When we’re not busy traveling in our RV or writing about the RV lifestyle, I enjoy surfing the web and reading the many blogs and websites about RVing that are out there. Even after eleven years on the road, I manage to learn something new every day from what other RVers are writing about. 

Today I thought that I’d share some of the interesting blog posts and websites I have come across in the last few days of web surfing. Some are interesting for their great photography, others for information I didn’t know, and a lot of them are just plain fun!

On the RV.Net blog, Mark Post had a revealing look at statistics gathered from RV Poll Results. According to Mark, 42% of RVers responding said that they have spent a night in a Wal-Mart parking lot; 60% connect to the internet every day, 94% use rest stops when traveling in their RV, and 70% have stayed in a friend or relative’s driveway. Check Mark’s blog post for more interesting numbers. I’d be interested to know how your responses to the poll compare.

Also on the RV.Net blog, my pal Jaimie Hall Bruzenak has an interesting post about how  RVers who volunteer at public parks and campgrounds are perceived by at least one Arizona newspaper. Jaimie and her writing partner, Alice Zyetz, have an excellent new e-book out titled Retire to an RV: The Roadmap to Affordable Retirement Living. You can learn more about their new book and much more about RVing at their RV Lifestyle Experts website.

Blogs help us keep up with our RVing friends, so even though we may be hundreds, even thousands of miles apart, we get to share in their adventures. Our pals Tom and Barb Westerfield combine RV traveling with their other passion, geocaching, and in their Caching On The Road blog I read that they are visiting my old stomping grounds in coastal Washington state. I got my start in the newspaper business up there a lifetime ago, and it’s fun to see their pictures of the region now.

Another couple of good friends who are exploring my old neighborhood are Greg and Jan White, who are in Westport, Washington, just a few miles from where I lived back in the day. Their Our RV Adventures blog makes me homesick.

Yet another blog that brought back fond memories is Levonne Gaddy and John Huntley’s California Odyssey. They’re workamping at Morro Strand State Beach in Morro Bay, California. Miss Terry and I honeymooned in Morro Bay, and we hope to get back there one of these days for another visit.

I mentioned parking overnight at Wal-Mart earlier. Another place where we have found free overnight parking is at casinos. The Casino Camper website has a tremendous amount of information on casino camping coast to coast. Mac McClellan and his wife Chris do a great job of keeping the information up to date and useful to their readers.

One of the greatest resources for finding RV blogs and websites is the excellent Hitch Itch website. Here you will find hundreds of links to RV blogs and RV websites that can provide you with a lifetime of interesting reading and valauble information about RV travel and fulltime RVing.

Thought For The Day – You can’t stay young forever, but you can be immature the rest of your life.

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Last year I posted a blog about a visit that the Tin Can Tourists paid to the RV Hall of Fame Museum in Elkhart, Indiana, and included several photos of the vintage and homebuilt RVs the club members own.

One of my favorites was this beautiful  cedar sided fifth wheel, named Wayzalot. The unique RV that Hardy and Terry Evans built included more features than I can list here, but you can read about the entire construction process on the Evans’ Wayzalot website. The towed their RV to Tin Can Tourist events all over the country.

I wrote in that blog post that I would have liked to see the inside of Wayzalot, but now that will never happen. A few days ago Hardy and Terry were southbound on State Route 65 in Jeffersonville, Indiana, headed for a Vintage Camper Rally in Tennessee. Just before they crossed the Ohio River, a tanker truck ahead of them braked hard. Hardy managed to stop his rig before he hit the tanker, but then an eighteen wheeler slammed into the rear of Wayzalot.

The impact pushed the Evans’ truck and trailer into the concrete median, totally destroying both units. It was a huge accident that tied up the highway for hours. Fortunately, even though they lost their truck and beloved home on wheels, the only injury the Evans’ suffered was Hardy’s ankle, which was broken in two places.

These photos show the horrendous damage to both the Evans’ truck and trailer. It’s a wonder they escaped alive! Having built our own bus conversion, I know how many hours, and how much blood, sweat, and tears went into the project.

