First, consider your RV kitchen. What’s really required for on-the-road canning is a lot of what’s required in a sticks-and-bricks environment: Lots of hot water, a range top you can control, and counter space to park jars while the cool and seal. We’ve found our standard six-gallon RV water heater to have sufficient capacity and recovery time to handle the rigors of home canning. The LP gas range, while it may not have as high a BTU output as the “home” equivalent (hence taking a bit longer to reach “temp”) was handy, as controlling pressure in a pressure canner is predicated by the burner. A gas burner is so much more variable than an electric range, and faster reacting, too.

A couple of other considerations? For us, during canning time, we simply resign ourselves to eating outdoors, or eating in the living room. We dedicate the dinette table to cooling jars. The one snarl you may find: Canning and boondocking don’t lend themselves to simultaneous performance. You need a LOT of water for canning, and there’s a lot of waste water generated. This can quickly outstretch the capacity of your freshwater and  gray water holding tanks. And canning on a hot day is a nasty business without air conditioned comfort–putting up in an RV park or campground with full utilities is a real necessity for canning.

But think of the advantages: You can go to the source of FRESH foods, be they vegetables, fruit, or even seafood. Pick up your produce or products, return to camp, and you’ll have some of the freshest canned foods available–oh so much better than you’ll ever buy at the store.

We’ve found that canning smaller containers, pints, makes the most sense for us. We store our empty or full jars in appropriately sized plastic storage containers. For big rigs with basement storage, it’s easy to keep both the completed work and the canning gear. For ease of work, water bath canning (fruits and acidic vegetables) is much, much easier than pressure canning, but yes, you can successfully pressure can “on the road.” Of course, you do well to take the “normal” safety precautions when canning on the road–have your pressure canner gauge checked at the start of the season; toss out any questionable canned goods (jar and all!), and above all else, enjoy the fruits of your labor!

photo credit: thebittenword on flickr.com

Maybe it is a brave new world out there. Red Box Video challenges the concept of movie rental stores by putting a kiosk in every Walmart.  OK, not in every Walmart, but in lots of Walmarts across the country, and in places like McDonald’s fast food joints, and Albertson’s grocery stores. What doth Red Box offer?

* $1.00 a night DVD rentals (just add a buck a night for each additional night you keep it)

* Reservations on the video of your choice by Internet (your movie waits for you)

* Around 200 new titles per kiosk, and new titles added on every Tuesday

* Returns at ANY Red Box kiosk, regardless of where you originally rented the movie.

We were afraid that “new releases” probably meant we’d never find anything we wanted. But popular “older” titles like Lawrence of Arabia are actually up for rent as well. And if you’re traveling with the younger set, there are plenty of family class videos available–chuck one in the DVD player on those long stretches and don’t worry about the, “Are we there yet” chorus.

How does it work? You can either run up to the video kiosk and choose from whatever titles you see displayed, or run up redbox.com on the web and pick out a video you’d like to reserve. Either way, at the kiosk you’ll swipe your credit or debit card and the machine pops the video out of a slot. On return, simply hit the “return” key and follow the instructions to have your video verified and checked back in. Here’s the catch with reserved videos. Your card is changed when you make the reservation, and if you don’t turn up at the appointed kiosk by 9:00 pm that evening, your “reserved” DVD can be checked out by anyone else–and you’re still charged the rental fee.

For a redbox location near your RV, go to redbox.com, and be prepared with either a zip code or city and state.  Now, if they can just add fresh popcorn with your choice of butter and salt, maybe this concept would be perfect!

First, a bit of a Medicare primar: Medicare is the federal government sponsored health plan for folks 65 or over, or others who are eligible for the plan because of a disability. Medicare has several important “flavors” if you will.  Part A covers hospital stays and “skilled nursing facility” care. Part B is for the day-to-day doctor visits, lab tests, x-rays, and a host of other medical services. Durable medical equipment like canes and walkers fall under Part B. Part D is the most recent Medicare add-on, which helps pay for prescription drugs.

