I do not see cannons but they must be close.

These men are not in a friendly mood.

The men in the blue are trying to eliminate the men in the red. 

The men in the red are also trying to eliminate  the men in the blue.

Yesterday, both sides were strategizing how to kill each other and win the battle.

Today they putting those plans into action.  

Each man in this battle wants the other to surrender.

Both the sets of men, red and blue, used to be citizens of the same country.

“War” by Alexander Sorenti-Burns

Full Time RVing to Yorktown, Virginia

The cannon display at Yorktown was cool!

Yorktown was my least favorite battle before I got to learn about it  firsthand by going there when full time RVing.

I thought it was a battle for nothing until I went there myself.

Lots of kids only read about these things in books but because we are full time RVing, my family and I got a tour of the entire battlefield of Yorktown.

We even saw the house where the entire British army surrendered to General George Washington on October 19, 1781.

Why The Battle of Yorktown Was Fought

First, the British Navy and the French Navy fought on the open ocean to stop Cornwallis’ troops from escaping and getting to the ocean.

General Cornwallis, the British commander, wanted to get to the ocean to reinforce his troops after being defeated in the Carolinas and at the Battle of Cowpens. I wrote about this in my last full time RVing post

He needed to get his boss, General Clinton to support him.  General Clinton had a fleet of British ships in New York that Cornwallis needed.

The Americans, led by George Washington, came down from Williamsburg and the north of Virginia.

Cornwallis was trapped, but his army needed more supplies, so he waited for General Clinton to help him. That help never came in spite many requests from Cornwallis.

Sensing they could finally trap the British, the Americans met him in Yorktown and attacked Cornwallis. Both sides dug in and shot cannons at each other.

This is called a siege.

Here you can see how the Americans surrounded the British with the help of the French:

As you can see the British were pretty much surrounded by the Americans and the French!

What We Learned About The Battle of Yorktown Full Time RVing

We learned mostly that George Washington, although he gets most of the credit for winning the Revolution NEVER could have done it without the help of the French.

Washington’s Army once he arrived from Williamsburg, and with a lot of help from the French Army, bombed the British for eight days straight. Their cannons did not let up – that was one cannon blast every 90 seconds for eight whole days!

Wow!!! All that noise would make me crazy.

Then the Americans and French finally charged two of the British out posts, known as Redoubt 9 and 10 by flanking them.

This is a picture of the American storming Redoubt 9

After they took the redoubt,  then the Americans set up their cannons 300 ft away from them and they blasted them with all their fire power (mortars, cannons and guns).

The cannons fired balls, mortars fired exploding bombs. It was really noisy and really bloody.

The Battle of Yorktown was fought in that field right behind us!

They fired on the British non-stop and the barrage seemed endless.

Meanwhile Cornwallis was waiting for his boss to help him.

He had already waited for British reinforcements for over 45 days and was getting impatient and the losses of British soldiers was adding up.

If I had to wait 45 days to get reinforcements while full time RVing, I think I would die!

The British Surrender and We Win!

But Cornwallis couldn’t take it any more.

Finally Cornwallis surrendered and the Americans won.

Thanks to France, and Washington’s persistence we won this battle and our Independence!

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A while back, Alex did a great job outlining the 13 RV supplies you must have when you go full time RVing.

Although that was an extremely inclusive list, there are certain RV accessories that a Mom RVing full time absolutely needs to make sure that the inside of the home runs as smoothly as the outside.

The iPad (here being used by Eli) is just one of the RV accessories a full time RV Mom cannot live without...

And all the kids get home schooled properly as well.

Although these may not be “traditional” RV supplies or accessories, like sewer pipes and stabilizers…they are absolute “must haves” when going RVing for any period of time or if you take the plunge and go full time RVing like we have for the past year:

1.  The Kindle

The first RV accessory you must have is the one that both saves you an enormous amount of space while actually helping your kids learn. A two for one as it were is Amazon’s Kindle.

On our first fulltime Rving venture. I packed four (4) HUGE plastic storage boxes of books…homeschooling books, reference books, favorite books, rving books…..these boxes took up 75% of the RV’s storage space!

Best of all, you can even borrow books on the Kindle at no charge!! Check out that feature here.

