tulecreeper said:

Otherwise why have a special forum for them?

5 hours ago, RV_ said:

The SKPs forums were a lot more active back then.

There was a time that all parts of the forums  were far more active but that is true of most RV forums. With the Escapees RV Club the average age kept going up, even though the membership was still growing larger, but the rate of growth was slowing. The club began with a group of traveling working folks, mostly in construction and following the jobs, back in 1977. At first it was only a mimeographed newsletter. As the group got larger and families left home the members began to look for places to congregate between trips and so the Petersons raised the money to get the first co-op park started and it eventually lead to what we see today. When Travis left the Army and joined the club management he was assigned the job of finding a way to attract the younger, still working RV folks and in that effort he created Xscapers, now the most rapidly increasing part of the club. But few of them join the forum for several reasons. (My son is military retired and a still working SKP, yet he rarely visits this forum.) They tend to be more active on other forms of social media and dominate the Escapee Facebook pages, which you must be a club member to join. Another reason I believe is that the vast majority of members here are parents of the Xscapers or old enough to be. There is also a growing number of younger members who travel with children, as the Peterson's wee when the club began. Today there are probably less than half the number of RV related internet forums and most of those have lower participation than in the past. I hate to see it happening but I assume that it is just a sign of the times. Most veteran's organizations like the VFW, American Legion, and DAV are also seeing declining numbers with few of the younger vets joining. As far as vets discussing the military RV parks, remember that veterans who didn't stay in to retire are not allowed to use them so only the retired vets are able to join in. Also more and more of those who are retired military members of these forums are getting to the age where we no longer are fulltime and some are not RVing at all. 

I must admit that there are times we wonder just how much longer this forum will survive and when/if it will become a part of the RV history, as many others already have. 

The story actually comes from the publication The Hill.

These are America’s deadliest national parks: data

Despite the proximity to wildlife and overall freedom to traverse sometimes dangerous terrains, the leading cause of death – with the exception of fatalities deemed “undetermined” – was motor vehicle crashes, which accounted for 415 deaths over eight years. Following crashes were drownings (402) and medical-related deaths (385).

It seems to me that the information points up just how safe the national parks are, in spite of the stupidity of some visitors.

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Parks with Highest Number of Fatalities

For 2014-2021

MISSING: summary MISSING: current-rows.

National Park	Total Deaths	Leading Cause of Death (Total)
Lake Mead National Recreation Area	145	Drowning (47)
Grand Canyon National Park	97	Medical (48)
Yosemite National Park	94	Medical (33)
Great Smoky Mountains National Park	80	Motor Vehicle Crash (29)
Natchez Trace Parkway	74	Motor Vehicle Crash (62)

9 minutes ago, txbobcat said:

Some of my friends have indicated to me that RVers  from Texas are being harassed by checking drivers license , weighing RVs against their indicated weight on the Mfg label, and if over weight requiring them to unload their RV to get to the indicated weight before they can move. 

I think that your friends are trying to scare you and succeeding. I have traveled through CA with my TX license plates frequently for years and even spent a few winters there and never once had any issues or even got stopped by an LEO. 

1 hour ago, superyooper said:

Reason was not enough improvement for the money spent.

That is a very subjective thing. A big thing to consider is how long and how many miles do you expect to keep it? For the complete performance package you are probably looking at $2000+ and the cost of getting it installed. For just over $300 you could get the Trans Command which will improve transmission performance. I had the entire package that includes the ram air, exhaust system and the TransCommand back in 1999 for about $2400, installed by the selling dealer. The RV was less than 1 year old at the time and we kept it for a total of 14 years so my amortization was less than $200 per year. A lot of early V10's had exhaust manifold problems and the headers removed that issue so that was a consideration for me but I also planned at the time to use the RV for at least 10 more years. 

If you were to get the Banks, would you be paying your mechanic to install it? I suspect that if you were to speak to a shop that sells and installs the Banks products you might hear a very different opinion.

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California's Tenant Protection Act of 2019 is a state law which provides residential renters with Rent Control and Just Cause for Eviction protections if their city or county did not provide such rights already.

For the Tenant Protection Act to apply however, all tenants must have lived in the unit for at least twelve months, or the tenant who has lived there the longest must have lived in the unit for at least twenty-four months.

That depends more on you and your needs than anything else. At one time I was able to live quite well for as much as a week from what I could carry with me in a backpack. Today I need much more and when we lived in the RV fulltime, that required even more to be comfortable and happy.

