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RE: Which loops at Fort Wildernes have been renovated so far?
Forgot one note...
Loops 100 & 200 were empty and had just had the road resurfaced. No change to the sites. They look ready for guests again but no one there yet.
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slowlane
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09/19/08 03:41pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
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RE: Which loops at Fort Wildernes have been renovated so far?
Below was the construction schedule:
Loop 900: closed 7/08 to 7/25 – reopens 7/26/08
Loop 1000: closed 7/27 to 8/08 – reopens 8/09/08
Loop 1100: closed 8/10 to 8/22 – reopens 8/23/08
Loop 500: closed 8/24 to 9/21 – reopens 9/22/08
Loop 800: closed 9/22 to 11/01 – reopens 11/02/08
Loop 400: closed 11/03 to 11/21 – reopens 11/22/08
Loop 600: closed 11/30 to 12/19 – reopens 12/20/08
Loop 1300: closed 1/4 to 1/23 – reopens 1/24/09
Loop 1200: closed 1/25 to 2/06 – reopens 2/07/09
Loop 1400: closed 2/08 to 2/13 – reopens 2/14/09
Loop 700: closed 3/15 to 4/03 – reopens 4/04/09
Here's what we saw biking around today (Friday 9/19):
Loops 900, 1000, and 1100 -- nothing has happened.
Loop 500 just reopened with the expanded pads.
Loop 800 closed, beginning expansion of pads.
So it appears the part of that schedule from Loop 500 onward may not be far off, actually a bit ahead.
What the expanded pads look like:
Basically they poured more concrete around the existing pads, widening them by about 2-4 feet on the right side and lengthening the pad back to where the sand previously ended. Also adding concrete where you turn in. New grills like the old except they have covers. Picnic tables apparently unchanged, maybe new ones later(?). No change to the hookup pedestals.
Also, loops 1800 & 1900 are open again, with much of the low areas filled in. The concern is what that will do to trees, which don't like that sort of thing.
Finally, cable TV expansion, supposed to happen to all sites where it isn't already. We didn't notice any loops with it newly completed, but here in the 1200 loop crews have been laying conduit for it.
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slowlane
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09/19/08 03:32pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
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RE: Disney Dining Plan - Is it Worth the $$
We get tired quickly of having to eat in restaurants and snack bars all the time. If staying in a hotel you don't have much choice, but if in the campground we go buy groceries at the WalMart supercenter and mostly eat at home (in the RV).
If you are going to eat in restaurants a lot, the Dining Experience 20% discount card is a deal worth considering, since it doesn't lock you in to a set number of meals.
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slowlane
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08/15/08 08:49pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
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RE: Disney World - need toad?
We always need the toad for trips to WalMart!
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slowlane
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08/15/08 08:41pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
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RE: camping near Indianopolis
Another CG in the Bloomington area is Lake Monroe Village.
We stayed there last week for the drum corps championships. Very nice campground but it's a long haul to Indy up route 37.
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slowlane
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08/15/08 08:35pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Reading this forum does put a smile on my face if nothing else. If we geniuses can't come up with (or agree upon) a solution to our future energy needs, how do we expect a bunch of stupid lawyer congressional representatives and senators who only care about the next election to come up with one? I'll just toodle along on flat tires and burn gas until somebody comes up with a better idea. :B
Here's the better idea: Let the market work. Get government out of the way. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars on uneconomic "alternative energy" boondoggles - when we need alternatives the market will supply them.
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slowlane
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08/15/08 08:18pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Difficulty of setting up a 5 lnb
Where do you get one of those? Thanks....
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slowlane
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07/29/08 08:12pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: Flying J alienating the RV customers!
Is this up for a vote? If it is I cast my vote as a big YUP!!
Me too. The TA near where we're camped in NJ (I295 exit 18) has this nice welcome sign over the entrance to the truck pumps: "Commercial drivers only." And their store ain't so hot either.
