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Let me explain. The tax savings are tremendous. Just by making your RV “available” for rent, your RV is now a small business and qualifies for all the deductions and write offs associated with RV rentals. Interest on monthly payments. Maintenance and repair bills. Insurance. Depreciation. These are all deductions. The savings are incredible. See for yourself. Go to the Tax Deduction Estimator at RentWizard.com and answer the 6 simple questions You may be shocked.
Examples. A class C owner who wants to rent thier vehicle out a lot may list at $100.00 a day. On the fence? Another owner who really does not want to rent thier RV out BUT, they will for $450.00 a day, will list at $450.00 a day! Guess what happens when an owner list a 1982 15 ft pull behind for $2,000.00 a day with a $10,000.00 deposit? You got it. Nothing. However, he did make it available. All three of these folks who made thier RV available for rent are eligible for the tax savings. Yes, I agree. The 3rd scenario is silly. The point is, you are in charge of how often and how much your RV rents for.
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TOURISTS GET MORE THAN BEARS IN HYDER, ALASKA! – BIGFOOT IN THE CAMPGROUNDS…
Posted on January 9, 2017
My name is Ronald, and I have to say, I am still unsure of what my wife and I saw that night in Hyder, Alaska but, whatever it was, it was huge, and it tried to scare us off I believe. Here is our account of Bigfoot in the campgrounds outside of Hyder, Alaska.
My wife got a better look at it, and she swears it was a Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, or whatever you want to call this thing.
Here is our encounter story, and just so you know, I do believe this thing really, really wanted us to leave the area, no matter what it was!
Hyder, a town so small, yet so big!
I told my wife she missed the town of Hyder because she blinked as we drove through it. While it is small, in a quaint and perfect little way, this Alaskan border town to Canada is hiding a very big secret and a friggin’ scary one at that.
Bigfoot, at least that is what my wife saw, and what I think I had seen too.
First off, let me tell you what we were doing way out there in no man’s land.
We had some very close friends up in the southern Oregon area we wanted to visit before the visiting days ended. See, my wife and I are getting up in age, and so was my best friend George and his wife. They lived in Southern Oregon, the Rogue Valley to be exact.
My wife and I, however, we lived in Los Angeles. I met George in the early 1970’s when he was working in the hills of Los Angeles in the landscaping arena, mostly tree cutting as he was a lumberjack most of his life.
He would return to the Pacific Northwest within two years of getting to know him and back to his life of logging.
We met at work, and our families got to know each other, suffice it to say, the next two years we became almost like brothers. George was a great guy, and today, after his death 7 years ago, I still miss my buddy.
But, back to that trip. It was a trip my wife and I would make in the late 1990’s, actually, 1998 to be exact. We were going to take our yearly trip in the Winnebago we had purchased right before we both retired about 4 years earlier.
This time we were going to take a longer trip, a month and a half. The first stop, the Redwoods, then on to southern Oregon to visit with George and his family for a few days, then onto Alaska.
Yep, we were going to do what George and his wife did two years before us and told us how wonderful it was, take a long trip up through the southern part of Alaska.
Alaska is truly spectacular.
Even George called my wife and myself city folks (jokingly of course), although where he was from was not exactly in the “middle of nowhere” to be honest. But, it was nothing compared to the craziness that is a metropolis like L.A.
So, by the time we got deeper into Oregon, Washington, and then crossing over into Alaska from Stewart, British Columbia, well, the wife and I started up a serious conversation about moving to the PacWest.
Our only child and son and his family live in the Bay Area, so, we would be a little closer to them if we lived up this way, maybe even southern Oregon near my friend and his family.
Eventually, though, we made it to Hyder, Alaska. I have to say this, Alaska is wild, beautiful, and rugged, it was everything George and his wife told us and more.
We did stop in Hyder; I wanted to make sure I could gas up, and get directions to a camping area not far from town that, I had read somewhere, had a look out over a river or creek where large Brown Bears would fish.
Come to find out, it was quite a ways out of town to Fish Creek, and the campground was just outside of town in the opposite direction. That was okay by us; we could unhitch the car and take it up there the next day for a bit.
Yes, we towed a small newer Volkswagon Beetle with us just for these types of occasions.
We took the rest of the first day there to get set up for staying a few days or so, and we even took a brisk run into “town” for some basics we needed like hand soap and such.
