Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope you are having a nice holiday, and are spending it with people you love.

We are at the Escapees Sumter Oaks campground in Bushnell, Florida, and they are having a big dinner at the activity center this afternoon, but we’re going to sit it out. Miss Terry had a nasty cold earlier in the week, and while she says she is feeling somewhat better, yesterday it hit me hard. We don’t want to spread this crud to everybody else. I’m hoping we didn’t pass it on to my nephews and niece when we visited the other day. That would be a heck of a gift to bring them after a 25 year absence, wouldn’t it? They’ll probably want me to stay away another 25 years!

We never even stepped outside yesterday. I slept late, and then took part in a Skype video conference call in the mid-afternoon. I had never used Skype before, but it’s pretty cool. With a webcam and microphone, which most laptop computers come with these days, you can have a face to face visit with any other Skype user, and it’s all free! There was some lag in the video, but still, it was a great way to communicate. I need to get my daughter Tiffany to set up a free Skype account, and then I can see those beautiful little girls of hers more often!

Being a guy, I’m much more of a wimp when I don’t feel good than Terry is. While she was the sickest, she helped load the kayaks on the roof of the Explorer, packed the motorhome for traveling, drove the Explorer from the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve to the Escapees campground, and then got our home on wheels opened up and livable again.

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I, on the other hand, am totally worthless when I don’t feel good. Except for the Skype call yesterday, and a brief visit from George and Starr Sharrer, I spent much of the day napping and feeling sorry for myself. Terry didn’t walk up to the couch and kick me in the butt, but who could have blamed her if she did?

My pal Jaimie Hall Bruzenak sent me an e-mail to tell me that she and writing partner Alice Zyetz are offering a $2 discount off any of their e-books. What a great present for RVers or wannabee RVers! To take advantage of the savings, just click the link on the right hand column of this blog for their book Retire to an RV: The Roadmap to Affordable Retirement Living, or go to their RV Lifestyle Experts website and use coupon code 20RVL.

I also got an e-mail from subscriber Trisha Schmidt, asking me to pass on the word that if anyone lost one of their DIRECTV coastal feeds for the major networks, and had that service prior to May 2010, you need to call the DIRECTV telephone number that deals with RV travelers, 800 769-4635. Trisha said she was on hold over 20 minutes before she spoke to an actual person, but then she had both coastal feeds restored within a few minutes.

Apparently there has been quite a lengthy discussion about this on the Yahoo Boomer group site, and Trisha said that even though she called DIRECTV twice to be sure that she was ‘grandfathered’ in, they still disconnected her West Coast feed the other night.

She told me that DIRECTV’s website has a section for RVers having difficulties at http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/travelers/rvs, and that she was told that if you lose one of your coastal feeds, you only have until November 28th to remedy the problem, and after that it may not be possible to get both feeds restored.

As I said, we’re having a quiet day at home, and that’s just fine with us. We have a lot to be thankful for – overall good health, a loving marriage, wonderful family and friends, and we get to enjoy the greatest lifestyle there is, in the greatest country in the world. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

How about you? Where are you, how are you spending the day, and what are you especially thankful for this holiday season?

Thought For The Day – To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship.

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When we’re not busy traveling in our RV or writing about the RV lifestyle, I enjoy surfing the web and reading the many blogs and websites about RVing that are out there. Even after eleven years on the road, I manage to learn something new every day from what other RVers are writing about. 

Today I thought that I’d share some of the interesting blog posts and websites I have come across in the last few days of web surfing. Some are interesting for their great photography, others for information I didn’t know, and a lot of them are just plain fun!

On the RV.Net blog, Mark Post had a revealing look at statistics gathered from RV Poll Results. According to Mark, 42% of RVers responding said that they have spent a night in a Wal-Mart parking lot; 60% connect to the internet every day, 94% use rest stops when traveling in their RV, and 70% have stayed in a friend or relative’s driveway. Check Mark’s blog post for more interesting numbers. I’d be interested to know how your responses to the poll compare.

Also on the RV.Net blog, my pal Jaimie Hall Bruzenak has an interesting post about how  RVers who volunteer at public parks and campgrounds are perceived by at least one Arizona newspaper. Jaimie and her writing partner, Alice Zyetz, have an excellent new e-book out titled Retire to an RV: The Roadmap to Affordable Retirement Living. You can learn more about their new book and much more about RVing at their RV Lifestyle Experts website.

Blogs help us keep up with our RVing friends, so even though we may be hundreds, even thousands of miles apart, we get to share in their adventures. Our pals Tom and Barb Westerfield combine RV traveling with their other passion, geocaching, and in their Caching On The Road blog I read that they are visiting my old stomping grounds in coastal Washington state. I got my start in the newspaper business up there a lifetime ago, and it’s fun to see their pictures of the region now.

Another couple of good friends who are exploring my old neighborhood are Greg and Jan White, who are in Westport, Washington, just a few miles from where I lived back in the day. Their Our RV Adventures blog makes me homesick.

Yet another blog that brought back fond memories is Levonne Gaddy and John Huntley’s California Odyssey. They’re workamping at Morro Strand State Beach in Morro Bay, California. Miss Terry and I honeymooned in Morro Bay, and we hope to get back there one of these days for another visit.

I mentioned parking overnight at Wal-Mart earlier. Another place where we have found free overnight parking is at casinos. The Casino Camper website has a tremendous amount of information on casino camping coast to coast. Mac McClellan and his wife Chris do a great job of keeping the information up to date and useful to their readers.

One of the greatest resources for finding RV blogs and websites is the excellent Hitch Itch website. Here you will find hundreds of links to RV blogs and RV websites that can provide you with a lifetime of interesting reading and valauble information about RV travel and fulltime RVing.

Thought For The Day – You can’t stay young forever, but you can be immature the rest of your life.

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