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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Yesterday morning we left the Yuma County Fairgrounds, our home for the last several weeks, and drove 85 miles north on U.S. Highway 95 to Quartzsite, with Greg and Jan White following us in their American Eagle. They had never been to this part of Arizona, so I played tour guide on the handheld radio, pointing out the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Yuma Proving Grounds, and Castle Dome as we motored north.

In Quartzsite we left the main highway long enough to make a half loop around town to give them a feel for the place, though there were only a handful of RVs scattered about here and there, as opposed to the thousands that cover the desert in January and February.

From Quartzsite, we continued north on State Route 95 through Parker, then along the Colorado River through what is known as the Parker Strip, a land of dramatic mountains, cool water, and scenic beauty. I always love this drive, it’s a good two lane road, with plenty of pullouts if you need them. However, unlike past trips in our old MCI bus conversion, we didn’t need them. The Cummins diesel engine powered us right up the hills without blinking an eye!

Arriving  in Lake Havasu City, we parked both rigs at the Elks lodge, and I went inside to obtain permission to leave them there for a couple of hours, while Greg unhooked his Dodge pickup. Seeing the London Bridge was on Jan’s bucket list, so we drove across it, and then back again, then we parked and got out to see the historic bridge and checked out the shops in the small English themed village in the bridge’s shadow.

It must be Spring Break, because later on Greg told me that there were some pretty young ladies in skimpy bikinis and other revealing clothing. I didn’t notice them at all, because I was busy taking pictures of Miss Terry, and I only have eyes for her.

We grabbed a quick snack at Dairy Queen, then got back on the road and drove another 23 miles north, to hook up with Interstate 40. We took the interstate a few miles west to Exit 1, then got onto a narrow two lane road that had more nasty twists and turns than a politician’s biography. I’m sure Greg and Jan, following along faithfully behind, wondered just what kind of an adventure this crazy man was taking them on, and Miss terry uttered a reservation or two herself. But, eventually the road smoothed out, we rejoined State Route 95 through the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation, and came in to Bullhead City, where we crossed the Colorado River into Laughlin, Nevada.

Harrah’s Casino in Laughlin has an RV parking area where you can dry camp for $5/night, or $25/week, but every other casino seemed to have signs advertising free dry camping, so what’s up with that? We saw lots of RVs dry camping in designated parking lots at casinos all through town.

We stopped for the night at the River Palms Casino, which has a free dry camping area high on a hill, with great views of the casino lights below. Security told us we could get a free permit to stay up to 14 days. Then we would need to renew the permit, but we could do so for as long as we wanted to.   

We registered, parked our motorhomes, then headed back to the casino for dinner. If you join their free Players Club, you get a free T-shirt, and on Monday and Tuesday nights, two prime rib buffets were $9.95 with the Players Club card.

The line to register for the Players Club was long, and the line for the buffet was even longer. I must have been tired and cranky. Or else the bunch of French Canadians in line in front of us just ticked me off when they let some of their friends cut in ahead of us. People in line started to grumble, and Bad Nick emerged and told them that was bulls&%# and to go to the back of the line. Two did, but one lady stood firmly and said “These are my friends!” I told her that Greg was my friend, but if he tried that crap, I’d throw him out of line too!

One of the guys in their group turned around and told me in very good English it was okay, she was with him. I assured him that it wasn’t okay, and that the next time I came to his country, I’d be sure to be a rude jerk too, He gave me that smirk some folk use when they think they are being funny,  and played the old “I don’t understand English” thing with me. I told him that I knew that he understood me very well, and that he understood exactly what I thought of him and his crowd. I’m sure I embarrassed Miss Terry, Greg, and Jan, but once in a while somebody has to stand up on their hind legs and tell the jerks of the world where to get off. Besides the only place more dangerous to be than between a mama bear and her cubs is between a fat man and his food!

Today we plan to leave early and continue on to Las Vegas. Our leveling jacks are acting up again, and would not work when we arrived in Laughlin. Hopefully we can get that issue resolved in Las Vegas, and then just play tourist and relax for a while. 

Thought For The Day - Only dead fish go with the current.

There is an ongoing thread on the Escapees Forum about the fact that Flying J truck stops are now charging RVers $5 to dump their holding tanks. Some of the people who have commented about Flying J’s new policy, as well as some who have written to me about it, are really ticked off, calling it corporate greed and vowing to buy their fuel elsewhere from now on. One fulltime RVer who e-mailed me said “I have bought fuel at Flying J for 8 years, used their dump stations, and spent the night many times. But I’ll go out of my way to avoid them from now on!”

Well, I don’t blame you, brother. The nerve of those guys! After years of giving you free camping and free dumping, now that the economy has changed and businesses are scrambling to cover their costs, let alone make a profit, you deserve to be able to continue to freeload. How dare they start charging you for the same things that commercial campgrounds have been charging for ever since they first opened!

I remember a similar thread last year before the Escapade rally in Sedalia, Missouri, when folks were complaining that barriers in the parking lot of the Sedalia Wal-Mart prevented RVers from entering to dry camp overnight, and there were comments about boycotting the store. 

