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01-07-2015, 06:43 PM
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#1
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Rivet Master
2019 27' International
2014 25' International
2006 23' Safari SE
Boulder City
, Nevada
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 5,703
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Picking the correct Soda Straw in an Airstream Thread
Some might find this more frivolous than the Soda Thread posted by someone who needs to quit breathing the thin, Colorado air.
... and I know you were curious. I like the straws that have the top that can be bent. If you find one while you are traveling, on the road, grab some extras... you may not find another for a hundred or thousand miles. Tooth picks in the cellophane wraps are also worth grabbing at a restaurant, but that is for a future thread.
There are so many useful things you can pick up while traveling and camping in your $300 camper shell or your 34 foot Airstream running into... what... a check for $90,000? But this is outside this thread. I still pick up cents and nickels in parking lots before someone else beats me to it. That is how I paid for this last Airstream... took a front loader to bring the cash into the dealer. He may still be counting and rolling them.
Freebies while On the Road:
-Bendable Soda straws.
-Reusable plastic 44 ounce cups (refills for under $1)
-Poop bags for your pets and small children
-Plastic bags for double wrapping the poop bags
-Tooth picks made from real maple or real white plastic
-Large paper sacks can be made into Halloween costumes while on the road
-Business cards that can be used as book marks.
-Free newspapers for starting a campfire.
-Candy from banks you... do not bank at while near the deposit counter
-Snow at Glacier National Park for your ice chest in JULY
-Hub caps along the road are worth $$$$ or for bartering
-Hats, sleeping bags, bags of clothes, suit cases... hair dryers
It is all out there for the pickings. Now, those who want to talk this thread down while on the road... go ahead. When you are camped and forgot the toilet paper... you will wish you had some of the free newspapers from the last gasoline stop.
There have to be more frivolous Airstream or, who cares, others who want to learn to think like some of us when the days are short, the evenings are cold and the free good stuff on this last trip has been short in supply.
It would be worth a Diner's peppermint, which I really hate, to hear how frivolous you can be. Finding loose cash blowing across a WalMart parking lot... yep... been there. Go to the DOWNWIND grassy field from a WalMart parking lot when you walk your dogs, children and pick up the cash stuck in the grass. Some of us were born with a Silver Spoon. I am looking for doughnuts left in a shopping cart... just different needs for different people.
Lets hear YOUR frivilos and frivolous quirks. I could not have covered everything myself. It was a learning experience. Now that we are less than a week of hitting the road, unless another big snow storm hits... this could be it for some time.
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01-07-2015, 07:15 PM
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#2
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Rivet Master
1973 Argosy 24
Kitchener
, Ontario
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 945
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I have picked up a jerry can, (2 gal.) full of gas even, 50 yards down from the filling station. I figure pickup truck, heavy foot, no tailgate. Nickels dimes and quarters, $5 worth all told, all at once, at the airport. Hole in pocket? Straws, cups and toothpicks? Absolutely. Ketchup, salt , pepper, vinegar, soy sauce, etc from take-out stands? For sure, and napkins too.
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01-07-2015, 08:03 PM
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#3
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2 Rivet Member
1994 28' Excella
Burkburnett
, Texas
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 39
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On a bicycle tour two years ago half way between Durango and Pagosa Springs I passed a black pouch, it looked a little weathered but I turned around and picked it up. Inside I found a near new Klein clamp on AC meter.
The slower you go the more you see.
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01-07-2015, 08:38 PM
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#4
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3 Rivet Member
Vintage Kin Owner
Bartlett
, Illinois
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 136
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Firewood left in the neighbors site after they leave.
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01-07-2015, 09:13 PM
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#5
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Rivet Master
2005 25' Safari
Salem
, Oregon
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 8,376
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Hi, FREE Cherries from behind a construction site, brought to me by the framers. And FREE wild Blackberries on the side of the road and at one of my favorite campgrounds in Oregon.
__________________
Bob 2005 Safari 25-B
"Le Petit Chateau Argent" Small Silver Castle
2000 Navigator / 2014 F-150 Eco-Boost / Equal-i-zer / P-3
YAMAHA 2400 / AIR #12144
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01-07-2015, 09:28 PM
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#6
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4 Rivet Member
1961 22' Safari
Union
, Oregon
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 477
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I used to work at the top of Cabbage Hill on I-84 in eastern Oregon and drove it daily. In the winter I would pick up mud flaps and tire chains from trucks. Many of the truckers from Georgia (or thereabouts) did not know how to chain up so I could quite often pick up brand new tire chains with less than 100 yards of wear. These I would cut down to fit my pickup. The mud flaps also were for my pickup to keep the rocks and mud somewhat away from my trailers when traveling dirt and gravel roads. I did have to shorten them to fit.
In the summer I would find piles of onions, sawdust/shavings, and potatos along the freeway. These were dunped by the truckers, when they were overweight, a few miles before coming up on the weigh stations. They would call ahead to other truckers to see if the scales were open or not.