Terry said they had traveled several months a year in their RV for the last ten years, covering over 50,000 miles in over 25 states. Now all they have left are photographs and memories. You can see more pictures of the accident on their website. Folks, it can happen to any of us, at any time, no matter how careful we are. Cherish every day and every mile you travel.

Speaking of travel, my pal “Froggi” Donna McNicol clued me in to a new iPhone app called State Lines that every RVer can use. It includes information on things like state gun laws, rules on sleeping overnight in rest areas, state sales taxes, rules of the road, and lots more. The app updates as you travel, so you always have information for wherever you happen to be. In the coming weeks, the app will be updated for the iPad as well. I plan to get it real soon, because I can see a lot of times when it would be invaluable in our travels. 

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that there is a noticeable slowdown in service on my iPad here in Show Low, away from AT&T’s 3G system. While we have high speed EVDO 3G service on our Verizon cell phones and air card, the iPad is on AT&T’s slower Edge system.

I did some speed tests last night, and here are the results: My desktop computer, operating off the Verizon air card and Cradlepoint router, showed download speeds of 1.73 MB and upload speeds of .43 MB. The iPad, on the AT&T Edge signal, showed .06 MB download speeds, and a dismal .007 MB upload.  As slow as that sounds, I have been able to get online and do whatever I have wanted to, including opening websites with lots of photos. I don’t know if that is due to the iPad’s own speed over my computer running Windows XP Pro, which seems to be pretty fast under most circumstances. When I switched to our WiFi signal, the iPad showed 1.30 MB download and .16 MB upload. Still not as fast as my desktop computer, but more than enough for my needs. Even on the Edge service, the iPad is still faster than I was getting a lot of times on my computer and air card in Apache Junction back in January and February. I’m very pleased with the iPad and its performance.

Yesterday I showed it to a friend who has never used a computer and who has always said he has no interest in them. Five minutes with the iPad had him asking me where he can get one! Contrary to what the naysayers claim, I’m convinced that this gizmo is going to make a major impact on the way people get online and access media. Now if it would just let me win at Scrabble once in a while!

Thought For The Day -The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

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I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of far off rain, and then I realized that it wasn’t rain after all, but rather the sound of the wind in the tall pine trees here at the Show Low Elks lodge campground.

Yes, it was windy again in northern Arizona, as it is all too often this time of year. The weather report included a high wind advisory for the entire region until 8 p.m., and  they were monitoring more dust storms along Interstate 40, which has been closed numerous times in the last few weeks. I don’t like driving a motorhome in the wind, so I was glad we drove up from the Phoenix area the previous day!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we have a nice site here at the Elks campground, but it isn’t very level, and even with our jacks extended all the way, we were still decidedly low in the rear. We weren’t in danger of anything falling off the walls, but we were out of balance enough that our shower wouldn’t drain correctly. We’ve encountered this before and I wanted to do something about it.

So we went to Lowes and bought an eight foot long piece of exterior grade treated 2×12 board, and I had the store cut it into one foot lengths, giving me a total of eight squares.

Back at the motorhome, I pulled in our slide rooms and retracted our HWH leveling jacks, and then we put four of the wooden squares under each rear jack. Then I hit the automatic jack button, and we leveled right up. 

I was wondering how speeds would be on my my iPad here in Show low, as compared to in Apache Junction. While our Verizon phones and air card are on high speed EVDO here, the iPad is on AT&T’s extended network. There is a noticeable reduction in speed, no doubt about it. But it is not as slow as our air card is when we’re away from an EVDO signal and are on Verizon’s slower National Access service. The GPS and all other functions on the iPad work fine here, even on the slower extended network service.

Later on, Tiffany came by with her girls, and we had a nice visit. Here are Hailey and Destiny relaxing on the couch after a hard day at school and preschool. Destiny always looks to her big sister for direction on how to act like a big kid. Hopefully she won’t copy Hailey and break her arm too!

