Benefits of Attending RV Rallies

Shared ideas

Onsite RV service

Local resources

Using skills

Make community connections at an RV rally

INTRO

It is time to hammer out the RV, to-do list, and fix everything that is not working or broken. This is Eric Stark with TheSmartRVer Podcast, delivering the smarts you need to enjoy the freedom of the RV lifestyle without the fear of breaking down. So, we got a great show plan today. We're going to talk about several different things, and Alexis is with us to help us along the way.

LIVING THE RV LIFESTYLE

Hello? Living the RV life and the next stop, chime in wherever she wants or laugh. All right, perfect. So, let's get into it now. Living the RV life. So, we're going to talk about RV rallies and making your RV life fun. That almost doesn't seem like that would work with an RV rally, but I get it. Rally seemed like they could be a lot of work, so, mm-hmm. What made you pick RV rallies?

Alexis- Well, for one, I just think as an RVer, or even if you're not full-time, having that network of other people who do the same thing is such a cool idea because you go to these things and you may not, you know, be all up to speed on stuff. But then you meet these awesome people that have been doing this for a while and you learn all these new things, you know.

Eric- And then, it makes you want to RV even more. It grows your love for that. So, I think it's such a cool, cool thing that happens. Yeah, I can get you inspired. I mean, there's new RVs, people selling goods and stuff, so that can. And a lot of these places are RV rallies. There are new products that are being shown. Yeah. So, you might be the first one to see it. You know, one of the first ones. Mm-hmm. So that's cool. And I think you’ve read in your notes here, it's just a hotbed of new ideas, you know?

Alexis- Yep, exactly. And really, that's what it is. It's sometimes just taking your RV and getting ideas and kind of refreshing it, you know?

Eric- Yeah, exactly. As I mentioned in our last episode about the. Kind of refresh your RV with that. Yeah. That's cool. And then they also have onsite services there too, which is super cool. Yeah. So, if you, um, let's say you buy or you want to have, like there's someone selling awning fabrics. You can get awning fabric installed in a lot of cases or jacks or whatever. Yeah. Or some sort of upgrade, you know. Right. Put something on there. Or sometimes they're just there doing repairs, so you should, they rally, and you want something fixed, or your water heater breaks while you're there. They can take care of it in a lot of cases.

Alexis- Just don't have them. Fix your awning. That's what we're for. And slide out. That's right. Come to Montana. That's right. I'll give you the Come to Montana rally special. Yeah. So, rallies are cool. I've been to several and you know, they're, uh, they're nice. They're, they're busy, but mm-hmm. You know, there's a lot to do there.

Eric- And you want to take advantage of all of it. If there are talks, almost giving, you know, um, talks on certain things, you want to listen to that. Yeah, definitely. Check out all the goods that are being sold and a lot of rallies. Yeah. Walk up and down the aisles. It's a lot of the same garbage that you see at the last one as sunglasses and sure. Yeah. You know, cheap things and there's always one gimmick there that everybody's buying a bunch of, you know, it's like two for the price of one, and it's like the thing everyone feels they must have, and yep. That's okay. Yeah, I know. Whatever works. Have fun with it. So, on our website, we'll have a list of some of the rallies, uh, I shouldn't say rallies, but um, clubs and organizations that have rallies.

Right. So, you can check that out. And there's always a place on the internet to find a list of these things too. Mm-hmm. But we'll have it on, um, our website under RV Life. So, there'll be a list of, uh, you know, escapees, Escapers FM, all the normal ones. Mm-hmm. Ones you're familiar with. FMCA is probably the biggest rally out there.

Yep. Yep. Escapees have cool rallies too. Oh yeah. So, check that out on the website. Always good information there. Like I said, you could, uh, search it on the internet as well for probably a more expansive list, but our list is pretty good. Mm-hmm. All right, so now we're coming to stay on the road.

STAYING ON THE ROAD

So, this is the section everybody in the whole wide world is waiting for every two weeks. What Eric? Gotta says, can't even talk. I got to say it. All right. So, it's time to hammer out the RV to-do list. So, fix it. Everything is not working or broken on the RV. You know, for some that might seem like an impossible task for others, it's like, oh, I only got one thing to do.

Others might not even know. So how many items are on your current to-do list? Huh? Do you even have one? But if you had one, would it be 3, 4, 5 items or more? So, the longer the list grows, the more items that get added to it, the harder it is to finish. And financially it could become a burden too, but it becomes harder to do because there are more things.

