’ve been around recreational vehicles for much of my life, starting with a truck camper my father acquired when I was just a wee lad and was used to transport our family — including my mom and two brothers — across country for bi-annual visits to our East Coast-based brethren.

The memories of those trips are cherished, as are recollections of one amazing summer I spent cruising across the country behind the wheel of a partially restored/modified ’78 Winnebago Brave with my then-6-year-old son, Jeremy, and our Siberian Husky. I’m sure more than a few of my friends’ neighbors didn’t care for that big “eyebrow” Winnebago parked streetside for a week or two at a time as we visited, but local regulations were a lot more lenient at the time.

Just as entertaining, though, are the recollections of “us boys” keeping ourselves occupied when my dad wrenched on his pickup truck at various times during our trips. Ditto my escapades in that old Winnebago, including the time I was forced to search for a couple of aluminum soda cans, cut them open and, using worm hose clamps, cinch them around a broken header pipe on the RV’s big V8 until I could find a decent welding shop to close the hole. Yea, I’m a baling-wire kind of guy.

othing is more stressful than worrying about your pet left alone inside an RV. Will your furry traveling buddy tear the place apart, or suffer from crippling heat because of an HVAC issue? Will your dog bark incessantly? Modern technology has made it easier to keep tabs on our pets remotely via a smartphone, and even talk to them to control bad behavior or just to say “hello.” I’ve enlisted two simple-to-use devices that have become indispensable in our fulltime RV household.

The Eyes Have It
Technology has made it possible to “spy” on our pets at a low cost. After studying the field of remote cameras and first settling on a model that just didn’t work, I found the Kamtron 1080P WiFi Pet Camera on Amazon. It has all the features needed to keep an eye on our standard poodle and at around $40, the investment was rather low for a camera packed with features. There are dozens of these cameras on the market, so doing a little homework is paramount.

t’s safe to assume that the words “pick-up truck” and “serenity” have rarely been used in the same sentence. After all, trucks were engineered with specific uses in mind — pulling heavy trailers, hauling big payloads and trundling down rutted roads en route to the farm or worksite.

So you can imagine my surprise when I pushed the start button in our test 2021 Ford F-150 PowerBoost hybrid and experienced…nothing.

In a Toyota Prius, for example, the initial absence of an internal combustion engine wouldn’t come as any surprise. But in a truck capable of towing up to 12,700 pounds, it felt surreal. A message on the digital instrument cluster told me the truck was ready to drive, so I eased the Antimatter Blue-toned SuperCrew out of the parking lot. It was more than a quarter mile down the street before its 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine finally came to life. When it did, it was with little fanfare — just a subtle purr, like the dutiful hum of a well-worn sewing machine. There are luxury cars that aren’t this quiet.

f you’re like many RVers, walking into a dim, dank RV with a dirty, faded and scratched skylight is downright depressing. From a practical standpoint, unmaintained skylights are a leading cause of water damage. Aesthetically, things aren’t much better; the amount of light an ignored or overlooked skylight allows inside does little to enhance the joy of RV ownership.

So, what goes wrong with RV skylights, and why should we replace them? Quality RV skylights are generally made of an impact-resistant polycarbonate plastic that can remain in service for years. But as time goes on, they can become scratched and faded — and many crack as a result of UV exposure. The more brittle they get, the easier they can break from hail or branch hits. Of course, once they crack, they leak. A skylight dome that has a crack is already brittle, so while repairing it with a waterproof tape like EternaBond may work temporarily (and it won’t be pretty), the rest of the dome is likely to fail quickly.

ry to imagine if electricity were like cellular service, where some places you travel have it while others don’t.

That’s the gamble that all RVers take when they head out onto the open road with no agenda. You might find yourself at a cozy local RV park with full hookups. Then again, maybe you’ll stop for the night under the stars of a national park campsite accompanied by little more than the hum of an absorption refrigerator fan and a few 12-volt DC lights to remind you of civilization.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing — unless you’re really hungry and the only thing you have is a frozen dinner. You turn to find the microwave staring back at you with its sullen, tempered glass eye…mocking you. The TV, meanwhile, offers only a cold and expressionless field of empty space in exchange for your longing glance. Thank goodness for a dogeared copy of Huck Finn and an old bag of potato chips.

enewable energy is a huge topic in the RV space, and for good reason. Not only are RVers, as a community, environmentally adept, but solar systems — especially when combined with the latest power inverter and battery technology — allow electrical independence for off-grid camping. Renewable energy systems in RVs are nothing new, but technology is advancing, prices are dropping and RVers’ interest in off-grid travel is off the charts.

That’s not surprising to anyone who has been RVing for any length of time. In fact, the popularity of harnessing “free” power — to say nothing of the various systems available — is such that you will see this technology covered in the pages of RV Enthusiast regularly as power from the sun, wind and other sources become more widely available.

o you really need a battery in your RV?

Let’s get this question out of the way first. If you’re plugged into shore power 100% of the time and only rarely move your RV, then there’s nothing forcing you to have a “house” battery at all. That’s because even though most of your RV’s electrical system (such as lighting, furnace control and monitoring systems) is likely powered by 12 volts DC, all modern RVs include something called a “converter.” This component’s job is to provide around 12 to 14 volts DC (direct current) at 40 to 60 amperes of current for general electrical needs.

Of course, this 12-volt DC power doesn’t include heavy appliances such as your convection microwave oven, rooftop air-conditioner or electric water heater, each of which require a dozen or more amps of current at 120 volts AC. But if you’re plugged into shore power (or a generator) the converter takes care of the 12-volt DC requirements of your RV while your power center distributes 30 or 50 amps (two 50-amp legs for 100 amps total) to all your 120-volt AC power hungry appliances. But that’s a different story altogether.

While all water suppliers in the U.S. are required to uphold certain levels of water quality — which theoretically make tap water safe to drink — violations are still alarmingly common. According to a 2017 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), nearly 77 million Americans got water from systems that violated federal protections in 2015. More than a third of this number relied on systems that did not comply with standards put in place to protect public health. For RVers, these concerns may be compounded by a poorly maintained local water supply at an RV park or campground, and/or a spigot that may not be sanitary. With all this in mind, a system that both filters and purifies the water entering your RV would be a smart investment.

oondocking is gaining in popularity every day, and there’s a little-known camping spot on Antelope Island in Utah that is a must see. This island is one of 17 on the Great Salt Lake, ranging from small to large, in all corners of the lake. In fact, the number of islands actually varies, depending on the elevation of the lake’s surface. This area is a closed basin, which means there is no drainage outlet for the lake — yet water depth can vary as much as two feet a year. Because of this great range of water levels between years, what may be considered an island in a high-water year may be considered a peninsula in another, or an island that appears in a low-water year may be not be visible in a high-water year. Antelope Island is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake and the only island with reservable primitive campsites.

The history of Antelope Island is quite interesting, and signs of early inhabitants can still be seen on the island today. Thousands of years ago, the area’s native Ute people inhabited Antelope Island, later followed by settlers from the Mormon Church. Fielding Garr established a ranch on the island in the late 1840s and brought the Mormon church’s cattle to the ranch. The ranch later bred horses and became a sheep ranch. Several original buildings of the Fielding Garr Ranch still stand on the island, and visitors can take a self-guided tour of the ranch during daylight hours. There is no charge to tour the ranch, though a donation is requested for the tour guide booklet. It is well worth the stop, and it will take approximately 90 minutes to tour the buildings and the ranch.