My wife is a very hard woman to shop for, because she doesn’t want very much in the way of material things. Whenever I ask her what she wants for Christmas, her birthday, our anniversary, or whatever, she always says she has everything she wants.

Once in a while, she’ll let me buy her a bottle of perfume, and I’ve managed to get her a few pairs of earrings over the years, but that’s about it. I guess I should be grateful, she’s not only easy on the eyes, she’s easy on the pocketbook.

I, on the other hand, am easy to shop for. I want everything! I’m like a chimpanzee in a department store. If it lights up, makes noise, goes fast, or tastes good, I want two of each. Why do you think my friend Brenda Speidel calls me Gadget Boy?

I love wandering through the tool section at Lowes and Home Depot, even though I know it’s kind of like going to one of those stripper joints. Most of what I’m seeing I have no idea what to do with, and I’d probably just end up hurting myself if I tried.

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Of course, living in a motorhome (not to mention being of modest means) does put some restrictions on my wants and desires. I really miss my hot tub, from our life before fulltiming, but I just can’t figure out where to put one in a Winnebago.

Actually, there really is very little I want, and nothing I need, that I don’t have. Most of my wants are not things, but rather experiences. I really want to do some kayak fishing, someday I want to catch a fish from an ocean pier, I want to take a cruise, and I want to see Alaska one of these days.

But, if I had to choose one material thing I’d like Santa to bring me, assuming the big guy could figure out a way to slide down the chimney our motorhome doesn’t have, I guess it might be a DVR so I could record some of my favorite television programs. I know a lot of people don’t care all that much for television, but after a lifetime in the small town newspaper business, I’m a news hound and I like to watch the news, if for no other reason than to see who we’re at war with this week. And there are several silly sitcoms, and a drama or two that I enjoy watching. It’s kind of like junk food for the brain.

Of course, it wouldn’t do me any good to get a DVR anyway, according to Dish Network, who told me last week that you can’t watch TV in an RV! 

How about you? What do you want for Christmas?  A new RV? A flat screen TV? A GPS unit? Maybe a new laptop computer?

Or are you like me? Does your wish list include more experiences than things? Tell me about some of them.

Thought For The Day – Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to shop.

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We’ve been Geeked! A couple of days before we left Elkhart Campground, Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour interviewed us for one of their Gabbing With The Geeks podcasts. We talked about the Gypsy Journal and how computer technology makes it possible for us to live and run our business on the road.

Jim and Chris are a success story when it comes to operating a business as they travel fulltime in their RV. They give seminars on all kinds of technical topics at RV rallies and RV parks, they have several websites and blogs, and they teach RVers how to get the most out of their computers and digital cameras, both in their seminars and online. Their website is sort of like an online college for anybody who wants to know just about anything about computers and how they fit into the RV lifestyle.

Speaking of all things geek, my Ipad had started to malfunction recently. When I hit the Home button to exit a program or application, it wouldn’t work, and I would have to reboot the Ipad to get back to the home page. So yesterday I took it to the Apple Store at the Park City Center mall in Lancaster, about 20 miles from the Hershey Thousand Trails campground.

Driving to Lancaster, we just drank in all of the beautiful scenery. We passed fields of corn, and farm fields that had recently been harvested, with just the stubble of cornstalks sticking up like a rural five o’clock shadow. 

Around there, the old houses, barns, and commercial buildings crowd close to the roads.

In Manheim, one of the most picturesque old towns we have ever visited, the streets are pretty narrow, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted to drive a big motorhome through town!

Terry and I are history nuts, and we love the architecture of this area. Manheim was laid out  in 1762, and formally incorporated in 1838. There are so many buildings dating back to Colonial days that we were like two kids in a candy store, rubbernecking in every direction. If these old buildings could only talk, the stories they could tell!

When we got to the Apple Store, the nice tech who waited on us (they call them Geniuses at Apple) checked the Ipad out, verified that the button had malfunctioned, and handed me a brand new 64 gig 3G Ipad, just like I had! No questions, no hassles, and he even switched my AT&T sim card from the old unit to the new one for me so I could get online with no problems. I appreciate customer service like that!

