Several people have been confused by when I post the blog, because now that we are in the Midwest, it appears online before midnight out west, with the next day’s date on it. This has come up before, so hopefully I can explain it.

I try to post the blog as close to midnight as I can local time, wherever we happen to be. That means that when we were in Arizona it went online about midnight Mountain time, or 3 a.m. Eastern time. I do the same thing here in Missouri, which means that it goes online about 9 p.m. in California, but with the next day’s date on it. A couple of readers have complained about that.

What can I say? I’m a night owl and do most of my writing at night. I’m too lazy to get up at the crack of dawn to post the blog in time to please the early birds, so I do it the night before.

This area around Mark Twain Lake has a multitude of geocaches just waiting to be found. Yesterday we hunted up a couple of virtual caches, including the neat old Union Covered Bridge, located a few miles from Paris, Missouri. We love covered bridges, but this old timer, built in 1871 and restored in 1967, is in pretty sad shape. There are holes in the sides and it has been closed to vehicle traffic since an overloaded truck broke a supporting beam in 1970. There are only four covered bridges left in Missouri, so I hope they save this wonderful old structure before it is too late.   

I have good news for wannabe RVers looking for ways to make money as they travel! Workamper News, the magazine devoted to helping RVers find jobs, has launched their new Workamper Dreamers Blog to help you make your dreams come true. The blog is aimed at helping you understand the workamping lifestyle and what to expect when you get out here and start looking for jobs that will fit into your mobile lifestyle. Check out the new blog, I think you’ll be impressed.

This is our last day at Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground, and we will spend it touching base with our friends Smokey and Pam Ridgely and Ron and Brenda Speidel, who are working locally. Then it’s time to fire up our old bus and hit the road once again. We have to be in Goshen, Indiana late next week for the Heartland Owners Rally, and we want to get settled in at Elkhart Campground and have time to unwind before that starts.

Except for the poor Verizon cell phone service and the slow National Access air card signal, we really like it here, and we know this is one place we’ll return to again in our travels.

Thought For The Day – Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

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Terry and I have been very lucky in that our business has allowed us live our dreams and have a life that many people envy. We’ll never be rich, if you measure riches in terms of dollars, but we get to go where we want, see interesting things and beautiful places, and meet wonderful people.

We really don’t have the time to take on any other jobs, but I can’t help browsing through the pages of Workamper News and thinking “That might be fun to do!”

Last week while we were at the Escapade rally in Sedalia, Missouri, we talked to some friends who are going to be selling fireworks for a couple of weeks leading up to the Fourth of July. They gave me the name of their contact at the fireworks company, and I called just to see how it all works.

Basically, as the company representative explained it to me, they have specific locations arranged, sometimes a lot on a busy corner, sometimes part of a WalMart parking lot or some other high traffic business. The company sets up a tent and delivers a load of fireworks about the third week of June. The contracted dealers, many of whom are RVers, sell from the stand through July 5^th or 6^th, and then whatever inventory remains is returned to a nearby company warehouse. The dealer gets 20% of all of the money they take in.

I was told by some people that have experience in such things that different companies have different contracts, and some pay a guarantee plus commission. We have met several RVers who pick up extra money selling fireworks, Christmas trees, and pumpkins at roadside stands. It is hard work, you are expected to be open 12 hours a day for two weeks or more, and you are responsible for any theft. The tent must be lighted at night to prevent theft, and the dealer is expected to either use their RV generator to power the lights, or rent a generator.

How much you make depends on your location. At one spot the company had in Connecticut, the representative said we could expect to clear $4500. At another, in southern Michigan, I was told to expect to make about $3,000.

That sounded like a lot of money for just a couple of weeks’ work, until I crunched the numbers. The Michigan commitment would require us to spend a day or two receiving the inventory and getting it set up, 15 days of sales, and then at least another day to pack all of the inventory up and get it back to the warehouse.

Just the 15 days of sales, at 12 hours a day per person for the two of us was a deal breaker. That is $200 a day, or $100 each. $100 divided by 12 hours is $8.33 an hour. And that does not include the time involved in receiving and setting up the inventory, fuel for a generator to light the tent at night, rental of a credit card machine and cash register, as well as a few other expenses the job required, or the time to pack everything up and take it back to the warehouse. It also did not factor in the loss due to theft, or heaven forbid, if we got robbed.

Even if we would have been willing to invest the time, that is when our next issue of the Gypsy Journal is due to be printed and mailed, so we would not have had the time anyway.

I’m curious if any of you blog readers have sold fireworks, Christmas trees or pumpkins, and how it worked out for you. Care to share your experiences?

Thought For The Day – Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

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I sure am glad we made the drive across Interstate 40 on Thursday, instead of waiting until yesterday! The storm that was headed for Arizona hit hard, and for several hours yesterday the interstate was closed between Flagstaff and Winslow due to high winds. The news reports showed long lines of eighteen wheelers, cars, and RVs sitting still on the highway. We are grateful that we are parked and settled in here in Show Low.

Not that it was an entirely pleasant day here, either. Strong winds blew all day, with gusts up to almost 50 miles per hour, and just before dark a mixture of rain and snow began to fall. But we managed to spend the day visiting family and friends, and by nightfall we were back at the bus and tucked away warm and cozy in our home on wheels.

We always enjoy visiting our old hometown, and I think some of our friends really envy our lifestyle. More than one of them has said that we really have it made, being able to earn our living as we travel this great land of ours. We are indeed, very blessed. Terry and I love what we are doing and we would not trade it for the world.

I spent much of my adult life running small town newspapers, writing about traffic accidents, boring town council meetings, chamber of commerce events, and the occasional (or frequent) small town corruption. It provided a decent living, but I spent a lot of time feeling like I was beating my head against a brick wall.

These days my “work” is going to interesting places, having fun all day long, and coming home and writing about it. It’s a pretty darned good gig, and after ten years, I still look forward to every day.

Someone told me years ago that if you get up in the morning and absolutely hate your job and dread going to work, you are underpaid even if you make a million dollars a year. But if you can find a career that you would love doing even if you didn’t make a penny at it, you have found success. I guess that makes me pretty successful.

But we are not unique. We know many RVers who make a living by working on the road. Some have their own business, like we do, while others work for companies doing everything from gas line surveys, to demonstrating products at RV rallies, to selling space on campground maps, to workamping at RV parks. A good source for job opportunities for RVers is Workamper News www.workamper.com.

There are some very good resources available to RVers who want to make money as they travel. I wrote a book on the subject titled Work Your Way Across The USA, and my pal Jaimie Hall wrote what I consider to be the very best book on working RVers, Support Your RV Lifestyle, which is available in our RV Bookstore.

There is a lot of knowledge to be found online, as well. Jaimie and her writing partner, Alice Zyetz, devote a lot of space to working opportunities on their website at www.rvlifestyleexperts.com. Coleen Sykora also has a ton of good information on her website at www.workersonwheels.com. 

Working on the road is not for everybody, but for us it is the perfect lifestyle.

Thought For The Day – You cannot unsay a cruel word.

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