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slowlane
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07/23/08 12:43pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: NO HOT WATER
Check your outside shower. If you have left the hot and cold faucets on with the shower head shut off you will have cold water mixing with you hot water. Which can cause the symptom you are experiencing.
Do a search and you should find similar problems that involved the outside shower.
Absolutely! And it's not just a matter of leaving them turned on. Sometimes they can jiggle open from road and engine vibration.
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slowlane
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07/23/08 12:29pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: PPL Motor Homes
We had a very good experience selling our 94 Southwind thru PPL in January 2007. They had a buyer within a week and we netted more than we had hoped for.
If you have time and patience to show your rig to every shopper that answers your ad, do that. But we don't, and we would use PPL again.
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slowlane
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07/23/08 12:22pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Interesting statistic from Investors Business Daily: "...since June of 2001, oil has risen 160% in euros versus 376% in dollars."
Which should give a clue as to how much of our price pain is due to the weakened dollar. Which is mainly due to the Fed inflating the money supply (i.e., legalized counterfeiting) to provide all the billions the politicians in DC have been throwing at every imaginable problem and non-problem the last several years.
Yeah, supply and demand affect the value of money also.
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slowlane
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07/19/08 12:41pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
.... things are are worth what they cost to produce plus a reasonable profit. ...... "Charge what you can get" is surely not "supply and demand". It amounts to robbery.
1. What any thing is "worth" is what a buyer is willing to pay for it in the absence of fraud or coercion. The notion that the economic value of something is a function of its production cost is Marxist nonsense.
2. Everyone with something to sell will charge what they can get unless they are making gifts. Would you sell your used vehicle or boat or house to a stranger for less than you could get? Let me know when you are selling something.
Class is dismissed.
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slowlane
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07/19/08 12:27pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Last chance for pre-installed XP
You can always install XP later
But watch out for cases where XP can't detect the hard drive because it needs new SATA drivers that aren't in XP. If the vendor makes available drivers AND you have a floppy drive you can install drivers during the XP install process. If you don't have a floppy drive (most laptops nowadays don't) you will have to do some geek work to slipstream them into a custom XP install disk. And if the computer maker doesn't provide drivers, you are out of luck.
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slowlane
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06/26/08 08:40pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: Your Fuel/Oil comments - please post here
Just because Congress passes something doesn't mean it should happen.
Amen! Especially in view of some of the idiotic proposals coming forth from Congress lately (windfall profits tax, nationalizing refineries). When Congress starts undoing some of the damage they have done with their anti-energy policies, I might be more inclined to give them some benefit of doubt.
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slowlane
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06/25/08 08:28pm |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Your Fuel/Oil comments - please post here
OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel.
OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel.
Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel.
Can't buy it? Tough! Eat your oil!
Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled filet of camel!!!
Now welcome to realities of economics. If U.S. grain were priced at $136 or some other outlandish price per bushel, then
1. Other nations would expand their production and the world market price might go up a couple of bucks
2. U.S. producers would not sell a single handful and would go bust
3. Oil still goes for whatever the world market price is
4. OPEC eats just as well as ever.
Moral of the story: In a global commodities market, no one can ask more than the going rate and expect to make a buck.
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slowlane
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06/23/08 08:06pm |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Dick - Looks like it's all over here. We've said everything we have to say. Thanks again for all your extra work in monitoring a very difficult thread. It helped all of us deal with this terrible blow to our rv'ing pastime.
Jack
Wait, Jack, you're not quitting, are you?! This argument is too much fun.
Take many grains of salt with what you see on TV or read in the big media. There is a whole lot of propaganda hogwash being put forth, from the global warming "crisis" to disappearing oil. The common denominator is that these people think petroleum products are deadly to the environment and want them to become even more scarce and costly.
Common sense says that the era of cheaply extracted oil using primitive technology may be about over, but the situation has no resemblance to a fuel tank suddenly running dry. There is enough potential petroleum out there to keep the world going a long time. It will just gradually become more expensive to get at, but the expense will be mitigated by improved technology--developed by private industry.