While we were in the mall, we stopped by the Verizon kiosk, because I want to upgrade from my Blackberry Storm to a Droid Incredible. The Blackberry has not lived up to my expectations, and it seems like every time they do a software upgrade (or sometimes just because it feels like it), it wipes out all of my apps and I have to fight to get them back on it again.

I was all set to go with the Droid, but then the clerk started hammering me to also buy an “accessory bundle” that included a car charger, case, and a Bluetooth headset. I told him I didn’t need or want any of that, and he insisted that I just “had’ to have them to get the most out of the Droid and that “everybody” needs a Bluetooth. Guess what, mister? I’m not “everybody” and I don’t “have” to have anything! I’m sure I’ll still upgrade pretty soon, but I’ll deal with somebody who is more concerned with what I need, not what he wants to sell me.

We can never pass up a bookstore, so when we left the mall, we browsed through a nearby Border’s, where Miss Terry found a couple of cookbooks that she has been looking for.

Then we had dinner at a Five Guys restaurant. Five Guys makes excellent cheeseburgers, and their fries are delicious. Unfortunately, there was no ice, so my soda and Terry’s tea were room temperature. I told the manager there was no ice, and he said the machine was broken. I had to wonder why nobody was fixing it, or at least buying ice somewhere to put in the drinks. I like Five Guys, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to that particular restaurant again.

After dinner we stopped at Home Depot, where Miss Terry got a new toy, a Dremel Trio multi-tool, as a late birthday present. Some guys buy their wives flowers or jewelry for special occasions, but my lady likes books and power tools!

We’ve just finished our Eastern Rally, and we’re already working on Arizona for next year!  I have added a Rally Registration Page to the blog, since I have had people asking when they could register for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally, which will be held in Yuma, March 7-11, 2011. To register online, click the link below, or the Arizona Gypsy Gathering tab on the top right of this page, above the blog header.

Whatever else you do today, please take a moment to remember all of those who perished nine years ago today during the terrorist attacks. We can move on with our lives, but as a nation, we must never forget.

Thought For The Day - Consciousness - that annoying time between naps.

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Today is Miss Terry’s birthday, but I got the present, because I get to spend the day with her! Terry is a very practical lady, so she thinks it’s just another day. But it’s pretty darned special to me.

Some women want jewelry or clothes for their birthday, but when I asked Terry what she wanted, she told me one of the new Dremel Trio power tools. I asked her why she wanted that, since we are done building a bus conversion, and she just looked at me, shook her head, and sighed “There’s always something.” I wonder what that meant?

Yesterday while we were in Flagstaff dropping off the new issue of the Gypsy Journal at the mail service, we stopped at Home Depot to get Terry her new toy, but they were sold out, it being the day after Father’s Day. So I promised Terry a rain check, then took her to one of her favorite places, Barnes & Noble bookstore. Okay, I confess, it’s one of my favorite places too. We can spend hours browsing, and usually spend more than we had planned to, but we justify it by telling ourselves that we don’t drink or smoke, or play golf, or gamble, so we deserve a treat now and then.

I know I have shown you pictures of forest fire smoke two days in a row, but just to put in in perspective, here is one more that Terry took in Flagstaff yesterday. It’s close enough to town that some folks we talked to were getting pretty nervous.

When we left Flagstaff, we stopped at the new Camping World in Bellemont to drop off a bundle of sample papers, then stopped at several RV parks around Williams doing the same. We got a chuckle out of this sign at the KOA. Somebody needs spelling lessons. But what can you expect from people who spell campground with a K?

So what does a charming husband like me do for his special lady on her birthday? He drives her across the Mojave Desert in 100+ degree temperatures! And if that were not enough, tonight I hope to be in Bakersfield, California, where she has her choice of dinner at the Flying J truck stop or the Jack in the Box restaurant next door! Hey, do I know how to treat a girl right or not?

I’m pretty much recovered from my bout with the flu, but my energy level still doesn’t feel quite up to par. It’s about 450 miles from here to Bakersfield, so we have a long day of driving ahead of us. And if we get tired or run into any delays, I have a couple of alternative stops in mind.

We have several readers in Bakersfield who have asked us to stop in for a visit, or invited us to dinner, but this is just a quick overnight stop, since we have to be at the Elks lodge in Oceano Wednesday by mid-day to claim an RV site before somebody else snags it out from under us.