No, we didn’t forget Part C. This is an optional plan, where you can voluntarily sign up for a “Medicare Advantage Plan,” which in many cases actually saves you money. Part C offers a variety of individual health insurance “plans” which often limit who you can see to a given list of medical providers in their “network.” Go out of the network, you may have to pay more. The question fulltimers often raise is simple: Why on earth would you enroll in such a plan if you spend time traveling outside of the network area? With “standard” Medicare Parts A and B, you can go to any doctor, anywhere in the country who accepts Medicare and get help.

It often comes down to money. On standard Medicare, Part B visits (say to the doctor or get X-rays) you’ll pay 20% of the total bill–after you’ve satisfied a yearly deductible amount (presently $135). Need to go to the hospital? Hold on to your wallet! You’ll pay over $1,000 before Medicare starts picking up the bill. However, one RVer we know who carries a Medicare Advantage plan coughs up a co-pay of just $100 a day for being in the hospital. When he visits the doctor he hands over a $20 co-pay (or $30 for a “specialist). How much does he have to pay for the plan? The same amount is deducted from his Social Security check that all other Medicare recipients are docked, and for his plan, he pays nothing else. Prescription drugs? Under his plan, $8.00 a month each for his “generics.”

What about the network restrictions? “On my plan,” he tells us, “I can see any doctor, anywhere in the US who will accept Medicare assignment and whose willing to bill my insurance company. I had surgery in Tucson, seen specialists in Washington State, and if I need to see somebody in Vermont, I won’t have any problems.” But here’s the fine print: The plan isn’t available to everyone on Medicare. What plans are available are based on your residency address. Our RVing friend shows his residence address in a fairly large city in Washington, and his plan is just one choice among many. Another friend of ours who shows residency in Quartzsite, Arizona has few plans to choose from.

For fulltimers, here’s just one more thing to throw into the mix of where to call “home” for tax and insurance purposes. By logging into the Medicare web site, you can investigate what plans are available by logging into medicare.gov. We’ll spell out a specific way to go about this later. You can also compare “medigap” plans on the web site, which are insurance plans that allow you to keep standard Medicare but help pay the difference between what Medicare pays the doctor and what the total bill is.

Doing the research is admittedly a pain in the neck. It can be a frustrating bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but if you stick with it, you’ll find what Medicare option best fits your needs–and your finances.

What to look for: First, you’ll need to evaluate your own priorities. If money is an issue, find out how much the plan costs, both in terms of an up-front monthly payment to the insurance company, and how much individual co-pays are for each type of service. When you check out plans on the Medicare website, you’ll be asked the general state of your health, and the site will provide estimates of your annual cost for each plan. It’s a pretty broad estimate, but at least you can compare plan for plan to see which would likely cost less.

You’ll also need to know what happens if you go out of the network–if the plan has one. Some plans are very tight and only allow you to obtain non-emergency services in the network. Others will allow you to go out of the network for a higher cost. Still others may allow you to see any doctor, anywhere, who’ll accept Medicare assignment.

Be sure to check out how much it will cost you for prescription drugs. Each plan has its own “formulary” of what drugs it allows, and how much you’ll pay for them. If you’re on a lot of drugs, or some expensive ones, it will pay to shop around.

The one RVer cited above who has the “go anywhere” plan, there is another hitch to look for: He can’t be out of his “home” state for more than six months. As a result, in his travels he always plans on being “home” twice a year to meet the plan requirement.

Learning more about Medicare plans: Log on to www.medicare.gov.  Lookfor the option on the left side of the screen labeled, “Plan Choices” (this will also help you sort out Medigap plans) and click on it. Chose the “Medicare Advantage Plans” option. Now look for the choice, “Medicare Options Compare,” and next find “Find and Compare Health Plans.” (Whew! Told you this could be frustrating!). If you click on “General Plan Search” you can enter a zip code for any town in the country you might call “home,” and you’ll find what plans are available and the details.