And when these scales are closed they are the perfect FREE place to weight your vehicle and trailer. Jockey around a bit and you can weigh one axle at a time.
Sam
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01-08-2015, 09:53 AM
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#7
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Rivet Master
2019 27' International
2014 25' International
2006 23' Safari SE
Boulder City
, Nevada
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 5,703
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I like those Oregon fresh cherries a bit more than those we get in the can!
Montana on the west side of the Flathead Lake is Flathead Cherry country. Home owners with cherry trees will sell cherries in season along the highway. You finish off a pound and can stop pick up another. Blemished cherries where two are stuck together or missing a stem... they have them in the refrigerator and will haggle price with you. You cannot get enough of them!
Why are there loose tennis shoes along the highway? Maybe someone knows the answer.
Shovels... and push brooms are easily found.
In Kansas City, Missouri we saw a young man, maybe 17, pull out from a car wash and stopped on my right waiting for the light to turn green. His wallet was sitting above the car door on the top of the car. We tried to get his attention after rolling our windows down... he ignored us as if we were members of a street gang. Driving off to get ahead of us, his wallet dropped off and slid to the side of the road. We pulled over as he sped away and retrieved the wallet.
Arriving home we found the family's telephone number and called. His mother answered. Her son told her about the "people at the intersection". We said we have his wallet and thanked us profusely for picking it up at our home. So much for street gangs returning wallets these days.
Onions in Weld County, Colorado. They fall off the large trucks hauling them from the fields. You can smell the onion fields when they are being harvested. Never picked any up, but these things are larger than soft balls. If you like Onions... find out when they are digging them up and get yourself 50 pounds along the ditches.
Campgrounds at RV Parks and far back into the hunter's camps. Metal detecting. At a RV Park you can wear ear phones so people do not have to hear the beep beep beeping.... Use to metal detect condemned swimming ponds used in the pre 1970's in Missouri. I do not understand why anyone would wear nice rings and necklaces while swimming. The 1940's to mid 1960's swimming ponds that were being drained to haul off Spring Storm sediments was hunting season for out board motors, fishing tackle boxes, poles, reels (worthless due to corrosion), but gold of 14k and 18k are bright and shiny. 10k would tarnish over 40 years.
Found in Wyoming along Union Pacific Railroad campsite from the 1860's to 1880's a 1862 quarter, square nails and a ring of keys with UPRR embossed on the switch key with a dozen skeleton keys for passenger car doors. Henry 44 shell casings, Sharps 50cal., cap and ball caps, fired lead in the prairie while hunting with muzzle loading rifles... it is all out there from "previous campers".
Found a U S Government license plate and mounting plastic this fall in New Mexico off the grid. I will drop it into a mail box next time we are in New Mexico.
ATV trails with unfired rifle cartridges from bouncing around and out of the back.
Found a nice pile of Elk Antlers in New Mexico three years ago. Went back for two more years and not a thing to be found...
Digging trilobites in western Utah we parked next to an obvious campsite with scattered rusty cans... probably late 1960's or early 1970's as the beer/soda cans did not have aluminum tops with pull tabs. About five inches down was a man's gold wedding band. I thought it was a wine screw cap, as that is what the metal detector first indicated what it was. I kicked it out of the sod, eventually, and a 14k wedding band. Stuff is out there. Why or How? You just have to think where stuff can be found and just go and look.
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01-08-2015, 11:38 AM
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#8
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Rivet Master
1999 34' Excella
Currently Looking...
Hillsboro
, Texas
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 6,408
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When I rode MC I would pick up lots of loose tools off the roadway. Still, I find myself trying to locate items while traveling...and then trying to figure out if I can get the TV and 34' of AS pulled over safely, all the while as my wife is verifying my sanity... Gee, I love that gal!
In Fast Food places here, they have started restricting access to things like condiments, napkins, toothpicks, etc... they even did a news piece on folks who horde these items... Guilty? yeah, me, too.
'Scrap' steel and other items which may be repairable/usable in neighborhood trash piles. Except the old tube TVs...
__________________
Peace and Blessings..
Channing
WBCCI# 30676
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01-09-2015, 08:10 PM
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#9
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2 Rivet Member
1970 23' Safari
Torrance
, California
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 62
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another "freebie"
You know those advertisements in magazines that you "peel up" and it releases the new cologne sent? Well if you rub it on your arms it transfers the sent there and you do not have to buy the product! I works pretty well and since I gather the old magazines from my wife's hairdresser I get several new colognes a month, plus getting to read the magazines!
I loved the other posts on "found" things, recently I found a rechargeable stick led flashlight that had "blacklight" leds on the front for looking for termite activity, bed bugs and body fluids. Brought it home researched it on the internet, found a wall wart in my pile that was correct charged it up and it held a charge and works. Immediately found the spots where our dog had been going on the carpet.
My wife wanted to take it on a recent road trip where we would be staying in hotels so she could see if "everything"was clean! We decided not to take it and NOT to know if there was anything lurking in the motel room!
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