site

Website enhancements.

Simplifying posts

I’ve decided to simplify my blog posts a bit. You may have noticed that I’m not following the schedule I used to use (Modification Mondays, Travel Tuesdays, etc); I’m now just posting each weekday.

Since the most useful and interesting posts (to certain audiences) are RV modifications and things we do, I will continue those posts much as I have been. The modifcation posts are useful for other Tiffin motorhome owners; I regularly link to them in Facebook groups to help others with similar issues. For other people, those posts are easy to skip. The exploring posts are more interesting to family and friends (and future us!), to see the interesting attractions we’ve experienced.

But travel and campground posts aren’t all that useful, and all the data recorded for campgrounds was a lot of work, so I’m going to merge those two, much as I did for the New Zealand series. The new format will be like the travel posts, with photos from the journey, but end with a few campground pictures, and omit all the data. So each post will document some interesting sights during our travel from one campground to the next, for anyone interested in that. They will continue to include maps with potential stops marked, which are useful for others traveling this route (including our future selves).

I will continue the travel timelapse videos, at least until after Alaska, since that will no doubt be very scenic. Those are a lot of work too, so I may discontinue them in the future, but we’ll see.

I know that the audience for this blog is very small; mostly just family and friends, and a few others who have seen the blog on Facebook on seen our motorhome on the road (via the QR code). In large part, it’s just a hobby travel diary for my own satisfaction. And that’s enough.

Spending a month exploring New Zealand

A heads-up: we will be visiting my family and exploring New Zealand for 30 days from November 7th to December 7th.

Blog posts will continue while away, since the posts are a couple of months behind real-time. Though I may not cross-post to Facebook during this time, since that has to be done manually, so if you read the posts via Facebook, you’ll need to visit the Sinclair Trails website directly if you don’t want to miss my thrilling content.

We’ll continue the RV lifestyle in NZ: we are renting a campervan and driving around the country. Here’s our route, starting in Auckland, and finishing in Christchurch (the southern loop is in a clockwise direction):

New Zealand route

Not sure yet if I’ll have blog posts about our NZ adventure; no doubt I’ll take lots of photos, so I probably will. Stay tuned!

Taking a week off

We are heading into the Disney World bubble next week, and for that reason and since the blog posts are fast catching up to real-time due to staying in one place for multiple weeks recently, I’ve decided to take a week off from the blog.

So, no new Sinclair Trails blog posts next week. The next post will be on the 17th.

In the meantime, enjoy some cat pics.

Paladin and David

Paladin and water view

Paladin

Follow Sinclair Trails on Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Micro.blog, Facebook, YouTube, and more

Sinclair Trails is now on the Mastodon and Bluesky social networks, joining Micro.blog, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, and of course the blog and its RSS feed.

On Mastodon, follow @sinclairtrails@mastodon.social.

On Bluesky, follow @sinclairtrails.com.

On Micro.blog, follow @sinclairtrails.

On Threads, follow @sinclairtrails.

On Facebook, follow @dejal (my personal account, where I cross-post Sinclair Trails posts).

On YouTube, follow @SinclairTrails for travel timelapse videos.

Of course, the Sinclair Trails blog

In a RSS reader (like the excellent NewsBlur, that I work on), follow sinclairtrails.com/feed.

New posts appear first on the Sinclair Trails blog and RSS feed, then on Micro.blog, which cross-posts them to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads.

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Modification Mondays, Travel Tuesdays, Whereabouts Wednesdays, To and Fro Thursdays and Fridays

Looking at the blog posts I have scheduled for the coming weeks and months (!), I’ve decided to bring a little more uniformity to the posting schedule.

So starting next week, you can look forward to regular features on each day:

  • Modification Mondays: where I post about some improvement I did to our coach, e.g. this coming Monday will be documenting replacing the bedroom ceiling fan motor (again). These will continue to be organized in the blog category modifications.
  • Travel Tuesdays: a post with photos from our travel day, followed by the YouTube timelapse video. Blog category travel.
  • Whereabouts Wednesdays: a post reviewing the RV park where we stayed. Blog category campsite.
  • To and Fro Thursdays and Fridays: posts about things we did while staying there; parks, food, and other attractions. Blog category exploring.
  • If I need more than two days of posts for our activities, they’ll continue into the weekend, but not beyond.

I’ve edited my upcoming posts to follow this schedule. We’ll see how this goes, but I like more predictability in my posts, and hopefully you’ll enjoy knowing what kinds of things to expect. If you only care about RV modifications, you can just read Monday’s posts and ignore the others, and conversely if you only care about things we do and see, Thursdays onwards are for you. You can even filter the blog via the modifications, travel, campsite, and exploring categories, amongst others. (If you’re reading this on the Sinclair Trails site, see the sidebar via the hamburger menu for a complete list.)

Paladin

Taking a break: heading to the US Virgin Islands

I won’t be posting on this blog for a week or so, as Jenn and I will be dropping off our coach for servicing, Paladin for boarding, and will be catching flights for the first time in years, heading to the US Virgin Islands to celebrate Jenn’s milestone birthday.

Paladin

No doubt I’ll take lots of photos and will do some blog posts once we’re back, so you can look forward to that.

Next post on the 17th. See you then!

Moving to thrice-weekly posts

Jenn and I have been homebodies over winter, what with having colds, and not feeling like exploring much. So I’m running low on blog posts.

Therefore, I’ve decided to switch from an everyday posting schedule to three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Don’t look so shocked:

Paladin

I may do extra posts occasionally, and of course may increase the frequency again if I start to accumulate too many posts, but for now this seems a good pace.

Taking a break; happy Thanksgiving

We’ve been taking it easy recently, not doing many interesting things, so I’ve caught up with scheduled blog posts; the next post will be travel to our current location, which I don’t like to publish until after we leave.

So, after doing a new post every day for the past year or so, I’m going to take a break for a week, ostensibly to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday week. See you on Monday the 28th!

(I will still do single-picture daily posts on my personal blog, if only for the Micro.blog challenge going on this month.)

I’ll leave you with this picture of a roadside attraction from that travel day:

Selfie at Prada Marfa