Can life get any better than exploring the USA National Parks in our own RV or travel trailer? Last winter was our first winter as RV Snowbirds & we found a few accessories made life even more fun!
Thule Bike Rack – folds relatively small and sturdy enough for our two bikes!
Bike Rack. Having our bikes on the Arvika bike rack on the front of our Lance 1685 is wonderful, BUT we had no way to get the bikes to bike trails that don’t start at the campground. We found a lot of fun dedicated bike trails, but of course, none of them started at the campground. We added a simple folding Thule bike rack for the back of our truck. Now it takes 3 minutes to add the bike rack to the back of the truck, load the bikes and enjoy the many bike trails that aren’t close or adjacent to our campground. Something we didn’t think about when we first started traveling with our travel trailer & bikes.
Flagpole. David has always wanted a collapsible flagpole to proudly fly his Illini (or my Indiana Hoosier) flags when our teams are playing, or the Stars & Stripes the rest of the time. For his birthday, I got him a 20′ flagpole that we attach to the back bumper & ladder with heavy duty black plastic twist ties. The flagpole is great and collapses to fit in the bed of the truck or the passthrough in the trailer for travel. It’s easy and quick to set up so we can show our colors wherever we’re camped!
Flagpole Light. Of course, once we had the flagpole, we kept noticing other RVers had nifty spotlights and other ways of lighting their flags at night. On South Padre Island, David spotted a light that was bright and totally LED, so we had to stop and ask what kind it was and other pertinent information. We really like the Annin Solar Flagpole Light – it adds a new dimension to sporting our colors!
Slideout Supports. David has been concerned for awhile that our Lance slideout extends farther out compared than other trailers (giving us more interior room). When we walked by another Lance trailer in South Padre Island this winter, he was intrigued by the slideout supports that these folks were using. So the next thing I know, we have a set of slideout supports. It’s David’s theory that the supports will prevent any slideout “overuse” and add life to the trailer. Who knows if all this is “necessary” or prolongs the life of our slideout. If it makes him happy, it’s fine with me.
Gas Firepit How is it possible in a burn ban that rangers don’t seem to care about propane gas firepits? How many times did I miss our campfire this winter in burn-ban ridden Texas! Not to mention that you can turn a gas firepit off after happy hour if you’re going somewhere to eat … or just down the campground to visit friends. Easy easy easy. We haven’t purchased this particular addition … yet, but we’re looking and will add it to the truck before we leave this fall. So if you have a brand you particularly love, please leave a comment below and share the info!
My folding picnic table – note the wooden blocks to make it “adult” height
Folding Picnic Table. Several places we camped last winter had no picnic tables. We prefer to eat outside in reasonable weather (especially if we can keep the bugs away with our Quick Set Screen Enclosure). But they’re rather bulky to carry around in our short bed pickup. Another Lance camper had this folding picnic table that fits inside our pass through storage in the trailer (along with our screen enclosure). The table is a bit less sturdy and smaller than we had envisioned. We put it up on blocks so it’s the right height (we’ll use it this summer as a kid picnic table at the lake), but with the wooden blocks it fits us just fine. With this addition, we enjoyed many meals outdoors that we otherwise would have had to eat inside in our slideout dinette. For less than $100, a great addition!
Dinner at the picnic table inside our Clam Quick Set Escape Screen Enclosure
CLAM Quick Set Screen Enclosure. Best.Screen.Enclosure.Ever! No more buggy sunsets! Quick popup convenience combined with extraordinary sturdiness make the Quick Set screen enclosures one of the best additions to our campsite. We can set it up around the campsite picnic table, use our own little folding picnic table or just put our zero gravity chairs and Grizzly cooler for a table inside for great place to relax. Every time we set it up, we have other campers walking over to inspect it – maybe Clam should make us dealers, we’ve sold that many Quick Set Enclosures just by letting folks inspect ours. For more information, here are the Top 10 Reasosn I Love Our Clam Quick Set Screen Enclosure. And yes, years later, we still love it!
Let’s Go Fly a Kite!!!
And everyday is a better day when we get to go fly our kites! We had the Beetle kite and added a 2nd kite from the B&S Kite store in South Padre Island when it became apparent that we BOTH wanted to go fly a kite … on the beach … at the same time. The B&S Kite store was so helpful – our original Beetle kite had somehow lost a couple key parts and the kite store not only had replacement parts but also put the kite back together and taught us how to use both kites — at no charge other than the inexpensive parts. Highly recommend a visit to B&S Kites if you’re on South Padre Island – they also sponsor the annual SPI KiteFest – a free weekend kite flying exhibition that’s not to be missed – kite flying experts from around the country and sometimes even the globe!
