Escapees March-April 2023

camping chair chat

An RV Pet Story My interest in RVing began in the summer of 2007. My sister and her husband, who had lived in England for a couple of years, had just returned and had moved into their new home in Buckeye, Arizona, near Phoe nix. She was desperate for my mother and I to come and visit her. But, how would we get there? We lived in the northeast cor ner of Nebraska. Traveling by car would be di ffi cult because we had a dog and a cat that would have to travel with us. Finding a hotel that would accept both pets seemed far-fetched. Going by bus did not sound appealing, and fl ying was also not an option. I found myself in a dilemma. Then someone suggested that I go by RV. I rented a 30 foot travel trailer, and the four of us made our fi rst RV trip together. Inaugural Trip It was August when we hitched up the rented trailer and loaded up the truck for Arizona. In the truck was my mother, a Manx cat named Treasure, a chihuahua-ter rier mix named Mr. Pumpkin, plus myself. For the fi rst 500 miles of the 1,300-mile-long trip Treasure the cat never stopped expressing her displeasure of being in the truck. The only reprieve we received from the constant wailing in the back seat came when we stopped for fuel. The wailing would start up again as soon as I fi red up the engine and we started to move! The second day of the trip went much better. Trea sure only wailed for the fi rst 100-miles. After that the complaints from the cranky backseat driver occurred for around the fi rst 20 minutes after each stop. Mr. Pump kin, the dog, was doing just fi ne. He was enjoying the ride while either sleeping or taking in the ever-changing scenery as we drove across half of America. It was becoming enjoyable and exciting for all of us. The pets adapted quickly to life in the RV. We had fi lled some jugs with water from home so that they drank water with which they were already familiar. We also carried the food they were used to, as well as some of their toys. Each night we would all settle in early to get some sleep as we were tired from the day’s trip. We quickly got into a rhythm. The visit with family in Arizona went great, and by the time we had returned to Nebraska, we were hooked on RVing. This was some thing we might never have done if we hadn’t had pets.

RV Wash Day Hack Do you fi nd it takes forever to wash and dry clothes in your RV’s e ffi ciency combo washer/dryer unit? We found a neat RV hack to speed up the wash day tasks. If your RV has slide-outs, which most of them do today, and they have some sort of wood trim on the top front of the slide out, this tip should work. We bought small 3M sticky hooks (the small white plastic ones with a metal pivoting hook) and we placed them on top of the edge of the slide out trim, spaced roughly the distance of a clothes hanger plus one or two inches extra spacing between each. This allows us to remove damp clothes after the fi nal spin cycle and hang them on the hooks to air dry, and then another load can be immediately started in our Splendide combo washer/dryer. We fi nd this speeds up the wash day tasks immensely! (Obviously, if you’re in south Florida in the summer humidity, it’ll take longer to hang dry the clothes than in Quartzsite, Arizona, but they all eventually get nicely dried). In our 38' Alfa SeeYa Class A Motorhome we can hang seven garments in our living room and fi ve in our bedroom on our two slides. When clothes are not being dried, the metal hooks fl ip back up and out of the way so they’re practically invisible. A secondary bene fi t is being able to “Hang our Christmas Stockings on the Slide-out with care” during the holidays. Extra bonus tip: drill a tiny pilot hole in the plastic hook after af fi xing it on the wood and then screw a short screw in to provide extra support if you should hang heavy stockings for Christmas! It’ll prevent the sticky hook from pulling off the wood. We know this from fi rst hand experience! Tom and Sue Rogers #144897

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ESCAPEES Magazine March/April 2023