Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. I used to do a lot of hunting and fishing, but I never subscribed to the theory that you have to roll out of bed at O-Dark-30 just to ambush a bunny rabbit or hook a trout. Those critters are still out there at noon.

I usually do bookwork and research during the day, start writing about 9 p.m., and work until 1 or 2 a.m. before I call it a day. So I seldom get into an upright position before 9 a.m. That’s just what works best for me.

But the last few days I have been up way too early. We had company over the weekend, and Miss Terry said I had to get up and be a good host. Then yesterday I had to have my van in a shop just after 8 a.m. to have some work done on it. And this morning we are taking the Winnebago to Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products in Nappanee to have our custom desks/workstations installed. Carlyle is an excellent Amish craftsman, but those people sure do get up early in the morning! Did I mention that I’m not a morning person?

We’re slowly getting settled into the new motorhome, and once we get the new work stations installed today, we’ll start feeling more organized and at home. It is amazing that our bus was 40 feet long, just like the Winnebago, but the motorhome is six inches wider, and with the living room and bedroom slides, it seems so much bigger inside.

We’ll be here in Elkhart until about the 20^th, then we’ll head over to Celina, Ohio to start getting things set up for our Gypsy Gathering rally. We have had a lot of people offer to volunteer to help out at the rally, but one of the jobs we really need done is someone to come in early and canvass the local businesses soliciting door prizes. Last year the business community in Celina was very welcoming and receptive, but the folks who collected door prizes can’t make it this time around. Anyone feel like pounding the pavement?

I have to make a decision soon about my Today’s Hero Blog. When I came up with the idea, I hoped to be able to showcase the unsung heroes in our world who give of themselves to help others. It’s something I really believe in, but I have been receiving very few submissions in the last month or so, and without input from our readers, it can’t continue. If there is someone special in your life that you think deserves recognition for their good deeds, send me an e-mail and let’s share their story with the rest of the world.

Thought For The Day – It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

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After reading yesterday’s blog, longtime reader Gene Teggatz suggested that maybe I need to consider having a sign made that says “Visitors Welcome Today” and a second sign that says “Visitors Not Welcome Today,” or perhaps a more diplomatic one saying “Please let me get some work done today.” Really, we don’t mind visitors dropping in, we’re pretty spontaneous and love to visit with folks most of the time.

Of course, there are those occasional few who would abuse even Saint Peter’s hospitality, and there has been a time or two, after somebody sat here for hours droning on and on, where I wished I had a sign that just said “Go Away!” But that doesn’t happen very often.

Yesterday morning started with an interesting e-mail seeking advice from a couple who will become fulltime RVers very soon. I get a lot of e-mails like this, and I’m always happy to offer whatever insight I can. But I had to demur on this one.

They plan to leave Chadron, Nebraska September 15^th, and head directly for Livingston, Texas to become official Texans. From there they want to go to New Orleans to see the French Quarter, and then on to Florida, where they hope to bounce around for the winter. They included an itinerary by date of where they hope to be and wanted me to tell them which RV parks to stay at for every stop, where were the best places to eat, what to see and do, and where to buy fuel along their route between now and next April.

I wrote back to tell them that while we have done a lot of traveling in our ten years as fulltime RVers, we haven’t been everywhere yet, so there was no way I could plan their entire lives for eight months! Heck, I most of the time I don’t even know where I’ll be next week myself!

By the time I finished with that e-mail, Dan and Karen Silverwood were at our door for a visit before they pulled out of Elkhart Campground headed for Ohio. They left about noon, and I decided to walk over to the campground office to see if any mail had arrived for us yet. There was a package from our mail service, along with a package for Ron and Brenda Speidel that they had asked me to watch out for, so I took it to keep at the bus until they arrive next week sometime.

On my way back to our bus conversion, I saw John and Alice Clark, the visitors whose names I could not remember in yesterday’s blog. They were very gracious about my social faux pas, and John even gave me a tour of their absolutely beautiful Newmar Ventana motorhome. I was so impressed with the coach that I went right back to the bus and brought Miss Terry back to see it for herself. Wow, what a rig!

Back at our bus, while Terry was doing bookwork, I worked on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal for a few hours, and then waded through a bunch of e-mails that had come in. No, I don’t want to meet hot college coeds; yes, we still have vendor openings for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally; no, I don’t want to send my banking information to that nice man in Nigeria who wants to deposit $10 million in my bank account; yes, we’re still looking for a motorhome, but not a two year old Prevost, thank you very much; no, I don’t want to meet any bored and lonely housewives; yes, the price of the vendor spaces at the Ohio rally includes all camping and rally fees; no, I already have a good watch and I’m not interested in quality replica timepieces; no, I don’t want to correspond with beautiful Russian girls seeking permanent relationships; no, I… well, you get the idea.