So, does that sound familiar? Where did you get this list, and you just keep adding to it? It's like, oh man, this is one daunting task. So now you must put off other things to take care of the list. Um, if you don't, those things just keep multiplying more and more and more, and the longer it takes to get to them, then those first things added to the list are now getting neglected even that much longer.

And in some cases, depending on what it is, the problems might get worse. And even harder to take care of, like let's say a water leak. If you take it off, put it off, put it off, you know, the leak could get worse, worse, worse, causing some dry rot behind the scenes and you go to fix it. And something that was very simple now turned into something much.

Much larger be a disaster. That's right. And water leaks are one of those things. Sometimes it seems so small and insignificant, but later it was like, wow, I went from a $40 repair to a $4,000 repair. Yikes. Because you put it off, or maybe you don't have a to-do list, you know, and everything's just all locked up tight in your head.

You got it there. There's my to-do list. Yeah. That might work for some people, but it doesn't work for everyone. You know, some people have great memories. They can just mentally check it in, check it out, whatever. No problem. But others need a physical list. And a physical list is probably better because an RV is not something you're working on every day.

You might schedule time once a month for it, something like that, every two weeks. But it's becoming that time of year when things need to get done if you haven't already done it, updated your list, and cleared all that stuff off. So, we're going to assume that you haven't done anything in a while. You've put it off just getting that list out and getting, working on it.

See, that makes me feel productive, just talking about mm-hmm. Gotta accomplished something. Yeah. And really, I haven't, but so to-do list is always good. And sometimes you must have one for different things. So, you know, one for your RV, one for your car, one for your house, whatever it might be. Or have it all combined into one, whatever, how you want to do it but keep a list going.

So, one thing that comes to mind when it involves RV maintenance is getting water leaks or potential water leaks taken care of, which I just talked about a little bit. Getting them done early on and not procrastinating is good. As I said, a $40 repair could turn into a $4,000 repair. So, the potential for disaster is there.

Mm-hmm. And because it can cause damage to the frame of the RV, you know the wood, you don't want dry rot, you don't want a ceiling panel ruined. Even wall panels get ruined. It is not as common, but they do. So even a little leak can ruin a vacation. You know, if it's left unchecked, yeah, maybe it's something underneath the sink, you've just ignored it because it seems so small and you've just kind of got used to it being there and then you kind of forgot about it and next thing you know, it's gotten bigger.

Or maybe finally it just, let’s go. You're out on a trip and it ruins a vacation. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, it starts rotting out the floor. Someone steps right through the floor next to the kitchen sink. Those things happen. So, we want to fix the water leaks as soon as possible. Mm-hmm. Now, some items on the to-do list can be so easy to postpone because they seem so small.

It's like such a small thing. Who even cares about this? Well, how often will you struggle with, let's say, the compartment door that won't stay up because the door holder is broken? Yeah. You know, you don't want to replace the door holder, so you know you're holding up that door with one hand and you're trying to get stuff in the other side, or you get a broom and prop it up next to it or, or something like that.

And you're just thinking, I'll repair it later. You know, I'll just do this another time. And yeah. Well, that time never comes. You just keep saying it, you know. Or maybe the awning doesn't extend properly because the fabric is torn. And you know, when the fabric's torn at a certain point, the awning won't roll out.

Right. It won't roll in. Right. So, you just keep ignoring it, and that tear just gets worse and worse. And now, now you're just dealing with a disaster and you're tr you're out on a trip trying to, you know, make the awning work. It won't. So, you're trying to bring it in. Now you're struggling with that. So, it is not very much fun, it is just going to create more problems.

So, your family's going to be looking at you like, come on dad, what the heck is your problem? Do you know? So sometimes we create more problems just by avoiding what's already there. Mm-hmm. So, we don't want to avoid it. So, a few episodes go. I talked about the building maintenance routine. You know, getting a nice routine going where you mark out time once a month to work on your RV.

Do that checklist. If you did that, if you took that advice and your to-do list is probably always empty or close to being empty, there's nothing on it. But if you haven't done that, then you might have some work to do. Mm-hmm. Hopefully, you don't have any work to do. You've got it all caught up. But if you do well, you need to get on it.