You see, I was totally against the concept of my children reading electronically.  I wanted them to read real books.  Well I was wrong!!
We were just lugging around too much stuff and when we got the kindle we realized four extremely helpful features for those full time Rving families:

• Enlarging Fonts: The Kindle (and with other electronic readers) you can increase the font size which was very important to assist one of my children in reading more fluently.

• Multiple Readers: If you purchase one book (at least from the Amazon Kindle store) every member of your family can read the same book on all your Kindles and iPads at the same time!

• Electronic Dictionary: Yes we make the kids look up all the words they dont know and this feature really makes it fun to do that and it doesn’t interrupt the flow of a good book.

• Text to Speech: (soooo cool!) This is truly helpful for reading in the back while the parents are driving,  pronunciation and also for tired eyes!

Note to all future full time Rvers…save your back, open up your storage space, help your kids out and save some money….buy a Kindle and although there are multiple kinds and versions…..the Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display only costs $79 at its least expensive of all of them.

If you must have the color while reading then buy a Kindle Fire or even an iPad ( see below).

Don’t forget to get the Kindle Light and the Kindle Power Adapter too. We really like the Kindle Cover with Book Light best of all.

2.  The iPad

Nothing  beats the Apple iPad.

Although we love the Kindle, the iPad is an essential tool when RVing. We have found it to be so useful for so many different tasks, including:

• Emailing work and friends – quick emails are easy on the iPad
  

• Facebook – check in on Facebook in a second or two…but not too much time there!
  

• Doing Quick Internet research – Google searches are a breeze
  

• Blogging – blogging and writing posts are simple to do on an iPad
  

• Thousands of Cool Apps – and hundreds you can use to assist in homeschooling

• Reading Books – backlighting makes it easy to read at night and so portable! ‘Nuff said!
  

• Working – when on the road when one of us is driving or with the kids, the other can be working away on the iPad

• And tons more cool stuff….

I love to read on my iPad in bed late night or early morning when everyone is asleep. One of the coolest things about reading on the iPad is I dont need to turn on a light and wake everyone up. That’s because the screen is backlit — but NOT harsh on your eyes at all. I also love to read on the iPad in those rare times when the RV is completely silent!

Also we have never let our boys have ANY electronic video games, no Nintendo, no Wii, no Xbox etc…

So the only video games they are allowed to play are apps on our iPads, kind of old school, but it works for us. This rv accessory especially comes in handy when we need a reward for an above and beyond task accomplished or on those super loooong days on the road driving through endless plains or cornfields.

And you don’t have to get the spiffy new iPad 3, the original Apple iPad (first generation) you can still get on Amazon for nearly half the price and they’re just as good.

We have both an iPad 1 one and an iPad 2 and although the Apple iPad 2 has a few more features, the original iPad suits our needs just fine.

However, if you are hell bent on getting the best and newest, then go for it on the Apple iPad 3. The screen resolution is really unbelievable and all the extra features are very cool.

When you get one, don’t forget to get a good iPad cover, especially if you get the older iPads, because they don’t come with a case.

3. Audible.com

Audible.comhas been a lifesaver!

I recommend you get your first 3 Months at Audible for $7.49/month and purchasing some downloadable audiotapes for the long rides ahead…we  love the Joy Hakim Series called A History of The US.  Joy Hakim  makes history come alive.

Other favorites are:

• David McCullough’s books are some of our favorites…and more classic books than you could ever possibly listen to in fifteen cross country trips!

• How to Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie – why isn’t this taught in school? As this classic book states, 85% of your succcess in life depends on how you interact with other people. In our case, we still have a few things to learn here. One of the best books on a subject that ever roadschooler (or traditional schooler) should read!

4.  The Trusty GPS

We’d be LOST without our trusty GPS while RVing full time…need I say more?

We highly recommend the Garmin nüvi 2455LMT as it is easy to program, has traffic monitoring in it and has multiple voices to keep the kids entertained.

We have our guide is an Australian and we call him “Brett”…for absolutely no apparent reason.

The kids and we always crack up when we miss a turn and Brett gets obviously upset and blurts in his mechanical Australian accent “recalculating”…endless hours of fun.