We decided to take an RV spot that was near the border of the campgrounds backed by a literal mountain, one so tall that it had a hint of snow at the very top already.
But, we were further north, and the elevation here could go from sea level to 5,000 feet quickly! A little exaggeration with the 5 thousand feet, but I am sure you understand what I am saying.
There were also a couple of streams not too far from us that seem to come off the mountain and feed a larger one, not a creek, but a stream.
And yes, it matters, because I think that is where this thing, this Bigfoot my wife called it came from we believe.
Screams or, hollers from the mountain.
Screaming is different for me; I know a scream, the sounds we were hearing echoing from way up the mountain that first night was more like hollering than anything else.
It was nearly 9 p.m. give or take a few minutes or so. The campfire was roaring, the wife had just finished washing the dishes up from the dinner I made us, and we were just sitting down to enjoy the new experience that is Alaska.
While the night sky looked beautiful, I have to say; it sounded rather scary at night here. My wife caught the sound first, I was busy at the moment I remember retelling one of my old stories from the workplace I retired from when she hushed me.
At first, I thought it might be a coyote, being from southern California, you know what a coyote sounds like for sure. But this was not a coyote; the pitch was different.
Was it a wolf perhaps I had asked my wife? She nodded as if to agree with the guess and we both went back to our conversations only to stop from time to time to listen to the hollers, or howls, coming from atop the mountain above us.
It continued on and off for nearly an hour or more, but intermittently of course. It seemed every few minutes or so, maybe every 10 minutes or less, we could hear whatever it was holler.
Some people today say they scream, and I completely understand that, but when I say holler, I mean it was screaming with intent, whatever that intent was I did not know, well, I did not know at that time at least.
It soon waned past 11 pm at least before we turned in for the night.
The ghost town that Bigfoot built.
Besides the photos all over the place of Robin Williams and his visit here, I think this little ghost town was really built on bears and Bigfoot.
The next morning, I woke up early, I decided to take a walk around the campgrounds before we would head into town and out to Fish Creek for some bear watching.
I noticed one odd thing though before I started my walk. There was a little open area covered with tall grass just to the back of us, about 15 feet on the other side of our camping area.
It looked like a game trail, but I swear it was not there the day before, as a matter of fact, I knew it was not. Something came near our camp last night and left a trail through the tall grass.
I walked over to take a quick look. It looked like something did come walking through, something big too by the looks of the matted prints that were left in the grass.
Of course, you could not tell what kind of prints they were, but they were not deer or elk or moose for that matter. I think it could have been a bear as the prints looked to be at least a foot or more long, and the stride looked rather long as well.
That is a big bear I thought!
I looked around and listened for a few, but heard nothing but birds and some people not too far away. So, with that, I decided to tell my wife to be careful when I got back because a bear might be roaming around at night here.
I did warn her when I got back from my walk as we ate breakfast and got ourselves ready for the day trip to Fish Creek.
Before we got there, though, we did stop and walk around that morning for a few in the ghost town of Hyder which was not as much of a ghostly town as it looks in pictures you might see online today.
As a matter of fact, Robin Williams shot a movie not too far away from here, and the locals have a ton of pictures to prove it in the lodge, the tavern, and the local grocery store.
Eventually, however, we moved on to Fish Creek and the rest of bear country.
I could see why they kept the walkway up high and out of the way, those Grizzlies and Brown bears were huge, even from up where we stood.
Just thinking that something like that could have been walking past our camp last night made me and the wife look at each other a little nervously. Yeah, we were from L.A., but these things were bigger than the average mugger.
Of course, on the way back to camp after all the picture taking and staring in awe at these awesome creatures, we grabbed some bear spray in town, and I decided to load the handgun I had and keep it just inside the door of the RV.
I never thought I would need it, and even crazier than that, I never thought I would need it for something other than a bear!
What slaps an RV?
It was late afternoon, and I decided on another walk or trot. I like to believe I am a runner, but I am a trotter really.
I stopped in at the little sundry shop for the campground. As I looked around for a candy bar, something the wife would get after me about later. Walking out moments later, my ear was pricked by a conversation between two locals just outside door.
They were talking about something called a Sasquatch. I thought to myself Sasquatch, or Bigfoot if you will, now that is funny.
And that was it; they started talking about an incident not far away and not long ago, maybe a few weeks at most. As far as I could tell, it was a bear that had been torn apart real bad by one of these hairy monsters, or Bigfoot.