About 5:30 we walked down to the site where Bill Joyce and Diane Melde are parked in their nice Dutch Star motorhome and piled into the backseat of their car to go and meet our friends Terry and Dale Pace for dinner at their favorite restaurant here in Elkhart, a place called Heinnie’s Back Barn. This was out first time there, and we were impressed. The food was excellent, our waitress was a lot of fun, and we had a good time chatting over dinner.

Back at Elkhart Campground, someone pointed out this neat old homemade camper trailer, and though the light was fading fast, I managed to get a couple of photographs. That bright glow you see at the front of the rig is my camera’s flash reflecting off the red and white safety tape the owner applied to the trailer’s tongue.

We got back to the bus just as darkness fell, and I still had a few hours to work before bedtime. I wrote the blog, edited the Todays Hero Blog offering for today, and handled even more e-mails while Terry filled a bunch of orders that had come in the new mail delivery. Our life is never dull. 

Thought For The Day – Save the planet, have fewer kids.

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With the FMCA rally over, we took in just about enough to cover our expenses getting into the event, and make a small wage for ourselves, if we had been children working in a Chinese sweat shop someplace. Financially, it was just about our worst rally ever, even though there were thousands of RVers in attendance.

The good news is that we made some contacts that may pay off down the road in terms of future business. The bad news is that every negative thing we have ever felt about the FMCA was reinforced tenfold; from the snob attitude so very many of the members exhibit, to the way they run the rally.

Terry and I have been family members of the FMCA for ten years, but we had to also purchase a commercial membership just to qualify to come here and pay them to vend. And they still expect us to maintain our family membership too! What’s up with that! I think when it comes time to renew, we’ll just tell them where to stick both memberships.

For me, the final straw was when a member of the FMCA Governing Board came by our booth and wanted to purchase about $140 worth of our products for $50, because as a Governing Board member, he felt he should get some special consideration. I asked him where the consideration was for the vendors that had to pay double duty just to get into their rally, and sent him on his way.

I think the only people who had to put up with more bulls#&% than the vendors here was longtime Gypsy Journal subscriber Greg Vederoff, who sent me this photograph of his rig after parking at a Flying J. Greg said when they pulled in they parked next to a school bus towing a car, which left and was later replaced by a cattle truck that left him this present. What a mess! 

Okay, enough of that, let’s talk about a fun rally, namely our upcoming Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio in late September. I’ve got some good news for you; the folks from Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) will be at the rally giving a couple of great seminars, and weighing RVs. If you have not had your rig weighed, that’s something you really need to get done.

An overloaded RV can be a very dangerous thing, and cost you not only in terms of premature equipment failure, but also in your very safety. Check out the RVSEF website to learn a lot about weight issues in your RV, and while you’re at it, go ahead and register for their RV Lifestyle Safety and Education Clinic too!

My pal Henry Gartner, aka Flakey the Clown, will also put in an appearance at the rally. If you don’t know this wonderful, gentle man, you’re in for a real treat! I profiled Henry in my Today’s Hero Blog a while back. Read Henry’s story and the comments by so many people who love him, and I think you’ll be impressed. Henry has promised to teach us all some easy magic tricks we can use to amaze and delight our grandkids. I’m looking forward to it.

Before I sign off, I want you to check out a brand new free website called ChatRV.com, which was unveiled at the FMCA rally. The owners tell me it’s sort of a Facebook just for RVers. Since our Verizon air card signal has been so poor here, I have not had the opportunity to spend much time looking it over. It’s got a long way to go, but could this be the next new rage for RVers? Tell me what you think.

Thought For The Day – When in doubt, just take the next small step.

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Miss Terry has been busy the last couple of days finishing a project on our MCI bus conversion.

When we started the conversion, we left the escape hatch in the roof of our bus, which was in the bedroom, accessible. When we had our tripod mounted HughesNet satellite dish, we installed a custom roof mount on the bus for it, and I would boost Terry up onto the roof and she would deploy the dish. She got so good at it that many times we could be online with both the Internet and satellite TV in less than ten minutes from the time we opened the hatch.

Now, this did make for some interesting experiences. Once we were parked here in our favorite spot at Elkhart Campground and Terry’s foot was in my cupped hands and she bounced up and down, doing our standard “One, two, three, and up” routine. Once she was up on the roof, the fellow in the motorhome parked next to us said “I’m sure glad to see you! I thought I was going nuts. I kept seeing this head popping out of the roof of your bus and then disappearing!”

We replaced the satellite dish with a Verizon air card and Cradlepoint router, assisted by a Wilson Trucker antenna and Wilson amplifier from the 3G Store a couple of years ago. Once we took the satellite dish and mount off the roof, Terry never had a reason to crawl up there again, so we decided to close in the hatch.