35 minutes ago, GlennWest said:

Think I will stick with what I have. Little Smart cheap to operate.

Me too. We just got 42.6 mpg on a trip from Mesquite to Galveston and back with no stops to recharge/refuel on the way down and one half way back. We drove about 450 miles before buying another 10 gallons. It the entire trip I didn't see any charging stations at places that we stopped. There may have been some in truck stops that we drove past. 

1 hour ago, SuzieQ said:

The East of the USA and particularly the south east, would be a perfect starting place for us

I suggest that you take a close look at Texas before you choose with Florida as your other alternative if being east is important. Very few states allow you to use a mail service as the address to register a vehicle, but both of them do so. In most states your are required to have physical address of an apartment or house for vehicle registration. Also it is important to understand that in the USA, many such things are controlled by the state government and so laws vary from one to the next. Individual states have much more control here than in most countries. 

37 minutes ago, RV_ said:

However, "There are 33 Charging Stations in Huntsville."

Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census.

21 minutes ago, sandsys said:

Linda

Bruce still frequents the forums.

With any luck, Bruce T will reply as he lives in Gold Coast and kept an RV in the USA for many years. 

46 minutes ago, Tulecreeper said:

That is for a 401k; a 457 allows withdrawals at anytime after age 55, retired, or not...earlier if you are fully retired. 

A 457 plan is a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan offered to employees of many state and local governments and some nonprofit organizations. A 403(b) plan (tax-sheltered annuity plan or TSA) is a retirement plan offered by public schools and certain charities. A TSP closely resembles a 401(k) plan offered by private employers but is for employees of the federal government.

It isn't simple here either, but with fewer plans to deal with it is probably less complex than yours. You can receive Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62. However, we'll reduce your benefit if you start receiving benefits before your full retirement age. For example, if you turn age 62 in 2023, your benefit would be about 30% lower than it would be at your full retirement age of 67. The IRS allows penalty-free withdrawals from retirement accounts after age 59½ and requires withdrawals after age 72. These are called required minimum distributions (RMD). We also have healthcare called Medicare starting at age 65 but it only pays 80% so most of us also purchase an insurance supplement. For the indigent there is also Medicaid that will help if you run out of funds but those rules vary to some degree by state of residence because it is a mostly federally funded program that is administered by the states. 

13 hours ago, brooksrimes said:

What is the asking price?

IVECHOSEN has not been back since he made the post, nearly 2 years ago. 

Do you mind sharing the reason for selling it so soon? I did see on Facebook that the price is $105,000. It might also be a good thing to post some means of contacting you.

9 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

Wonder where NASA got the idea?

Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon

Do you plan to become US citizens? That is a significant part of the domicile related issues. Also, is your husband's employer in Canada or the US? Do start by talking to your husband's employer and to a representative of his health insurance carrier. You will also need to consider insurance for your vehicles. The health insurance that you have will dictate most of the answers to your questions about medical services.

17 hours ago, RV Newbies said:

2. Do you find that this membership is worth the perks? Do you use the RV park discounts and group meet ups? We are a family of 7: 5 kids under 10. We'd like to be as social as we can with the kids.

The fact that I am a Life Member of Escapees should imply that we did find the membership worth the price but, like any membership the key to it's value is how much you will use it. We used the Escapees mail service out of TX for our domicile and mail service, we did spend time in many of the Escapee RV parks, we have attended many Escapee events and during the 12 years that we were fulltime, the vast majority of our social contacts had some connection to our being members of the RV club. Since you are a younger family, I suggest that you take a look at the Xscapers group of the Escapees RV club as it is oriented to the younger, still working members. 

49 minutes ago, Randyretired said:

We purchased a long term policy each in the 80's.  It only pays $65 a day for one year. 

Wow! We got ours in the mid 90's. All of the policies that we looked at also had a riser clause that the amount per day would increase over time. Is yours one that is paid up or do you still pay a monthly premium?

18 minutes ago, 2gypsies said:

If you don't need serious care as you age it's a lot cheaper and more pleasant to stay in your home and have  caregiver agency come in to care for you for a few to 8 hr./day.

True and some policies will pay for that as well. But the complete care or memory care are much more costly and for a couple to get help they must spend down most of their assets before Medicaid will help.

We also had a limp home mode but I never experienced it and I can't remember what it was or why.    What Is the Ford Limp Mode?