Most importantly, Brett gets us to where we want to go. And when you’re hauling a 6 ton behemoth fifth wheel, you don’t want to take the wrong exit or get lost…that could spell disaster.

The Garmin nüvi 2455LMT GPS has been a lifesaver for us.

5. Netflix

Netflix is a mom’s best friend for those nights when you just want to watch a chick flick and all the guys are watching sports or war movies!
You can get it on the iPad, which makes it a “movie for one”…a great escape for the full time RV mom.

Plus, the Netflix subscription is really cheap and you can get it for less than $10 per month when you click here.

Totally worth it!

Just think of all the space you save by not lugging all your DVDs on the road with you. That unto itself is worth the $10 a month!

6.   Mattress Foam Pads

Although, the foam mattress cover is not an electronic device like some the other RV accessories listed above, this is an absolute MUST for saving your back in the not so comfy RV mattresses.

You can certainly opt for upgrading this RV accessory and replace the mattress with one like the Sleep Number Bed for an RV, but the cheapest and easiest solution is to just get a mattress cover. Although we are mattress snobs, to a certain extent, this really works just fine and best f all is one tenth of the cost of a new mattress.

Of all the RV accessories we recommend this one is especially important for MOMs!  Since we have a full sized mattress, I like the Perfect Harmony Mattress Topper – Full, but if you have a Queen bed, go for the Perfect Harmony Mattress Topper – Queen.

And a must have considering your mattress sits on a plywood board in most RVs!

Where To Buy RV Accessories That Mom’s Need Most

When you’re shopping for RV accessories, Camping World has a great selection of these as well as has tons of other small RV accessories (links provided here). They are a trustworthy and reputable vendor to find many of your RV accessories.

We have long recommended Amazon.com (links provided here as well) as their customers service is amazing, returns are easy and the vendors they deal with pass a rigorous testing to be qualified to sell on Amazon. With either store, you can’t go wrong.

Both Camping World and Amazon.com ship out your RV accessories quickly and the customer service is top notch. We have even ordered supplies in advance, gave a forwarding shipping address of our next RV stop and then picked up the RV accessories when we got there.

How cool is that!

So that is the top 6 RV accessories a Mom must have (and for the Dads out there, seriously consider these as well to keep the wife happy ), although for you Dads, please refer to Alex’s post on RV supplies for more of the outdoor “manly” RV supplies that you must have.

Please SHARE this post with your friends on Facebook as there are so many people who are looking to both RV full time as well as just go RVing who would really benefit from these RV accessories that every RVer must have….especially Mom!

RVing full time

If you’re RVing with kids, it requires ALOT of planning. After all, you can’t just “show up” at Yellowstone National Park on the fourth of July weekend and expect for them to have a full hookup RV site for you ready and waiting for you.

So as much as RVing full time is all about spontaneity, getting away from the “structured life” , and “location independence”…when push comes to shove, you’ll need to do some research, planning and preparation.

The Most Important RVing Full Time Tip

The most important thing when RVing, aside from making sure you have enough gas to get to your destination, is far and away the choices you make for RV parks.

And the best way to make sure the RV parks you are thinking if staying at are not complete dumps, we recommend checking RV park reviews on the Internet prior to booking.

Another great way to get information on RV parks is to ask your friends and have them make recommendations as well.

You can also go to RV forums and ask questions on these RVing sites as well. Campers love sharing their wealth of information! If they enjoyed a campground, then ask them which particular area of that campground would they recommend that you stay in.

Great Full Time RVing RV Park Reviews

If you are like us a bit and are more prone to flying by the seat of your pants, go online and read the reviews.

One site in particular that I used constantly was www.rvparkreviews.com. Another great RVing full time review site we love to use is yelp.com.

Between the two of them, these are two of the most popular RV campsite review sites online and has hundreds of RV park reviews available to you.

Sometimes people give recommendations for neat things to do in the area, which will help you in deciding what to do once you get there.

If for some reason, you cannot find a good RV campground on either of those sites, simply search for the campground name followed by “reviews” and more often than not, you’ll get really good information to make your RV campsite choice easier.