We plan to be in the Oceano/Pismo Beach and Morro Bay area for a few days, then we’ll go up to the Thousand Trails preserve in Morgan Hill for a week or so, where we have arranged tours of a few places to write about for the next issue.

Happy birthday, Terry. I love you with all my heart, my darling.

Thought For The Day – One man all by himself is nothing.  Two people who belong together make a world.

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We know many RVers who work in RV parks around the country to offset their traveling costs. Typically, they work a set number of hours per week in exchange for a free RV site, and any hours over those agreed upon for the site are paid at an hourly wage. Some workamping RVers return to the same campground to work every season, while others prefer to move about and see new places.

Workamping in an RV park can be interesting, and can help you save some money in camping fees. However, as I always say in my seminars on working on the road, as well as in my book Work Your Way Across The USA, if your goal is to make the most possible money in a given time period, often you would be better off to rent a site in an RV park on a monthly basis, and got a job at the local Home Depot or a restaurant in town. RV park wages are just not that good in most cases.

But if you want to do something a little bit different, and still earn money, there are many, many opportunities out there to make money and have fun that don’t involve cleaning bathrooms in an RV park, serving French fries in a fast food restaurant, or working in retail stores. Here are ten jobs that RVers we know have done that you may never have thought of.  

1. Beet Harvest – We have known several RVers who have worked the sugar beet harvests in places like North Dakota and Minnesota. Jobs include everything from driving trucks to sorting the beets when they arrive at warehouses. One website on the sugar beet harvest claims that some workers make as much as $7,000 in a month or less.

2. Canoe & Kayak Tour Guide – From the Florida Keys to Michigan’s wild Upper Peninsula, canoe and kayak liveries are busy all season long introducing tourists to the joys to be found on the water. It’s a great job for RVers who want to make some extra money and spend the summer (or winter) paddling. 

3. Working For Amazon – During the Christmas rush, online retailer Amazon.com hires many RVers to work at their fulfillment center in Kansas. The last I heard, the wage was $11 an hour, plus bonuses, with overtime available.

4. Dealing Blackjack – The gaming industry, in places like Las Vegas, Reno, and Laughlin, Nevada, provides many working opportunities for RVers. Jobs range from dealing blackjack to working as a customer greeter in casinos.

5. Driving Tour Bus – From Alaska to the Grand Canyon to Florida, tourist areas provide many employment opportunities for RVers. Driving tour buses, ranging in size from extended length vans to full sized coaches, is a good way to make money while spending time in places where the tourists pay big bucks to visit.

6. Fish Cannery – This is hard, dirty, smelly, physically demanding work, but one fulltime RVer we know spends a full summer in Alaska working long hours at a fish cannery, and he tells us he makes enough in a season to pay for two years of fulltime RV travel.

7. Working The NASCAR Circuit – Every race car driver, from the superstars to the new guy in the pits, have somebody selling souvenirs with their names and car numbers on them. We’ve met a couple of RVers who tow a vending trailer behind their motorhomes and follow the circuit, selling souvenirs to racing fans.

8. Selling Christmas Trees – This is obviously a seasonal job, and is hard physical work, but we have known many RVers who sell Christmas trees on lots across the country, and several have told us that they have made $8,000 or more in less than a month. Many times the same companies who hire RVers to sell Christmas trees hire them to sell fireworks for the Fourth of July, and Halloween pumpkins on the same lots. One couple we know made about $7,000 in two weeks selling fireworks this past summer.

9. Horse Wrangler – I make it a point never to ride anything you can’t put gasoline in, but if you are an equestrian fan and are comfortable in a saddle, you may find work as a horse wrangler, leading trail rides at one of the many dude ranches in the Southwest. The pay isn’t usually top dollar, but tips can be good, and if you love horses, it’s your chance to get paid for playing cowboy (or cowgirl).

10. Gas Line Survey – There is a long, ongoing thread on the Escapees forum, on working as a gas line surveyor, and the RVers we have talked to who have done this work all say that it’s a great way to make good money and get a lot of exercise in the process.

For more ideas on making money as you travel, check out my Working On The Road web page. What are some of the ways you have earned money on the road?

Thought For The Day – My wife does all the driving; I just get to hold the steering wheel.

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