Take care of it. One of the reasons I bring this up is so that you can get, also, get more familiar with your RV, you know, by working on it, touching it, checking it out. You get familiar with it. You, you learn what's there. You learn it well; you don't forget about things. And I've brought this up in the past, you know, it's, it's an important thing and that's why I bring it up.

You usually will find more problems when you're engaged with your RV maintenance. You know, if you're not really paying attention to your RV, you might see some problems, but you're not going to really notice all the problems. But when you're out there working on your RV and maintaining it, yeah, we could call that pride in ownership.

You're going to catch the problems. So, if I'm working on an RV here at Highway 93 RV, Let's say I'm installing a micro air soft start, which by the way, micro, soft start's just absolutely rock, you know, for starting the air conditioners. Okay? Anyways, so if I'm up on the roof and the first thing I might notice is the AC shroud is cracked because I'm going to be taking that off to install, the micro air, right?

So, it needs to be replaced. Now if that catches my eye, I'm, you know, I'm going to do this no matter what, but I'm going to scan the roof for any other obvious things that are wrong. It's not my RV and we're not in the game of just trying to sell people new parts, but we're going to look for stuff to help our customers determine if they want us to do it.

If they want, if they can do it. But let them know if there are broken vents. Yeah. Vent lids, um, plumbing vents, whatever it might be. So, they have a clue. Mm-hmm. Maybe the roof's just in shambles and it needs to be redone. Yeah. They need to know that. So do the same thing, and I hope that makes sense to you, that when you're doing one thing, kind of check out other things in the same area or the same category.

So, as I said, we're not always trying to sell customers more work. We're just letting them know what their current problems are and what some future problems can be, and how to resolve them. It'd be the same if we're packing, uh, repacking wheel bearings. They need brakes. We're going to let them know we look at tires every time a trailer comes in because most of them need tires, whether they do it or not, it's a different story, but they need them.

Yeah, so the principle holds true when doing any work on your RV. If a clearance light isn't working, why not check all the exterior lights, and make sure they're all working? You're already out. You got a ladder going, you know, just check them all out. Yeah, see what's happening. You know, look for bad bulbs, cracked lenses.

The light bases could be deteriorating, and the lens won't stay on. Mm-hmm. Maybe, the lens or the base of the clearance lights have been up, you know, it's an older RV and the, the sealant is not there anymore. It's not doing a job. You can see that water's getting in. Or maybe it's just time to reseal them.

Period. Yeah. You know those, that seal doesn't last forever. You know, it's butyl tape or putty tape, right? With some silicone or some sort of sealant across the top doesn't last forever. So maybe it's just time to redo them. Then you're all done with that. You know, it might take a day or several hours, but at least you get it done.

All your clearance lights work, everything's good. Yeah, exactly. There's nothing worse than fighting lights out on the highway. You know when on cab ground you get there, and your lights aren't working, and trying to figure it out. You know, don't let it ruin your day. Right. Yeah. You know, generally, when you travel, you don't have the same tools that you have when you're at home.

Right. You know unless you're a full-timer. But generally, you have fewer tools. It's harder to do things. And you're not inclined, you're on vacation. Exactly. You know, I don't go on vacation to work on my RV That's right. You know, hopefully, it's like going tent camping and. Sewing up your tent while you're out.

Look at all these tears. I better sew them up. No. So if you keep track of the problems or potential problems, you're probably going to find other repairs that need to be done, and then you'll also continue to add to your RV knowledge base. And that's important. The more things you do, the more you learn about your RV and RVs in general, doesn't mean you're going to become an RV technician.

But it certainly means you can help your friends when they need a little, uh, a hand taking care of their RV. Or if you're in a park, you know, and something goes wrong with someone's RV that you're next to them, maybe you can help them out or maybe they ask for your help, and you can give them some intelligent help.

Yeah. You know, and of course, as I said, you're not trying to be an RV technician, but you can pick up enough stuff sometimes to be as good as an RV technician because not all this stuff is so technical that a professional must do it every time. Yeah. There are some things you leave to the pro and there's a lot of things you need to do yourself.

And that's why we talk about doing it yourself, because you know there are so many things in RV that do it yourself or can do. So, as you work on your RV list, you might find you need a tool that you currently don't own. You know, decide if it's worth buying. Sometimes those specialty tools are not worth buying.

