Actually, RVing can be quite a bargain

Actually, RVing can be a bargain I enjoyed Jane Engle's point-counterpoint between me and Darcy Jacobs [\"A Roof Over Everyone's Head,\" May 3]. I need to address one of Jacobs' points: When I mentioned RVs, she said that \"it's expensive to rent an RV, and they go through a lot of gas.\" I...

Actually, RVing can be a bargain

I enjoyed Jane Engle's point-counterpoint between me and Darcy Jacobs ["A Roof Over Everyone's Head," May 3]. I need to address one of Jacobs' points: When I mentioned RVs, she said that "it's expensive to rent an RV, and they go through a lot of gas."

In fact, the cost of renting an RV varies greatly by state, by the size of the RV you're renting and by the time of year you'll be renting.

If you look at such large RV rental companies as El Monte RV and CruiseAmerica, you'll find that specials can drop the cost to as little as $24 a night.

Rent from a private owner, as we did, and as many people do nowadays, and a price of $30 a day is pretty common. Add to that the cost of parking (usually less than $40, not less than $50 a night for most RVs), and that's a real bargain compared with hotel rooms, especially if you consider the savings of fixing your own meals.

-- Pauline Frommer, Author, Pauline Frommer's Travel Guides, New York

Moving in, out at the White House

Janis Cooke Newman's essay on Mary Todd Lincoln ["In Mary's Footsteps," May 3] contains the kind of sloppy journalism that makes one question her entire piece. She writes that the "Buchanans were slow to move out of their presidential quarters, so, like the Obamas, the Lincolns spent the weeks before the inauguration at a Washington hotel."

The new president does not move into the White House until after the inauguration; the outgoing family leaves the morning of the ceremony. The Obamas stayed in a hotel before the inauguration because the outgoing Bush administration had scheduled a series of going-away parties and tributes at Blair House, where the incoming president and family have traditionally stayed before the swearing-in. Snarkiness trumps facts in the newspaper -- yet again.

-- Steve Parker, Beverly Hills

Three cheers for Henry VIII

Henry Chu's "A King's Lasting Impression" was superb [Foreign Briefing, May 3, 2009]. King Henry VIII's founding of the British naval power not only changed the world of the early 1500s but was also instrumental in Britain's victory over Germany in WWII. Without Britain's emphasis on naval strength dating to Henry VIII's time, Germany would've invaded England and our world would be very different.

-- Evan Dale Santos, Adelanto

Word of caution on Queen's Bath

I enjoyed Tom Bentley's article, "It's Sweet Getting Sweaty" [April 26]. I have frequented many of the locations and eateries in my 34 years on Kauai.

The Queen's Bath "attraction" needs more of a caveat than the "extra-slippery rocks in winter." The wave action and currents are treacherous, difficult to read and predict, particularly for visitors with no Hawaii ocean experience. Our oceans and beaches need to be kept open and free, but should be promoted by the media and approached by the user with both caution and intelligence.

-- Robert A. Zelkovsky, Kapaa, Hawaii