The last few days she has been busy staining wood and sealing around the hatch. Today we put the finished wood up and it looks great! But by the time the job was completed, Terry was more than ready to call it a day.

While Terry was busy putting a last coat of stain on the wood, I made a quick run to the post office to mail out a couple of orders, then stopped at the Verizon store to tell them to cancel the VZ Navigator option on my Blackberry Storm. It’s neat to have a fully functioning GPS in my cell phone, but we already have a GPS, and I couldn’t justify the $10 extra a month for the feature.

Our friend Al Hesselbart, historian for the RV Hall of Fame Museum, has been promising to take us out to dinner ever since I accused him of being a cheapskate a year or so ago, but the timing never seemed to work out. So yesterday just about the time we were wrapping up the bus ceiling, Al called and suggested we drive up to Lunker’s, a neat sporting goods store in nearby Edwardsburg, Michigan for dinner. Lunker’s has an excellent restaurant called the Angler’s Inn, and our dinner was wonderful. Did you ever notice that food tastes just a little bit better when somebody else is picking up the check?

Back at the bus, we returned a couple of telephone calls, and I wrote this blog post, edited the new Todays Hero Blog post, and by then it was time to start thinking about bed.     

Thought For The Day – If you have to choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.

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RVers love blogging! These electronic newsletters provide us with a way to share our traveling adventures with our friends and families back home, and to keep in touch with other RVers we meet along the way.

Blogs allow us to remain a part of our children’s and grandchildren’s lives; they can log in and see pictures of Grandma and Grandpa fishing, sightseeing, or just relaxing under the awning. These visual reminders seem to make the miles separating us go away.

But can your RV blog also become a source of income? It’s a question I get asked a lot from RVers who have or want to launch a blog.

There are several ways to monetize a blog, though the simplest is by putting advertising in your blog. On the surface, it looks easy. You sign up for one of the many advertising affiliate programs, such as Google’s AdSense, paste in a simple code, wait for your readers to click the ad links, and then sit back and watch the money roll in. How cool is that?

There are literally thousands of books, e-books, special reports, and online courses you can buy or subscribe to that promise to help you make a fortune with affiliate advertising. Uh huh, and I have some swamp land in Florida I want to sell you.  

Yes, you can make money by placing advertising on your RV blog. But can you earn enough money to make it worth the effort? Probably not. The sad truth is that out of the millions and millions of blogs on every topic imaginable floating around in cyberspace, very few bloggers make more than $5 or $10 a month, if that.

To make any significant money in blogging, you have to have a lot of visitors to your blog every day. I average about 1,000 daily blog readers, and with my five blogs and websites all together, last month I averaged 2,206 page views, according to Google’s AdSense statistics. In June we averaged just over $13 a day in ad commissions.   

But, my RV blog runs at least 500 words daily, our Todays Hero Blog is several hundred words a day, and I have a couple hundred pages on my various websites. That’s a lot of work. I approach this as part of our income stream. Most RVers don’t want to invest that much time into their blogging efforts.

I have found that commissions from ad clicks on my different websites can vary widely. My biggest single commission comes from ad clicks on my Publishing4Profit website. Many of those clicks are over $1.50 each. My Motorcycle Travel Online website generates the next highest individual commissions per ad click, at about 75 cents each. By contrast, ad clicks on the Todays Hero Blog and Honor A Veteran websites earn an average of five cents each. I don’t publish these two websites for the money as much as for the love of honoring people who deserve it.

My RV blog and Gypsy Journal website ad commissions average about twenty cents each, with some exceptions. Some of the ads on pages like Use That Generator and RV Tech Training Offered Online pay a dollar or so each.

Experienced blog publishers have found that Google is constantly tweaking and adjusting the formula they use to determine AdSense commissions, and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to how they do so. A few months ago my commissions were higher, and then they suddenly dropped like a rock. The same type of ads are appearing, the number of visitors and ad clicks have remained stable, but the commission are much less. This is a cycle that I have seen come around every so often in the three years or so I have been blogging.

I also have Amazon ads on my websites, which has proven to be a total waste of time. In over a year, I have earned just over $100 from the Amazon program. I also tried the Commission Junction advertising affiliate program, with no results at all.

So, can you make money with an RV Blog? Yes, if you work hard enough at it and put out a lot of information on a consistent basis, but I sure would not want to try to live off my commissions. I love blogging and website publishing, and would be doing this even if I did not have ad links on the blog and my websites. And the ads do help buy a tank or two of fuel now and then.

My advice to you, if you are considering putting ads on your RV blog, is to go for it and see what happens. It doesn’t cost a thing to enroll in the AdSense program, so all you have to lose is a little bit of your time. But blog because you enjoy it, not because you expect to make any real money at it.

Thought For The Day – Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars in the universe, and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint, and he has to touch it.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally