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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I have to admit that I am very pleasantly surprised at the reaction to our new Digital Edition of the Gypsy Journal. In the first 24 hours after I wrote in yesterday’s blog that subscriptions were available, we received 30 orders. I can see my pal Chris Guld over at Geeks on Tour just simpering and saying “I told you so!” I just hate it when she’s right.

Overall, the feedback we’ve received has been great, but we can’t please everybody. If you read yesterday’s blog comments, you will see that a couple of readers don’t see the value, and that’s just fine. As I’ve said before, nobody has to spend a penny with us to be able to read the blog and our regular website.

But I did find it interesting that one person seems to think that not only what we do is worthless, but that we seem to be rolling in money. This same person has asked for a discounted subscription price several times in the past, because he’s on a fixed income. I wish somebody would fix my income, because the darned thing is broken! It never seems to stretch far enough!

Folks, I know that some of you have heard me say this before, but I’m going to say it again. Yes, we make a profit. No, I don’t apologize for that. We are a business. We do not have a retirement income or investments we live off of. Everything we earn is from the products and services we create and from my speaking gigs. We’re not getting rich, but we’re paying the bills and having a lot of fun in the process.

I write and publish nonfiction information. There are only a certain number of free campgrounds, or dump stations, or whatever in the country. There is going to be duplication in the information that we, or the folks who produce Day’s End, or Don Wright from Cottage Publications sell. Yes, you can find a lot of the same info we produce online, if you put in enough time to research it. Or, you could be out RVing instead!

Okay, enough of that nonsense, let’s move on.

We’re leaving Show Low, Arizona today headed east. We’ll take Interstate 40 across northern Arizona and New Mexico, and we’ll probably stop for the night at one of the casinos near Albuquerque. The Route 66 Casino at mile marker 140 has a pretty good buffet, and is usually our first choice when we’re traveling in that part of New Mexico.  

Goodbyes are always hard, and it’s going to be very hard to say goodbye to my daughter Tiffany, as it always is. I have to admit that I feel guilty when I see the pain in my little girl’s eyes when we leave, and I always have a lump in my throat for the first few hundred miles, and I want to turn this big old bus around and go back for one more long hug.

But Tiffany knows her old man is an unconventional guy with a bad case of hitch itch that needs to be scratched. (She actually suggested that maybe if I put cream or ointment on it, it might get better!) And I thank her for allowing me to fulfill this wanderlust that I was born with, and not putting me on a guilt trip every time we depart.

The good news is that the road runs both ways, and we can (and will) always come back again.  

Thought For The Day – In a lunatic world, the mad are better equipped than the sane.

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