Just a reminder from us at BarnesOnMove.com that the Memorial Day celebrations are for remembering those who never returned from serving their country. Remember this when you are enjoying your day off, your party, and your family!

Just a reminder from us at BarnesOnMove.com that the Memorial Day celebrations are for remembering those who never returned from serving their country. Remember this when you are enjoying your day off, your party, and your family!
A few weeks ago we started having family meetings where we discuss stuff from working schedules, to video releases. We even put in our dinner menu for the week. This keeps us on track and gets more things done throughout the week.
Here is the format we use.
Feel free to use it, if you need a slightly different one, contact me, and for a donation I can make you one that fits better for you and your family.
If this helps you and your family, please think about donating.
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Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyA couple years ago the state of Florida put out a new vehicle tag. This tag featured a kayak in the mangroves, along with some of our favorite animals in the area.
This tag cost $35 to put one on your car. $25 of that goes directly to the state parks.
Our family loves using the state parks and with the lifestyle we were taking up, we pre-ordered our tag when the option opened up. About a year ago, we were finally able to pick up our new tag at the tag agency near our home town. It looked GREAT on our truck!
March of 2023, the social media for the Florida State Parks posted this on Facebook.
Our choice in getting this tag has helped place over 800 bottle filling stations in the state parks. This will help reduce trash in both the parks and landfills.
You can order your plate from the Florida State Parks Foundation.
Part of living full time in an RV, means making choices. Sometimes that with locations, other times, that has to do with what you can or can not take with you to your next location.
We have gone through processes of eliminating some of our favorite dishes. You know that one coffee cup you cant live without with the cute cats on it. Or getting rid of the 4th pair of running shoes when you only have one pair of feet.
But how do you shave weight from a trailer when you want to carry an extra bag of chocolate chips?
We have seen some things that are attached to the 5th wheel that do not serve a purpose for us. Two of the obvious ones for us where doors and valances.
This new Keystone Arcadia 3550mb only has 2 doors on hinges dividing sleeping rooms. We took them down and put up curtains. This shaved about 5 pounds per door. They opened in a manor that was intrusive to moving around the house.
The valances on the windows. These were brown boxes placed on top of the blinds to give it a more homely feel. Counting around our 5er, we have 13 different windows with these little brown boxes attached.
With a short discussion with the family, we decided they were not needed. The valances where visual clutter and a dust catcher.
Each was held on by 4 screws, and took only a couple minutes each to get off the walls. About an hour later, I weighed the whole stack and found that we cut 31 pounds of valances off the RV. 31 pounds!! that is almost 4 gallons of water. Or could be 30 bags of coffee. That is the weight of a big box store bicycle.
So putting our 5er on a diet let it lose over 40 pounds in a matter of a couple hours. I wish I could lose weight that efficiently.
I will be participating in the Half Marathon at Space Coast this year. It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving and always a good time. If you are thinking of doing it, use my signup code so I get credit, then get 5 of your friends to join and you’ll get $20 off registration!
Here is my link.
https://runsignup.com/Race/FL/Cocoa/SpaceCoastMarathonHalfMarathon?raceRefCode=aljNIcF0
I hope to see you there!
-B
Tossed this together to help keep thoughts straight when putting together your social media post. Use it if you like it.
This allows you to keep the thoughts straight on What, When, and how on the post.
Add a comment if there is a box you need added…
Our beautiful home has some quirks just like every other house that we have had. Our home is a home on wheels, and is a 37 foot fifth wheel. A bit smaller than we lived in prior, but it does get us where we need to be.
The model is a Keystone Sprinter 32 BH. The BH stands for “Bunk House.” Purchased so our son could have his own room, the bunk house made the most sense at the time. It has 2 beds, and a fold down sofa, for one kid. Pull out the extra bunk (and ditch some weight). Now 1 bunk bed and one sofa. He chose to sleep on the sofa.
Fast forward a few months, and we are now trying to make a better space for him to do his school work while the rest of the house is also working. We need the sofa to be a sofa!
Now comes the hard part. The ladder included in the RV is not user friendly. This metal ladder had rungs that were 1 inch and square with the side rails. This made climbing the ladder by stepping on the corners every time you went up to the bunk very uncomfortable.