RV Park Review Watch Outs

Now keep in mind that when you are looking up rv park reviews, there are always going to be people with nothng better to do who somehow find the time to write bad reviews. So if you see twenty great reviews and one really bad one, then there’s not need to stay away from that RV park.

If you see multiple bad reviews however, then you may want to find another RV park.

When we were RVing full time in Springfield, Illinois, our RV park choices were a bit slim. We Googled reviews and couldn’t find many RV parks that would fit our fifth wheel except one, the KOA in Springfield.

In the review online however there were four reviews, two good and two not so good ones.

But after reading all four RV reviews, the objections they had seemed so minor, we booked it anyway. We ended up staying at that RV park for five days and had a great time.

So if the objections are relatively minor, then chances are the RV park is just fine, especially if the pictures look good.

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Catching frogs is another good reason kids should RV!

There are lots of reasons why kids should go RVing. At first when we went on our full time RV trip, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it that much. But now after two months, I really like it a lot.

I think there are a lot of kids out there who may think that RVing isn’t that fun for kids, but it is! Some kids think they might miss home (I do), they would miss their friends (they will) so they don’t want to go RVing.

Well, that is not true, there are many things that make RVing fun for kids.

So I thought I would put together a list of all the reasons why its so much fun to RV full time when you are a kid.

This even works if you are an adult too!

So here it is:

1. Swimming Pools

We have gone swimming in so many pools its hard to count them all!

I don’t have a pool at home so this is a big deal for me. We have the ocean near us, but I really like pools.

Most RV campgrounds have pools so this is a big bonus!

Me and Eli playing in the pool at the Mitchell South Dakota KOA pool

2. Playing Sports

You get to play sports whenever you want, including mini golf. And most of the campgrounds have mini golf courses!

Me and Eli mini golfing!

3. Cool Parks

You also get to see lots of cool parks like Glacier National Park, Custer State Park and all the cool stuff there.

Where do you get to see buffaloes back at home!

That bike better get out of the way, that buffalo weighs over 2000 pounds!

This is a bear eating huckleberries at Glacier National Park. We stayed in our car.

4. Making New Friends

So far I’ve already made 7 new friends on our RVing trip cross country.

Sometimes kids are scared to go RVing because they will miss their friends, just like I was. But all the kids who are RVing at RV parks have friends back at home who they miss, so making friends with them is easy!

I think I will make even more friends in the coming months.

Me and my new friend Spencer. He's from Massachusetts but we met in Montana!

5. Sleeping!

Sometimes while RVing, I get to sleep as long as you want almost every day. I even slept until 9 in the morning one day, that was awesome!

I can sleep almost as long as Garfield when RVing

6. Cool Land Forms

So far I’ve see a lot of different landforms on this trip. Landforms are things like mountains, plains, caves and buttes.  So far I’ve seen some pretty cool land forms like this one:

This is a mountain land form we saw from our tour boat in Waterton, Alberta.

7. Baseball (and Professional Sports)

When you’re RVing cross country, you can see almost every baseball team play. Its kind of expensive so you might not want to go to every baseball park. But if you have enough money, you can see lots of games.

Also you can collect the team cards too.

So far, I’ve seen the Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Cubs, White Sox, Pirates, Red Sox, Twins and the Tigers play baseball at four different baseball parks.

One of my favorite baseball parks was Target Field in Minneapolis:

These are out seat at Target Field in Minneapolis thanks to our friend Chris

And here is Chris with his Gran. It was her birthday, happy birthday Gran! They were nice to me.

8.Free Time

Free time is only about one(1) day out of a week but that time is very fun and you can do what ever pleases you.  In my free time, I like to organize my baseball cards and whittle.

I am also learning to use a hatchet and am getting pretty good with my flint and steel (only when mom and dad are watching though!)

Free time with Eli goofing around

9. Museums

I am learning about history and science first hand.  I’ve gone to  a lot of different museums and historical sites. They are all good, but my favorite one was  the National Mississippi River Aquarium and Museum in Dubuque, Iowa ( near Galena, IL).

They have a really fun kids section to learn about the water cycle which I learned about in school:

Fun at the Mississippi Museum!

10. Great Food!

Not that my mom and dad aren’t good cooks, but the food when RVing seems so much better. On this RVing trip I’ve had the best food in my life!

