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Tire Replacement Day
Des Moines, IA, October 2025 On Thursday, John worked to do some repairs on the trailer. The tire blowout had ripped two pieces of fender skirt off and damaged the weather coating underneath. The front fender skirt piece was never found; it might have disintegrated. The middle piece was found, but it was damaged. The…
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On the Road, Life is Seldom Boring, But …
Des Moines, IA, October 2025 … sometimes it is inconvenient or terrifying. About an hour north of Prairie Flower Campground, John was about to contact Kate to stop at the exit a few miles ahead. He glanced at the side mirror, heard a pop, saw a blast of compressed air jet from the side of…
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Time to Make the Donuts!
Sparta, WI, August 2025 Time to buy the donuts would be closer, but they are tires, not donuts. A diet does strange things to your mind… mmmm, glazed all weather radials… Some of the pictures are not perfectly focused, but they are good enough to see what is going on. If you were not aware,…
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Repairing Foil-Backed Foam Board
Okmulgee, OK Do you have damaged foil-backed foam board insulation in your house? If so, why did you leave it uncovered instead of finishing your construction? Never mind; no one wants to hear your excuses. If you do have exposed foil-backed foam board insulation with damage, here is an interesting trick to help address the…
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Making Christmas (Trees)
Beggs, OK So, what do you do for a Christmas tree when your combined living room, kitchen, and dining room is about 13’x12′. You might think, “Oh, you buy a small tree and store it for the year!”. Except, we do not have enough storage space. “Oh, you buy a small tree, and throw it…
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Insert the Anode into the A Slot
Some RV water heaters are made of aluminum and do not require a sacrificial anode rod. Our water heater is not that type. If you read the periodic maintenance activities, you would know that we plan to check the water heater anode rod about every three months. They are normally expected to last around five…
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Safe Towing Weights
Overview Assuming ignorance before malice, sometimes sales people are just ignorant of towing requirements. That being the case, there is no excuse for you to be ignorant too. There is plenty of information available on safe towing and towing weight limits. This guide is biased towards 5th wheel towing. You may need to do a…
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RV Setup Checklist
These are the roughly ordered tasks for setting up the RV upon arrival at a new campsite. This list will change over time as omitted activities are added or a better process is identified. Some of these tasks continue the day after (e.g., setting up personal and hobby stuff). Some of these tasks happen in…
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Periodic Maintenance Activities
Daily Weekly Bi-Weekly Monthly Quarterly Semi-Annually Annually
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RV Best Practices 20240930
Today’s best practice tips are: This happened Monday morning while packing up to leave for the next site. We left 3.5 hours late due to repairing the damage. Nothing additional appears to have been damaged. It looks like our trailer should be rocking in the waves. The seas are too rough. And here is our…