Where is it written that a business has to give its customers anything for free! Good service, yes; a fair price, absolutely; but free camping and the free use of an RV dump station? I guess I missed that memo.

I served many years on my town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, and I remember codes requiring businesses to jump through a lot of hoops if they wanted to set up shop in our community. But I can’t ever remember demanding that a business give something away to customers.

For the most part, RVers are pretty special people, and I’m proud to count myself among their numbers. But every barrel has a few bad apples,including ours.

My friend Bill Joyce sent me a link to a blog post yesterday about Wild Horse Casino near Chandler, Arizona. It seems that in the past, RVers had abused the casino’s hospitality by setting up housekeeping for weeks, even months on end. That has changed, and now casino security is clamping down on the RV slobs who take unfair advantage of the casino’s free RV parking. I’m sure that there are some who feel this is unfair too. Probably the same jerks who caused the problem in the first place.

I just don’t get this idea that somebody owes us anything and we deserve to get it. I appreciate it when a business gives me a break, whether it be free camping, free dumping, or a discount on a purchase. But I don’t expect it, and I don’t demand it. And if a business has been generous in the past, but things change and they have to start charging me for a service that was free in the past, I certainly don’t feel offended, I don’t boycott them, and I don’t whine and complain. I appreciate the courtesies of the past, pay up and figure I’m still ahead because of prior savings,and continue to support them. It just seems like the right thing to do.

Bad Nick has been busy, by the way, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Our Tax Dollars At Work. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – I want to know – therefore I go.

We publish several guides to help make the RV lifestyle less expensive and easier, including our Guide To Free Campgrounds & Overnight Parking Places, our Casino Camping guide, and the Guide To Public RV Dump Stations, to name just a few. They can all be found on our online bookstore, along with a lot of other great RV reading.

Another of our top selling publications is our Guide To RV Good Guys, which lists honest and reliable repair shops from coast to coast. I developed this guide because I know how hard it can be to find somebody to work on our RV or van when we’re in some strange town where we don’t know anybody to ask for suggestions.

Businesses cannot buy an advertisement in our Good Guys guide. The only way a business gets listed is if we have dealt with them ourselves and had a good experience, or if they are recommended by somebody we know and whose opinion we trust. I have a new business that I am going to add to this guide.

We want to replace the tires on our Winnebago motorhome. They have a lot of tread left, but they are seven years old, and that means it’s time to get some new rubber on the RV. Most RVers never drive enough to wear out their tires, but over time the sidewalls can weaken and crack, which can lead to a blowout. Having survived a front tire blowout on our bus at 65 miles per hour a few years ago, it’s not an experience we want to repeat.

The other day, I spent some time calling tire dealers in the Mesa and Apache Junction area, getting quotes for six new Michelin tires. One of the places I called was Fletcher Tire on Crismon Road in Mesa. The gentleman I spoke to there said they could not help us, because they don’t carry the big 22.5 tires we need, and our RV is too big for their equipment.

But, the salesman asked for my cell phone number and offered to make some calls for me and try to locate a couple of shops who handle big rigs. True to his word, he called me back a short time later with the phone numbers and contact information for two tire shops that stocked our size tires and can handle a big RV.

Now that’s service! He isn’t going to make a penny from me on my tires, he knows that I’m an RVer, not a local who might come in sometime for something else, but he still took the time to go the extra mile for me! You can bet that Fletcher Tire gets added to our Good Guys guide, and that if I ever do need tires or any service on my van, if we’re in this area, that’s who I’ll go to. 

I’m still tire shopping, and I quickly learned that prices are all over the place. Big O Tires was almost exactly $1,000 higher for the six tires than a place called Copperstate Tire in Phoenix. When I told the guy from Big O that his quote was way out of line, he asked me incredulously if I was really willing to drive 35 miles just to save $1,000. Uh…. yeah, I am!    

I’d like to get the new tires on before we go to Yuma for our Gypsy Gathering rally next month, unless somebody reading this has any leads to a good tire shop in Yuma I should call to get a quote from.

If the guy at Big O thinks traveling 35 miles is a big journey, he needs to talk to my pal Al Hesselbart, historian for the RV Hall of Fame Museum in Elkhart, Indiana.

While he was at the National RV Show in Louisville, Kentucky in December, Al was approached by representatives of the Chinese RV industry who invited him to come to a large outdoor lifestyle show in Hangzhou, China next month as their guest. They explained that they were inviting representatives of different parts of the American RV industry to discuss our system at their show.

Al told me Hangzhou is about 100 kilometers southeast of Shanghai, and he is scheduled to leave March 2^nd, and he will arrive in China on March 3^rd. He will give his 20 to 30 minute presentation on the growth of the RV lifestyle and its effect on the American culture to a group of government officials on the 4^th, and to RV industry officials and show goers on the 5^th, then the group will get an officially escorted tour of the Hanzhou area on the 6^th, and will return home on the 7^th.

Al said they are flying them business class, putting them up in first class hotels, and he will have an interpreter to help him present his program. Gee, and I thought my buddy had a swelled head before! Can you imagine what he’s going to demand if I want him to come to our Eastern rally in Elkhart this year to present a seminar? I may need to sell a kidney or something, just to cover his tab!

Thought For The Day – Never take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

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