I would not have believed my ears, but when I walked outside and made eye contact with them, one was a state trooper!Apparently, the individual telling the story was making a report of what he saw was a large hairy monster on two legs break the neck of a brown bear and drag it off up the mountain nearby recently, and the officer was just following up the report.
I did not say anything and stood there pretending to be engulfed in a texting debate with someone on my phone. But, I was listening intently.
I mean really, it is not often you hear of a good Bigfoot story, my friend George of course, a retired logger had mentioned it here and there, but this was a rather interesting tale as far as I was concerned.
I decided not to push my luck any longer and headed back to camp. I told my wife about the incredible tale, and like me, well, she laughed lightly with me.
The funny thing was, the teller of the story did mention one thing, a scream, or as I called it, a holler, that was made by the thing. That did catch our attention, though. After a bit of more small talk, we retired for the evening.
It was late; I remember looking at the clock after the short event that same evening, it was past 1 AM in the morning actually.
It woke us both up out of a dead sleep instantly, I thought for a second I was going to have a heart attack! But a WHACK!!! against the front part of the RV woke us up. At first, I thought maybe some nocturnal hunting owl or bird of some kind hit the panel in the front.
But, a split second later it felt as though the RV was, well, pushed. It was not repeatedly pushed, just once, and it was enough to make it rock back and forth for a second lightly until it settled still once again.
BEAR!? That was the next thought.
Of course, I would grab the handgun and open up the little bathroom window, yes, this was a real travel RV with a bathroom and all. I yelled out it hoping to shew away whatever it was, and hopefully get a good look at it.
All I could hear was walking, footsteps, or better yet, footfall, and heavy footfall at that. Whatever it was, it seemed to head in the opposite direction of the driveway, back through the open area of tall grass below the mountain past the small creek.
It was odd to hear walking, bipedal walking in the middle of the night like that. We sat for a minute whispering about what it could have been, but after that, we decided to start making some noise for a bit in hopes to keep whoever, or whatever away for now.
Noise usually does the trick I’ve learned on this trip. Once, in the Redwoods, we had a black bear come pretty close to the RV, a little noise and off it ran.
Eventually, however, we got tired of sitting up and returned to bed. Nothing else moved the rest of the night.
My car was a wreck!
We were in a pretty large lot, even for an RV lot and campsite. I could literally keep the car on the hitch if I wanted and back in with plenty of room to spare.
So, I did, knowing that we were going nowhere the next two nights before we would leave and head deeper into Alaska, we had everything ready to go.
After getting the car re-hitched, and the RV backed in again, we decided to go for a hike, even after the scare the previous night. Whatever, or whoever it was had to be far gone by now we thought, so off we went.
It was such a nice hike that we forgot about the night before. It is incredible, the mountains around Hyder that is, just incredible I thought.
We got back before late afternoon and started in on making some dinner. That evening we would cook and eat alfresco as the clouds were gone for the evening, and a warm unexpected weather system was running through the region.
The only thing that could have messed up that dinner was the hollering from the mountains, they started up again.
It sounded ornery too, like whoever or whatever it was did not want us there, and yes, I say that because I felt like it was directed at us, at least our campsite in particular.
We kept eating and started talking softer about what in the world it could be. I brought up the “Bigfoot” part of the conversation, and my wife, for the first time, actually started entertaining the idea herself, the screaming or hollering was just out of the ordinary sounding.
After about 30 minutes of the hollering, it stopped for about, maybe, 15 minutes or so. Then, all of a sudden, it sounded like it was right behind us, and the scream, and I call it a scream this time because that is what it sounded like that close and high pitched.
I can’t tell you how pale mine and my wife’s face became instantly, I just remember looking at her and seeing the terror in her eyes all of a sudden.
We both grabbed up our plates and practically dove into the RV.
The screaming became louder and longer as it drew nearer our campsite, it sounded at the time like it was literally in our camp. And it was.
My wife, I remember, had gone to the back of the RV. Within seconds I could feel the RV move and my wife yelling to “GO! GO!” I yelled back asking if she literally meant to start up the RV and go, and that is exactly what she was yelling.
She kept saying there is a monster out there several times as I nervously tried starting the RV, which as usual, took me two times to turn over. At that point my wife had passed out, literally past out on the bed in the back of the RV.
