Yesterday was one of those days where it didn’t seem to me that we were all that busy, but looking back, I guess we were!

In the morning I printed off several of our booklets to fill orders that came in with our last mail delivery, which was waiting for us when we returned here yesterday, and Terry got them all packaged. Then we ran to the post office to mail them out, and stopped at the bank to make a deposit.

With those chores behind us, we drove ten miles or so to the small town of Bristol, where we stopped at Fluid Fun, a canoe and kayak dealer that stocks the most impressive line of boats we’ve seen anywhere in the country. I want to replace my Ocean Kayak Angler model with a different boat. It’s a great kayak, and I’ve only had it in the water a few times, but it just doesn’t fit me well. I found a couple of models that are better suited to my needs, and will probably stick my boat out in front of the bus today and see if anybody here in the RV park is looking for a good fishing kayak.

While we were in the area, we stopped and checked out a couple of public launch sites on the St. Joseph River for our next paddling outing. One was at a small park right in Bristol, with a good parking area and not one, but two, boat ramps.

When we left Bristol, we stopped at Phoenix Commercial Paint to visit with owner Michelle Henry. She had a Class C motorhome in the shop that she was in the process of stripping down for a new paint job. Michelle gave us a tour of the place, and explained how paint is mixed to create custom colors for the beautiful full body paint jobs she produces.

It is amazing how a custom paint job can transform a dated looking RV into a rolling work of art, and even more amazing that Michelle can turn out such quality work for half of what some places charge.

What’s the secret? Hard work, being willing to do a lot of the work herself instead of hiring expensive help, and a love of what she is doing. You can bet when we find the right coach to replace our bus, we’ll be talking to Michelle about a paint job!

Back at the bus, I actually did some work! A company called Pineapple Publications contacted me a while back and wanted to use some of the material from my Publishing4Profit website for a new book on self-publishing they are bringing out this summer. That led to an interview with the author, Christy Pinheiro, which in turn led to an offer to be listed as co-author of the book.

Christy sent me a copy of the final manuscript and asked me to give it a final proofing before it goes to print. So I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening doing that. The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! will be available in just a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing the book when it is published.

Speaking of books and publishing, several readers have written to ask me what I think of my Amazon Kindle, now that I’ve had it a while. Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news. I love the concept of the Kindle. It’s a great product, especially for RVers who have to consider the weight of books if they do a lot of reading. You can store hundreds of books digitally and carry a complete library in your Kindle. And having seen the new model Kindles, I’m glad I have the first generation model. It just feels better to me. But to be honest, I hardly use it.

Part of that is because just about the time I got the Kindle, Terry’s cousin, Carolyn Henley, who is about to become a fulltime RVer, gave us several big boxes of once read books that we have been working our way through in the last few months. With that much reading material, there just wasn’t much reason to buy anything.

Also, as convenient as it is to order a book online and download it to the Kindle, we just love prowling around both new and used bookstores. Terry and I can spend hours in a bookstore. Sometimes we buy a lot of books, and just as many times, we don’t buy a thing. Either way, we still have a good time, and we look forward to finding new bookstores to explore wherever we travel.

Thought For The Day – I wish the buck stopped here. I could use a few.

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We have been hearing all winter that with all of the RV factories closing down and taking their support businesses with them, Elkhart, Indiana has turned into a virtual ghost town. If you would believe the national news media (and who doesn’t take everything they say as gospel?), Elkhart’s streets are lined with empty storefronts and closed up shops.

Judging by what we have seen since we’ve been here, the news of Elkhart’s death has been greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the great orator Mark Twain.

While we were out running some errands yesterday, we drove many of the streets we are familiar with, and we saw two storefronts that have closed since we were here last year. One was a truck and van accessory shop, in a building where we have seen small many businesses come and go over the years, and the other was a showroom that last had a small independent RV dealership as a tenant.

Meanwhile, we saw two or three new businesses that have opened since we left last September, and the established businesses we drove past all had busy parking lots. Elkhart Campground seems just as busy as always, and owner Bob Patel told me that they have not seen a dramatic downturn. So if you are coming through the area, stop in and stay a while. Elkhart is alive and well.  

Yesterday Terry was still not feeling much better, so we went to the MedPoint Express care center at one of the Martins Supermarkets here in Elkhart. The MedPoint Express centers have a nurse practioner on duty for non-emergency medical issues such as colds, flu, and such. After examining Terry, the nurse practioneer told her she has a serious ear and upper respiratory infection along with the flu, and prescribed amoxicillin for the ear infection and a cough suppressant. We were impressed to learn that the pharmacy at Martins does not charge for antibiotics if a customer has one of their free customer courtesy cards. 

As proof that paybacks will get you every time, it seems like the cold I had at Escapade and gave to Terry has come full circle and nailed me again. I spent most of yesterday coughing and sucking on Ricola throat lozenges.

Back at the bus, I gave a telephone interview to a very nice young woman from Pineapple Publications. She is writing a book on self-publishing on a budget and will be using some articles I have on my Publishing4Profit website. We covered everything from blogging to why I concentrate on writing and self-publishing non-fiction instead of fiction.

Actually, I wrote a couple of mystery novels back in the late 1970s that were published. By the time I wrote and re-wrote them to meet the publisher’s demands, and my agent got her slice, I made almost half of what I would have if I had put the same time into working behind the counter at a fast food restaurant.

I’ve got a couple of other mysteries sitting on my computer’s hard drive that I wrote a few years back, just for fun, but they’ll probably never see the light of day. Unless you get very, very lucky, you’re not going to become the next Stephen King or John Grisham, and I know I’m darned sure never going to be that lucky. I’ll stick with being a hack and doing what I do best.

Thought For The Day – Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald they don’t recognize you.

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