I like trying new kinds of foods like when we went to Elements in Pittsburgh which was awesome.

Me tasting a new kind of tea at Elements with my mom. Elements is my favorite restaurant!

I forgot to tell you that when we arrived at Elements that night, my dad and I talked in British accents to the hostess and she thought we were from England! We were laughing so hard I almost peed my pants.

Anyway, I really like cooking over an open fire too and I have done that many times. I have cooked dinner three times over an open flame and brekfast once, I think it tasted good.

Mom and Dad said it was the best breakast they have ever had!

Me cooking breakfast on the open fire! I am still in my jammys too...

11. Less Chores!

This by far, is one of the greatest reasons to go RVing!

RVs are smaller than houses. Kind of obvious. When living in an RV, there are less chores because the small size creates less mess!

Also back at home Mom and Dad makes us do chores every Saturday morning and Dad yells at us alot. I don’t miss that.

Sometimes Saturday mornings at home seem like this...

I don’t have to vacuum either because my brother does that. I don’t have to take out the trash as much either because the trash can always seems to be right outside your door.

Also cleaning up the kitchen in an RV is easier too because the kitchen is so small. I usually do the drying of the dishes and thats pretty easy.

12. Sunsets

In every RV park we go to, there is a different view from our window, which I think is really neat. I like my view at home, but its nice to see other views.

Also, there is a different sunset every night. Its pretty neat that the same sun that I am seeing is the same one my friends are seeing back home. This makes me feel good.

Every night you get to see sunsets like this one in Munster, Indiana

13. Time With Family

Even though I live in the same house as my Dad and Mom back at home, and they BOTH work from home, I don’t see them that much. This is because they are always working.

So when RVing full time, I see them a lot and I like that very much….even though they still work alot.

This is the best part of RVing full time.

My family at Mount Rushmore

So no matter what your interest are, you can do it when you are on the road.

For all kids who are reading this, don’t worry, RVing is fun! And for all the adults out there, it is just as fun for you too!

So what do you think about RVing full time. What are your top reasons why you would like to RV fulltime?  Please comment below.

And please share this blog post with your friends on Facebook as well! That way more people can go RVing too.

Thank you!

Many people thought Herbert Hoover was a failure but I don't think so!

Did you know that Herbert Hoover gave millions of tons of food to Europe after World War One which helped save millions of people’s lives?

Did you know that in the early 1900s, he was called “The Great Humanitarian”?

When we were full time RVing in Iowa, we went to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa and I learned much about this controversial President.

Lots of people think Hoover was a failure and was to blame for The Great Depression….but I don’t think so.

I learned a lot at The Herbert Hoover Museum. Going to obscure museums like this one is one of the benefits of living in an RV full time for a year. I never would have learned any of this if I was home going to camp instead of RVing full time!

Anyway, there are lots of interesting things people may not know about Herbert Hoover such as:

• He was an orphaned from both his parents at age nine and went to live with his uncle in Oregon. There he learned to love fishing just like me.

• He then put himself through college at Stanford University.

• After college, he worked as a surveyor for his very first job just like presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

So if anyone asks you what Herbert Hoover has in common with Washington and Lincoln, you’ll know!

• After college, he worked as a geological engineer for many years and made a lot of money.

• After he made all his money, he then gave up the business world so he could help people!

• After World War One, there were lots of people starving. He wanted to help, so he volunteered to help feed Europe. He saved the lives of millions of people organizing food drives and contributing his own money!

• This humanitarian effort made him very popular and opened him up for election to public office. He then worked in Washington under Presidents Harding and Coolidge.

• He won the presidential election of 1928 by a land slide. And because he was President during the Great Depression, he lost the next election by a landslide too.

I thought he was a great man because he saved millions of people from starvation and dying not just once (during World War One ) but again after World War Two!

Not many people know this but Herbert Hoover, after World War Two, he was asked by President Truman to help a starving, war torn Europe again just like he did after World War One.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post and that you will look online to see more about the interesting life of Herbert Hoover.

What do you think, was Herbert Hoover a great man? Or was he to blame for the Great Depression?

Post a comment below and let me know what YOU think!