Finally one of the adults ask our son “If the ladder didn’t hurt the feet, would you sleep on the top bunk?” To which he answered yes. Now a bright idea had to be created into existence. We decided to add solid large steps to the painful ladder, a modification that would improve the usability.
Easy you say! Making a bunk ladder user friendly should be easy! I thought so, too. The plan was to cut a notch into a few boards and bolt them on. First trip to the big box store, I get screws (1/2″ #8 wood screws) and a 2x4x8. Along with stain that would hopefully match the interior color.
Step 1: Measure the Length of the steps. Cut the board to length, mine were around 10 1/2″ and there are 4 steps. Cut a 5th one for testing and setup. Dry fit them to make sure they fit properly between the verticals of the ladder.
Step 2: Angles and Cuts. Prop the ladder up as it would be on the bunks, and measure the angles of the side of the step, and the top of the step (long edge and short edge). I used the Iphone’s “measure” app to get the angles. Worked well enough to get the point. Using the table saw I set it up to make the first cut of 35 degrees. Set the gate where the cut will be near the center of the board, and carefully rip a cut through the Test step.
Reset the table saw to 25 degrees, measure the depth so it falls at the end of the cut. Set the gate so the cuts match at the apex, and rip the next cut.
Test fit the one to make sure the cuts line up on the ladder rungs. Adjust your measurements as needed.
After my test fit, I made my adjustments, ripped one cut through 4 steps. Then set the table saw to the other cut, and ripped through the steps again, creating an angled channel in the steps.
Step 3: Clean the edges. All the cuts were rough and needed to be cleaned up and the sharp edges needed to be cut down. I used a 1/4″ rounded router bit to dress up the steps. I then attacked each with some 80 grit sand paper to get rid of any splinters or rough edges and print that may have been on the boards. Followed this up with a slow grind on 800 grit and got a nice smooth step to go on the bunk ladder.
Step 4: Blend to surroundings. Our Camper is a grey interior. We matched a stain as close as we could find from the big blue box home improvement store. Stained the steps as directed.
Step 5: Attach steps to bunk ladder. I drilled 3 holes on each of the ladder rungs. Fitted each step up, and attached them with 1/2″ #8 wood screws.
Step 6: Move it back in. After sufficient time for the stain to dry and quit smelling, we placed the newly user friendly ladder back into the bunk room.
This morning project made this painful ladder that came with our RV into a useful set up steps to get into and out of the upper bunk. This allows our child to use the upper bunk without the pain of the original bunk ladder. The additional weight of a couple pounds is worth the usability of the ladder. And mamma is happy, too!
This week we are in Eustis FL!
Plans include, but are not limited to: Breweries, Coffee Houses, Restaurants, Hiking, and small town photography! If you are near, reach out, we’d love to hear from you.
This relocation is being used to catch up on publications and business practices that we have neglected while at home base.
Last month or so we have spent getting our doctor’s appointments completed. Catching up with maintenance of RV, warranty work, repairs, etc.
Drone services have expanded into photogrammetry (a lot of photos that gives a high resolution image of the ground.) And I am learning 3d imaging of buildings and large objects to be used in 3d worlds, or advertisements and information to clients.
Please take a minute to share our blog/website/social media so we can share what we have learned with a wider array of people. Thank you.
-B
As we are all preparing for the storm, remember to take care of you, your family and your pets!
Stuff can be replaced, but life and limb is harder to fix and replace!
Having said that, we will be moving out of the 5er for a couple days, putting it in storage mode, because I really don’t want to deal with broke stuff, I am tying the axels down to anchors…
Be safe out there, and don’t drink all the beer!
Once a year, sometimes twice, you have to take care of ‘things.’ A year ago, before starting our journey, we made appointments with our favorite doctors, dentist, eye doc, and others.
No matter if you like it or not, you have to take care of yourself even when on the road. So we made our way back to home base for the weeks we need for appointments. I realized that I just don’t like going to doctor’s offices but good news, so far, we are all healthy, can see, and have good chompers!
Two pieces to remember here. When you have good doctors, keep them! And self maintenance on your health is always worth the time. So if you are going to go on extended explorations, make sure your health is taken care of often enough to stay in top shape.
Now back to exploring.
-B