Never, never, never take your parrot RV’ing! I’m a parrot lover who has long wanted an African Gray of his own but today we learned why that would never be a good idea for full time RV’ers.
US-20 is a lovely road traversing the state of Oregon from East to West. I love this road. I have our Rand McNally GPS set to provide warnings: for turns, for steep hills, for time zone changes, etc. Part of our drive on Sunday was through this section of US-20. There are as many curves as Bayer has aspirins! And the Rand McNally kept announcing: “right curve ahead”, “left curve ahead”, “winding road ahead”. After several hours of this Peggy looked over at me and said, “Aren’t you glad you never got that Parrot? As much as she says that, exactly the same way every time, the parrot would have those phrases down pat and that’s all you’d be hearing out of the silly bird: ‘Squawk – right curve ahead’ ”
Serendipity is finally talking to us
We have owned this coach for 14 months. Out of that time we were stationary for 9 months. We haven’t driven her all that much. But since adding the Silverleaf monitoring system I’m finally feeling as if I know her a little better.
Last year when we were returning to WI from OR I thought I was having problems with the coolant temp. Off and on again those concerns have been repeated. But as I’ve had time to watch the actual temps being transmitted by the sensors in real time I’m realizing that the analog gauges in this coach are simply un-reliable. Silverleaf lets me know what the engine is doing and I can finally drive her as she deserves to be driven.
You can’t beat familiarity when it comes to operating an RV. The better you know your ride the better job it can do for you.
Did You Have The Best Time?
If you haven’t seen this graphic before, it’s worth a glance — and perhaps some consideration when you plan your next RV trip. The busiest National (and Canadian) Parks are busy, busy, busy…. and picking the right time to visit can be the difference between enjoying your visit and wishing you had not come.
Click to see the full size graphic
So, I enclose it here for your consideration.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll talk with you tomorrow. 🙂
Embrace Serendipity 
Interesting graphic. I would tend to agree on autumn being a good time to go to some of these parks, but spring can be iffy. I doubt I would want to go to Acadia in June, as we understand that it is foggy most of the time. We have always gone in August (9 times) and have never regretted it. With that being said, we know where and when to go to avoid the crowds.
Jim
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You’re right about the East Coast FOG in spring. Peg and I made a trip in late JUNE and we finished in Early July along the Gaspé and it was horribly foggy even then. We went whale watching and could hardly see our hand in front of our faces — off both Bar Harbour and the Gaspé
As with a lot of tools — they are only as good as one’s skill using them!
One might think that a hammer is a pretty simple tool to use but I’ll tell you the wood dings, and misses I go produce are atrocious compared to the work that a skilled cabinet maker or carpenter might produce and I think its the same for How-to, When-to, etc. kinds of graphics. Take the tool for what it’s worth. And in this case This is when high season is, this is when you stand some chance of seeing the same things without being mobbed by lot of people, take your chances on which you want to do…
After all, we spent 4 1/2 months in S. Texas and what we had was very Atypical. And that’s just life, is it not?
That said — in a lot of cases I think I’d rather chance risky weather than hordes.
Then again — don’t you think a lot depends on your attitude about your destination? For us the trip is equally as important as where we end up. Maybe even more important; but I know people who would be miserable if they had to stop along the way, spend 5 days recuperating, and then miss the “where” they were anticipating seeing. To them the trip would have been ruined. But fortunately for us, we don’t see life that way and even though we’re disappointed that we aren’t going to see Yellowstone the failure isn’t going to ruin anything for us. If we had three kids who had been studying about Yellowstone for the last 6 months and that happened it would be a very different situation.
Besides — I don’t like paying high season rates. 🙂 > >
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Yes, for us the trip is as important as the destination also. Our motto is “Don’t just see it, BE it.” And more often than not, that helps us to escape the crowds, even in high season. Using Acadia as an example, we often hike some of the lesser known trails to the park’s peaks. We have hauled our kayaks through a crowded Jordan Pond parking area to be alone on the pond in August at midday. The effort to go a little further than the crowd often pays dividends.
The older we get, those recuperation days you speak of are also part of “being” it. Spending time watching the clouds dance across the sky is as rewarding as viewing a waterfall to me. Just get me away from highway noise and I am a happy camper. 🙂
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Ducks of a feather! 🙂
I wish we were as able to walk longer distances as once we were, but I hear ya! It’s possible to avoid crowds — and we do; what is more difficult is getting a camping site at those popular places. Some of the parks that have a 6 month advance reservation fill quickly after 6 months minus 1 day. That’s even true sometimes with 12 month reservation campgrounds in peak season — as it is in WI state parks. Weekends fill quickly through the summer and you can’t stay 7 or 14 days if you can’t find a weekend availability site. So a lot of parks end up full on weekends and partially full during the week.
Don’t even start me on highway noise. When we lived in MKE there was no place you could go to escape the sound of the Interstate and the sounds of sirens/emergency vehicles. That is why we have avoided BIG cities and loved the tiny places.
I have been wanting Peg to say OK on buying bikes again. She is worse than I about crowds and biking on roads with fast cars is not in her vocabulary. one of these days…. 🙂
> >
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Thanks for the graph. I just don’t handle the large crowds like I used to 🙂
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I enjoyed it, I’m glad you do to.
It’s only a tool — it’s not perfect, and you can get in trouble going to some of those places at the edges of their recommendations — bad weather occurs everywhere! specially in spring when the world hasn’t warmed up yet! But, with conscious thought it’s a good preliminary planner. 🙂 > >
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I taught my cockatoo to say “Pretty bird”. Luckily he didn’t overuse it.
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Pretty bird I could take.
Just not one that kept saying, “Right turn ahead”, “Left turn ahead” ad infinitum > >
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