We hit the ground running yesterday! The techs at Duncan RV Repair were supposed to start working on our motorhome at 9 a.m., so Miss Terry had the alarm clock set for 7:30 so we’d have time to get our morning routine done and have the Winnebago unplugged from shore power, the slides in, and the jacks up when they came for it.

Terry was up before me, and when I rolled out of bed, I glanced at my cell phone and it said the time was 8:41 a.m. I asked Terry why she had let me sleep so late, and then we realized that while we had adjusted the clocks on our microwave, computers, and in the van back to Eastern Time, we had forgotten the alarm clock!

What followed was a mad rush to brush teeth, get dressed, store things away inside the motorhome, run outside to unplug the electrical cord, and get the slides in and the jacks up, but we were done at exactly 9 a.m. Whew! What a way to start the day! But we were right on schedule.

Of course, then we waited. And waited. Finally about 9:30 I went inside and was told that the employees were in a meeting and should be done soon. A tech broke free and came out to get our keys, and when we left a little before 10, they still had not moved the RV inside. Hurry up and wait, just like in the Army. Oh well, at least I got an extra hour or so of sleep!

We drove over to Phoenix Commercial Paint and spent the day piddling around the bus, charging the batteries to compensate for the time the bus has been sitting unused, and then starting it up to warm up the engine.

We took a break about 1 p.m. for lunch with our friend Michele Henry, owner of Phoenix Commercial Paint, and when we came out of the restaurant it was snowing! Being anywhere it is snowing goes completely against the very carefully laid out plan I have for my life. I was supposed to be on a houseboat in Key West right now!

Back at Duncan RV Repair, late in the day, they did not have everything finished on the motorhome, which I had expected, since we needed several things done.  That was one reason we got to town early, so they could have two days to work on it, if needed. They had repaired the water heater, so that it now works on both gas and electric, and had completed the engine oil change, lube job, and fuel filter replacement.

They were closing for the day, so our service tech moved the motorhome back out to their campground, and today it will go back into the shop to have the Wilson Trucker antenna installed and the Onan generator serviced.

Today is going to be another busy day for us. We have to pick up a new order of our Just A Gypsy T-shirts from our screen printer here in Elkhart, and then touch base with Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum. We had arranged for our mail forwarding service to send our mail to us, care of the museum. Then we have to unload our bicycles and kayaks from the van to have room for passengers, and at 4:46 p.m. we have to be at the airport in South Bend, Indiana to met Rich Perry, who is flying in from California with a friend to pick up the bus.

We’re going to be sorry to see that old gal go, she sure has been good to us!    

Thought For The Day – Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection all over again.

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I spent most of yesterday working on a website for Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Many people are surprised to learn that while the Amish people live a much simpler lifestyle than most of us, with their horses and buggies, they do in fact make use of many modern conveniences, including telephones, electricity, and even the internet.

Every Amish community has its own rules as to how much of the “English world” (as they call life among the non-Amish), they can incorporate into their homes and businesses. While the Amish don’t own or drive cars, they will hire someone to take them where they need to go if it is too far for their buggies, and crews of Amish workers at local factories car pool in vans driven by non-Amish co-workers.

If you drive past the Amish farms on some of the back roads here in northern Indiana, you will see small wooden structures at the end of the driveway at every third or fourth home. These are shared telephone booths, where they can make and receive calls relating to business. But these booths are not heated and do not have a seat, to prevent them from spending much time chatting. We often see newspaper advertisements for items for sale, with a telephone number and the notation “Call between 7:30 and 8 a.m.” Those are the hours when they will be monitoring the telephone to receive calls. For businesses such as Focal Wood Products, they have a voice mail system, so if we call when Carlyle is busy, we leave a message and he calls us back. It’s not quite as convenient as calling a traditional business, but it works for them.

In the case of his website, Carlyle received permission from his community to have one to advertise his products, but he cannot build or maintain it himself. That’s where I got involved, and it’s been an interesting experience working with someone whose culture is different in so many ways from our own.

I mentioned a while back that I have co-authored a new book on self-publishing, titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit. Last week I received my first copy of the book, hot off the press, and I’m very pleased with it. All of the credit goes to my co-author, Christy Pinheiro, who conceived the project and handled all of the production details. For more information, here is a link to the book’s website. Check it out; you too could be a published author!  

One of the things I suggest on my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit, is producing small niche guides aimed at very targeted markets. Examples would be our Guide to Free Campgrounds and Overnight Parking Places, and our Guide to Casino Camping.

I don’t know if Dale Sumner from Mobile RV Medic, Inc. spent any time reading the website or coming to any of my seminars, but he recently published a very good guide, titled Basic RV Electricity and Protection, which is an excellent primer for anyone who owns an RV. Dale packs a lot of excellent information into the book, without getting buried in technical details that the average RVer could not understand. If you want to know what happens when you plug your RV’s electrical cord into a campground’s pedestal, and how to avoid overloading the circuit, and how to protect your rig from problems, this is an easy to understand guide that is well worth the money. You can order your copy at www.lulu.com/basicRVelectricity or e-mail Dale at sales@mobileRVmedic.com.

Of course, if you’re staying at an upscale RV resort such as Retama Village in Mission, Texas, you won’t have to worry about things like electrical problems. My friend Jack Mayer owns a couple of RV lots at Retama Village, and Jack and some of the other lot owners have set up a website, Retama Rentals, to market their lots when they are not staying on them. We paid a visit to friends at Retama last winter, and I can tell you it’s the nicest RV resort we have ever seen! So if you’re thinking about spending some time in the Valley this winter, check out Jack’s website.

While I was busy building a website this weekend, Bad Nick wrote a new post for the Bad Nick Blog titled We’re Going To Lose The War On Terror. Check it out, it will give you something to think about.

Thought For The Day – Anything in the future will always look better because there’s always something wrong in the present.

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