You might use it once every 10 years, you know, it's going to be up to you whether you want to do that. But most RVs require very basic tools. You know, there are very, there are some that are specific RVs, like a square tip, screwdriver be, those aren't used on a whole other, another thing. Um, a few torques had, there's not a lot, but the square tip is probably the most common.

Some awnings used Torques heads. There's, you know, Phillips had a quarter inch, um, Mm. Nut driver, half an inch, seven 16. So those are common sizes, but along with all your regular wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, those types of things, you're probably good on tools. And I say that because you don't need to buy anything more than what you need to carry if you're going to bring it with you.

Yep. And if you're at home and you want to buy a bunch of tools, go right ahead, you know? Mm-hmm. But you don't need to have a lot of special stuff for your RV. You'd be amazed at what technicians really use every day to maintain an RV. You know, it's, it's very limited. Decide if a tool's worth buying or not.

If it’s a one-time deal, you might want not to want to buy it, but then again, you might just so you have it down the road, maybe you feel you'll be able to use it on every RV’s own. You know, I typically will purchase a tool when I need one rather than borrowing or renting. Because I hate borrowing because I hate loaning.

Mm. Yep. You know, you loan a tool, and it seems to never make its way back. Or if it does, it is broken. So yeah. That's why I don't like loaning stuff. I will, but I don't like it. So, I don't borrow stuff either because I don't want to borrow something, and it happens to break why I'm using it. Then I got to buy them a brand new one.

Yeah. Which is what I do. Here you go. So, as I said, most RV repairs just require basic tools. So, the more often you do your own repairs and keep the to-do list under control, maybe not always finished, but under control, the better shape your RV's going to be in, and the problems will become fewer and farther in between.

And so that is making progress. So don't look at the list as an irritant. Look at the problem as the irritant and remove the irritant. All right? So, bang out the list and enjoy the great feeling of being productive. There's nothing better than getting a bunch of stuff done and having that sense of accomplishment.

So, you are the master of your RV. So, if you like what I just said, share this podcast with your friends. If you don't like what I said, share this podcast with your friends. We want you to share it no matter what. And don't forget, we have our YouTube channel as well. If you go to YouTube and you type in the smart RV, it will come up.

NEXT STOP

And there we have helpful videos that fall right into place with just about everything we're talking about with parts, products, and things like that. All right, that brings us to the next stop, and Alexis is going to take us on tour through Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Yes, I am. So, Alexis, I paid my 50 cents. I want my tour.

Alexis- Okay. You got it. Yeah. Speaking of tours. Yeah, they have a lot of guided walking tours. It is such a cool little town. Have you ever Googled it or have you been in the area? No, I haven't. Oh man, it's cool. Um, it's like a step back into history, so if that's kind of neat. So, they've got walking tours.

They also have guided food tours, which I think that's what I would be interested in. Um, and then, uh, two, they've, it is just a lot of food-themed of the Wise Candy and Gourmet shop. So, there's a lot to do, a lot to eat, and a lot to see.

Eric- All right, so in every episode, we talk about food at the next stop. So, if you've never seen us, both of us weigh about 900 pounds each. Yeah. Just kidding. There's something about food and traveling though, that just kind of, yeah. Don't know. Comfort, I guess it's just different types of places to eat, you know, you get to explore different things. Yeah, exactly. Even, you know, like, a hotdog stand will have something different, and you are unique, you know?

Yeah. You never know. Maybe it's just being on vacation. Things taste different. It's true. It's true. All right. Yeah, so the walking tour would probably be cool. Um, I've never been there, but American history is interesting. It is. A lot of things took place. You know, it's, and it's so talked about still today.

Yeah. Do you know? Yep. Yeah. So that'd be worth going to. Mm-hmm. Checking it out. And so, there are plenty of things to do there. Plenty of food. So, what food places would you recommend Alexis?

Alexis- These were kind of some fun ones I thought. Um, first, the fat canary. This got rave reviews. an amazing chef.

It's a family restaurant. Um, it's a little fancier. They've got things like duck and salmon and braised beef and stuff like that. So, if you're looking for a kind fancier evening, then you'll want to hit this place. And if I was hankering for some French food, would there be a restaurant?