Think of all the technologies hyped over the last 80 years that were supposed to make the gasoline-powered piston engine obsolete, many of which landed government funded R&D support. Well, as we all know, the piston engine just got better and better and stayed well ahead of all these wonderful alternatives, and did so without government help.
The difference between private industry R&D and government R&D is that the first is aimed at practical economic results benefiting consumers, while the second is aimed at keeping politicians in office and growing bureaucratic empires.
And I will hoist a Sam Adams in your honor.
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slowlane
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06/23/08 07:51pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Government has to do some things - like basic research and development on new technologies.
WRONG! Government "research" is largely a waste of money, they haven't a clue what is useful and what is not. Again, look at ethanol, what a boondoggle.
Government needs to get OUT OF THE WAY, the private sector will go to the technologies that are the most promising because of the PROFIT MOTIVE, the time tested road to succes.
The place where government has a role to play, and is FAILING at that role, is maintaining the competitive marketplace. Clinton allowed a bunch of major mergers that has resulted in the oil industry as being largely cartelized. Government needs to break up these companies so that competition returns. They'll take care of the rest.
Did the same person who wrote the first two paragraphs on R&D also write the last paragraph about "cartelized" oil industry? Amazing contradiction. How is the government which is so incompetent, corrupt, and wasteful when it comes to R&D (about which I happen to agree) able to usefully decide how to organize oil companies? That's about as useful and sensible as a windfall profits tax. What "cartel"???
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slowlane
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06/23/08 07:30pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Your Fuel/Oil comments - please post here
Doug....everyone has definitely hit the nail on the head. We've drug our feet for too long, and now, we're hooked on middle east oil like a crack addict. It will take many many years for us to kick the habit, if we ever do.
I just hope, along with the opening up of new offshore wells and other drilling operations, that they will also open up research into other, more reliable, more environment friendly, and hopefully cheaper power souces for electric AND automotive.
Oil is the lifeblood of our entire economy. To liken our need for it to an addiction makes as much sense as saying we are addicted to food and water. Alternative power sources will come on line if and when they ever make economic sense. The government trying to push them with subsidies and tax incentives is what has given us the ethanol fiasco.
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slowlane
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06/19/08 05:52pm |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Jack, a few comments on your comments, and then maybe we can hoist a beer to each other.
"...the 15th century Spanish monarchy was motivated by pure greed, like modern entrepreneurs, but it was still a government program funded by TAX Dollars (or pesos)"
The monarchs of old put their own money at stake, based on rational calculation that the potential payoff justified the risk. That's what drives all innovative and risky ventures. Modern governments, on the other hand have no such incentive and that's why their ventures are almost always economic losers. The politicians are simply spending other people's money and have little interest in the results as long as they are far enough in the future not to risk the credit they give themselves for their noble intentions. I will grant you that government is necessary to provide major infrastructure such as highways and dams (while depending, of course, on private companies to build them). But energy and fuel are commodities that government has no good business with.
Nuclear fusion -- 50 years of research has failed to produce even a theoretical model of how to build a useful energy source with it. You are quite right that no entrepreneur would throw money at such classic pie in the sky. Even the politicians figured that out. Again, the billions poured down this black hole would have been much better spent on real energy sources.
"Petroleum fuels are fading into history." Don't swallow the propaganda baloney of the pie-in-the-sky "renewable energy" lobbies. The fact is that there is no technology on the horizon that can make a significant dent in the need to fuel aircraft, ships, and motor vehicles with petroleum products for the foreseeable future. The other fact is that the U.S. is sitting on enough petroleum reserves to meet our needs for several more decades. That's not counting the potential for coal conversion and oil shale exploitation, the technologies for which will doubtless become more economical by the time we really need them (without government help).
Cheers!
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slowlane
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06/19/08 05:25pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Fuel Rants & Raves - Post 'Em Here!
Oil went down 5 bucks a barrel today will gas prices drop tomorrow??????? Heck no!!!!
Wait and see. Gas went down 11 cents today on the commodity exchange.
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slowlane
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06/19/08 04:30pm |
General RVing Issues
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