RV Podcast 326: Parked RVs Bring Police Response

In the wake of the Nashville RV bombing of Christmas Day, a jittery public has been reporting parked RVs spotted on city streets, sending police to check them out. We’ll talk about that and why now may not be a good time for RVers to leave their units unattended on city streets in this episode of the RV Podcast. Plus, we’ll hear from RVers on their RV Travel Bucket List plans for 2021, answer your RV Lifestyle Questions and check in with our friends Patti & Tom Burkett for another interesting Off the Beaten Path report. You can listen to the podcast in the player below. scroll down this page for shownotes, plus links and resources about all the things we talk about. Shownotes for Episode 326 of the RV Podcast WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK Happy New Year… this is our first Podcast of 2021. We share info on our whereabouts and planned travel schedule. We talked about the topics we will be covering in the podcast and current travel issues related to COVID. This part of the RV Podcast is brought to you by Camping World – America’s #1 RV Dealer The Ultimate RV Show will be featuring... US! With so many in-person RV shows canceled for the year, many people are wondering the best way to safely buy an RV during a pandemic… But don’t worry, we’ve got a solution for you! We’re excited to share that Camping World is bringing back their Ultimate RV Show, and this time, they’re going on a National Tour from coast to coast to bring you the BIGGEST VIRTUAL RV SHOW EVER, livestreamed straight from Camping World’s social channels.  From now through March 6, tune in each week for discounts on hundreds of RVs that are shoppable right from your couch, including one hand-selected by yours trul for our son, Jeff, and his growing family.. In addition to the deals, they’ll be offering RV walk-throughs, tons of retail product specials, and even an exclusive interview with me and Jennifer about our RV adventures at 9 PM Eastern Time this Friday, January 8! Head to UltimateRVShow.com to register for free and make sure you get reminders about our session this week—We’d hate for you to miss it! Plus, they gave us an exclusive discount code for fans of this podcast to get 10% off on CampingWorld.com this week in celebration of our Influencer Session! Use code LIFESTYLE at checkout for 10% off your online order, with no minimum. RV PODCAST NEWS OF THE WEEK A Parked RV like this on a city street could bring a Police Response because of a public still jittery over the Nashville Christmas Day bombing Parked RVs Bring Police Response Police clear downtown Lexington area after explosives-trained dog triggered by parked RV As Mike noted, that Christmas Day incident in which a bomb detonated in downtown Nashville is causing lots of jotters by the pub;ic when people see a parked RV. As an example, a several-block area in downtown Lexington, KY, was evacuated on New Year's Eve because of a concern that a Class C RV parked there may have contained explosives. It turned out, like several such incidents around the country, to have been a false alarm.  In this case, the RV was rented by a family spending the night in an area hotel. For some reason. a bomb-sniffing dog "alerted" police explosives were in the RV, triggering the police acted out of concern of a copycat incident. It was not clear what triggered the dog, since no explosives were inside.  But it caused quite a stir. Nearby restaurants, bars, hotels, and apartments were evacuated until the incident was settled. Louisville police bring out bomb squad after caller reports suspicious parked RV that turned out to be false alarm There have been lots of similar calls. A day after police cleared a section of Lexington, the same exact thing happened across the state in Louisville, KY. This time police were called after someone reported a suspicious RV parked downtown on New Year's Day. The bomb squad and K-9 units were called, traffic was stopped and a wide safety parameter around the RV was established but it, too, turned out to be a false alarm. The RV was rented by a vacationing Missouri family who said all they did was park to visit the Kentucky Science Center.  I wrote a blog post earlier this week about stealth camping and suggested that RVers may want to avoid leaving their RVs parked on the street in big city downtown areas for a few weeks until the Nashville incident fades a bit from the news. People are still pretty jittery and there’s no reason to give them any more reason to worry. America now has a 63rd national park In other RV Lifestyle news this week, America now has a new national park! Slipped inside the COVID-19 stimulus package was a provision to create the nation's 63rd national park. Called New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, the new national park and preserve sits on 70,000-plus acres in West Virginia and offers white water rafting, rock climbing, hiking, and other outdoor activities. New River