Eric- They're, would, I imagine that I'm going to slaughter this, but, uh, Le Yaka, I don't know if I said that right. Um, but French food, yes. Crab cakes, escargot, they have brunch items I think on Saturdays and Sundays. Um, wine, all the good stuff, you know, all the French cuisine. Yeah. And so that's probably a fancier place too. Mm-hmm. Little bit. And what I would call it is the Yacht Club by Yaka. Yeah. So, pronounce it however you will, but I'm just going to call it the yacht club. Okay. If I ever go to Colonial Williamsburg, I'm looking up the yacht club. You got it. All right. Now what if I had a hand curtain for pancakes?

Alexis- Yeah. So, this is definitely a yummy place to go. The colonial pancake house and everything. Breakfast, it's like an IHOP down there. So, um, anything you're craving for breakfast twice they've got it. So that's a good place to go. That sounds cool. Wondering who voted for the first pancake. I don’t know if it was there.

Eric- Probably not. Probably not that up. All right, so now where, where would an RVer stay there? There are quite a few parks. I picked three that were well-rated American Heritage RV Park, um, Annville Campground. They have full hookups and Williamsburg Campground, so all RV friendly. Um, so you can't go wrong staying there.

Okay, cool. All right, so that's Colonial Williamsburg, and you know, every place we bring up is just to whet your appetite, and I keep saying that, but it's, you know, it might not be the place for you, but there could be another place nearby. It just gets you to look at the map. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You get out a map and you start looking, hey, maybe we can go here.

Maybe we can go there. You find a name that intrigues you, you Google it, and wow, let's go there. Do you know? So just check it out, you know, go online, look at Colonial Williamsburg, look out where it's on a map from relationship to you and where you, if you want to travel there or not. As a reminder, we love RV Destinations Magazine.

We can't talk about it enough, so check it out. Go to RV destinations magazine.com. There'll also be a link for it in this podcast in the description. And um, so if you can't remember it, you can just go to our website, TheSmartRVer.com, and it will be there. There are also a couple of links throughout our website to click on for them as well.

They have a great magazine, great content, and awesome pictures. And they cover the United States very well. They did a great job with their magazine. So, check that out if you have the desire to learn a little bit more about RV Destinations Magazine. Now this takes us to the final section of the show, RV Envy, and today we're going to talk about high-velocity vent fans.

RV ENVY

So, most RV vents. Rough vents. You know, they're, they call them 14 by 14 vents. They're all a little bit different in size, but that's a rough opening hole. Or, but that's what they're called. So, a lot of them that are 12 volts are usually in the bathroom and they have a little seven-inch fan blade on it.

Little wimpy thing. It's going to move some air, but not like a high-velocity event fan. There are basically two strong ones on the market, which are Maxair and the Fantastic Fan, which is now owned by Dometic. So, both of those fans are great products. Price-wise, I think the Maxair is a better deal than the metric ones.

You know, you must compare them side by side and you know, I was looking at them the other day and they're not comparable side by side. They have different speeds. So, they're not a hundred percent where you can look at it and go, well, they're identical, and this one's less, or, you know, very, very close.

But they are close. You know, fan speed is one of the deals that, um, separate them a little bit, but that's usually not a big deal because there, they're both high velocity and, you know, they'll, they'll suck a small little dog out your carve, you know, if you open, if you turn on that fan, open up the vent, turn on the fan.

Open a window, you're going to feel the air coming through the RV, whichever one you have. The fantastic fan was the first one in the game way back when, and Dematic bought them some time ago. And you know, they've changed it. I don't know if they've improved it. They say they have. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't, but Fantastic.

Uh, a fan has been, or I mean, excuse me, Maxair has been making vent covers and fans for. Decades. So, they do a really good job as well. And I would probably put my money on the Max Air just because they're a little bit less money. They make a great product and I think, you know, in comparison, they're very close to the fantastic fan.

Mm-hmm. Although a fantastic fan is what I am putting in my RV because we had one here that I liked. I love it. Other than that, I would've put in a Max Air fan, so it's up to you. Check them out. Yeah. You might find that one just. Do you think it's going to perform better? And that's the one you want to have but check them out.

OUTRO

So, you can go to Max's website. Um, I think we have some on our, on our website, so you can go to TheSmartRVPartsCenter.com as well. No, I think we will have them there. We'll take care of that, right, Alexis? That's right. All right. One more thing for us to do. All right, so that brings us to the end of the podcast today, and I want to thank everybody for listening, and this is Eric Stark with TheSmartRVer podcast.

It's been great hanging out with you. If I don't see you on the road, let's connect at TheSmartRVer.com.