Parking at Reagan National airport (DCA) or at nearby hotels

Parking is always a problem at DCA.  They are building more space but it will still be a problem.  And if your taking an early flight out and figure "I'll just stay overnight at a hotel", that parking will be $40-$50 per night.

Solution ... park at the Huntington Metro garage.  There's plenty of space and you only pay for 1 day ... the day you leave.  From the Metro, you can either take the train for a 15 minute ride to the airport, or just Uber to the hotel for the night.  I Uber to the hotel, then upon return, use the train to go south to pickup my car.  And even if you arrive when the trains aren't running, the garage is always open so you just Uber out.

RAV4 Fire Extinguisher

 My 2022 RAV4 is great, but as most RAV4 owners know, there is precious little storage room.  I've installed most of the Amazon hacks to get the most storage, there is no place to put a fire extinguisher.  Some have suggested putting it under the seat, but I think that's too tight a space to get to in the event of a fire (mine or someone elses).

Well, I saw a post of how to put it in the rear cargo compartment, so that got me thinking.  I don't want to modify the panels in the rear, so I did this.

If you make a system heavy enough, it will sit in place.  Plus, if you have a heavy rubber mat back there (again, Amazon), you can do this.

The base is a 12 inch square piece of steel, 10 gauge, which weighs about 5-6 pounds.  I then welded a 1/4" piece of steel to the back.  Here is a picture (above) with the mounting bracket installed.

I think it's heavy enough that it won't move, but I cut out a notch in the rear mat to help lock it in place:

Once that's done, I mount the extinguisher back into the bracket ... it's sitting on the floor but it's so locked in place, it doesn't move ... and I didn't have to drill into the plastic.

And best of all, it sits off to the side so really the storage area efficiency is not impact much at all.