Gorge, which previously was a national river, currently has no charge to enter and offers primitive camping on a first-come, first-serve basis. It is not clear as of this writing how entrance fees or camping would be impacted by this new designation, and, as always, if you decide to visit, be sure to check ahead as some things may be closed because of COVID-19 precautions. Gasoline prices highest they've been since the pandemic began Gasoline prices ended the year at the highest level they have been in nine months, according to AAA. The national average for a gallon of gasoline was $2.25, a price not seen since the pandemic began in March. Some forecasters are expecting the price to drop slightly again during the first quarter of 2021, but then rise as the year progresses. When the prices climb again we'd recommend getting an app to help you find the best fuel price when traveling. To see an article we wrote about the apps click here. RVers pack campground in Vancouver, one spot in Canada where winter doesn't mean snow Canadian RVers are packing the campgrounds in Vancouver, British Columbia, the only part of Canada that doesn't typically have snow. Snowbirds who typical camp in Arizona, New Mexico, even Florida, have worked their way to Vancouver where they are wintering since the border between the U.S. and Canada remains closed because of COVID-19. Some local campgrounds say it is the only bright spot in what has been a tough tourism year.   This part of the podcast is brought to you by RadPower Bikes, America's #1 e-bike brand, offering direct to consumer pricing on powerful premium electric bikes. Now with free shipping    RV PODCAST QUESTION OF THE WEEK From our RV Lifestyle Facebook Group: QUESTION: If you got $500 to upgrade your RV what would you buy? – Nick ANSWERS: Tom - Suspension. Shocks. Sumo springs. Starting with shocks. Maty Sue - A back up camera June-n An electric fireplace. Allen-  Fill my fridge with beer  Leslie - I would replace my screen on the sliding door and have $50 left. Heather - I’d put gas in the tank. Pamela - Better insulation around my one slim slide Harold - I would prepay a sitter to stay in my place with the 4 grandkids and my wife and I would head to the southwest. Michelle - Replace couch with 2 recliners Jackie- Solar or change some wasted space to extra storage. Scott - Tow bar. Billie – A new inverter Toim – Solar Panels Melissa – A Wireless booster Derek - Compost toilet. Ditch the black water tank Have your voice featured on the RV Podcast - Call Us! Do you have a question you’d like us to answer or a comment on the things we’re discussing? If so, we invite you to leave us that question or comment on the special voicemail number we have for the podcast – it’s 586-372-6990.  If you are driving and can’t write it down right now, just go to the RV Lifestyle travel blog at rvlifestyle.com and scroll down the page. You’ll see that number prominently posted on the blog. This part of the RV Podcast is brought to you by Battle Born Batteries, maker of quality, safe and reliable lithium batteries that can be installed in just about every RV. Get in touch with Battle Born to find out what lithium batteries and an upgraded energy management system can add to your RV Lifestyle. RV PODCAST INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK - 2021 RV BUCKET LIST It’s been a tradition on the RV Podcast that every year, we spend some time during our first podcast sharing what’s on everyone’s bucket list for the coming year. A year ago, at the start of 2020, there were a lot of folks who had a lot of great bucket list plans. No one a year ago saw COVID coming. But come it did and since march, most of those great bucket list plans were cancelled. People still RV’s… in fact RV camping boomed. But most of the long-term big trips went by the wayside. People tended to stay fairly close to home. So here we are in 2021. Vaccines against COVID have been developed and rapidly beoing made available and there is hope that 2021 will start to return to normal about the time summer and the camping season again arrives. So where do people want to go. We asked our audience to share their bucket list plans. Here’s a sampling: You can listen to the podcast in the player below. Move the player slider to about XXXX in to hear the bucketlist plans. The interview of the week is brought to you by SunshinestateRVs.com, where every new  motorhome is delivered to the customer free, anywhere in the country OFF THE BEATEN PATH REPORT    BY TOM & PATTI BURKETT A year ago, about this time, we were loading up the RV.               One of our daughters has a mid-January birthday, and we were going to celebrate with her at the start of a cold-weather trip to the south.   Little did we know that the timing meant we’d be among the few travelers to get in a substantial trip in 2020.  Over the past twelve moths we’ve reported on a number of the things we discovered, and there are a few more to come.   I like to name our trips,