I put the thing in gear and started driving all the while yelling back to my wife. I did for a moment glance in the rearview mirror, and what I saw was rather scary. I saw a huge arm and the side of something huge slap the side of the car on the hitch on the back of the RV.
It looked and sounded like it broke the glass, and it did come to find out when we finally stopped a half hour or so out of Hyder.
As a matter of fact, there was about $3,500 worth of damage done by that thing. Two small windows busted out, and 3 huge dents, two on the roof, and one on the driver’s side door.
Bigfoot, not a bear.
It would not be until morning light that my wife would talk to me about what she saw, and what made her scream hysterically then pass out.
After hearing the description, I can’t blame her, and I also decided purchasing a bigger caliber gun would be a good thing in the next town we stopped in.
She said it was twice the size of me, and twice as wide. As far as I am concerned, I think about 7-8-feet was the height of this thing she was trying to describe to me. The width, well, it sounded to be more than 3-4 feet at the chest.
It was covered in dark hair, and at first, she thought it was a bear, but it was standing on two legs and when it turned to look at her, well, “that was no bear” she would say nervously.
A large ape is what she would say it resembled, not quite a monkey or ape, but close enough she supposed. The teeth were bared she said, and huge, with a pair of canines she thought could tear her and I apart in a second.
the face was long, and the head was almost cone shaped, not completely round like a human’s. And it was covered in hair, long hair she said. It was at that point she passed out, right after it looked at her and then started pounding on the car.
When she started telling me about it hitting the car and passing out, she pretty much trailed off there and did not want to speak of it anymore. Even to this day, she is hesitant to even mention the events of that night…
Finishing the trip early.
Suffice it to say, we did not get much further into Alaska, actually, we ended the trip and decided to head back to visit George and his wife for a week in Southern Oregon instead.
It was a scary night for my wife and I, especially my wife, like I said, even today she will not talk about it much.
We did move to the Pacific Northwest, and even though we know these things live here, we simply do most of our outdoor adventures today literally during the day, and that includes fishing and hunting.
As far as Rv-ing is concerned, you’ll find us today on the Oregon coast, within city limits and in the middle of two campsites that are currently being used…
Here is some grilled food for thought for ya. “Football season is my most profitable time of the year” That is a quote from a camper owner who is listing on RentWizard.com.
Every Friday of a home game weekend, I deliver the camper to the campsite, set it up and go over everything the renter needs to know, he tells me. Sunday comes, he goes and picks it up.
He is charging a premium during football season, more than any other time of year and is planning to buy a couple of used pop-ups for next year. By the way, he lives in the Northeast. Brrrrr…
Just like a condo, RV’s are paying for themselves today. Food for thought.
Now this pains me to say, I am a Gamecock but hats off and congratulations to the Clemson Tigers. That was one hell of a National Championship Game!
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Forrest River, a manufacturer of recreational and commercial vehicles in Elkhart Indiana, is expanding. Big time!
The $6.7 million expansion will allow the company to hire an additional 425 new employees. Awesome news for Forest River and all current and future employees. Congratulations to all involved.
Campground owners can now look in their own backyard to increase business. There are now 8.9 million RV’s in the U.S. and the industry is growing rapidly. Since the average RV is only used three weeks a year, a new industry has opened up and it too is on the rise. Owner rentals. For years the rental market has been paying off the mortgage on vacation homes and condos and now, more and more RV owners are opening up to to the rental market paying for their RV’s too.
Not only are they earning income instead of letting the unit sit idle the other 344 days of the year, the are also receiving the tax benefits afforded them just by making the RV available for rent. Since the average RV owner has no clue just how significant the tax deductions can be, RentWizard.com has put a Tax Deduction Estimator on their website. People are shocked when they see this. Click the link, answer the six simple questions and see what I mean.
There ore only a couple of reasons RV owners do not rent their rig. Fear and insurance. Eliminate the fear just by keeping it local. Every campground has RV’s just sitting idle nearby. RV owners are simply driving, or pulling their rig right down the road to a local campground where it will stay for the duration of the rental. It is a win win. More business for the campground and a lot less stress for the RV owner. And guess what? If something should break, its now a write off.
Campers, RV’ers and campground owners; come together locally and get to know each other. It will be rewarding for all. Maybe even for me. If you have any Questions about RentWizard.com and how we can help you with your RV rentals, shoot me an email. Happy Camping!
Stephen “Reno” Singletary
StephenS@RentWizard.com (770)618-9766
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