Tiffany’s husband Jim works the night shift, and he was up all day helping Tiffany with her job, so he was home sleeping before his shift started. We took the girls out to dinner, and by the time we left the restaurant, it was getting really chilly. Note to self – keep a jacket or sweater in the van.

Bad Nick was busy yesterday too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog edition of the Dumb A$$ Report. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

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Yesterday morning bright and early I was parked at the Camping World in Mesa, Arizona letting their service people know that I was not pleased with their installation of our new tires in February, and that I wanted them to replace the valve stems and the valve stem extensions on both inner dual wheels.

Ever since we bought the new tires, both inside duals have lost air and given false readings on my PressurePro tire monitor. Several people whose opinion I respect, as well as the service manager at the Camping World, all agreed that the problem was either that the valve stem extensions they installed were bad, and/or that they had crushed the small O rings in the valve stems when they screwed on the extensions.

A little after 8 a.m. they pulled our Winnebago into a service bay, where for the next three plus hours the mechanic talked to his co-workers, jacked the rear end  of the RV up, stopped to talk to his co-workers, took the tires off the driver’s side, stopped to talk to his co-workers, wandered away for a while, came back, talked to his co-workers, told me that he couldn’t find any leaks and that it was probably the valve stems (which I already knew), wandered over to the next bay to talk to his co-workers, installed a new valve stem on one tire, talked to his co-workers…. do you get the picture?

Finally, at 11:30, I was really ticked off, so I tracked down a service manager and told him I wanted the job done now! I guess he lit a fire under the service tech, because about noon he finished the job and pulled the motorhome out, and we hooked up the van and took off.  We spent almost $4,000 at this Camping World on new tires and house batteries, and between the fact that they never tightened the battery cables down on the house batteries, they screwed up the first valve stems on both inside duals, and then the hassle getting the valve stems replaced yesterday, I won’t be in any hurry to go back there for service, or to recommend them to anyone.

From Camping World we started up State Route 89, known locally as the Beeline Highway, toward the high country. As many years as I have spent in Arizona, the state’s topography still amazes me. In two hours of driving time, we went from cacti covered desert, where it was in the upper 90s, to thick forests of Ponderosa pine trees, and temperatures in the low to mid-70s.

One of our regular blog readers asked if I could show some photos of the trip today, so Miss Terry was clicking away with her digital camera. We started out passing tall saguaro cacti, with beautiful white flowers on them.  Saguaros have long life spans, they take up to 75 years to develop one of their arms, and can live 150 years or more.

Soon the saguaros gave way to stark rocky hillsides, with sparse vegetation.

State Route 87 is a good divided four lane highway between Mesa and Payson, 75 miles to the north. The road has a lot of curves, and a lot of 6% grades, both up and down. When we drove this route to Show Low a couple of years ago in our old MCI bus conversion, we were running hot all the time, and creeping along at 10 miles per hour in some places.

This trip, in the Winnebago, we dropped down to 35 miles per hour on a couple of steep climbs, but averaged over 50 most of the time. However, I will say that I felt a lot more confident with the Jake brake in our bus than I do with the exhaust brake on the Winnebago. It did a much better job of keeping our speed down on those steep downhill grades.

A few miles south of Payson, we passed this huge bicycle junkyard. I’ve driven by this place for years and always wanted to stop. Someday I will.       

When we hit Payson, we transitioned very quickly from desert to pine trees. In Payson we got onto State Route 260, which would carry us across the Mogollon Rim and on to Show Low. This picture was taken two hours after we were driving past saguaros.

But we weren’t done climbing yet. In Payson the elevation is 4,970 feet, and 30 miles east as we got to the top of the Mogollon Rim, we were at 7,530 feet.

Once we topped out on the Rim, this rest area makes a good place to pull over for a break, and offers some great views down the Rim.

A lake in Arizona? Actually, the Mogollon Rim and White Mountains are covered with small lakes that offer excellent fishing opportunities.

Now we were driving through a beautiful forest. To me, this is one of the prettiest places in Arizona.

Most of State Route 260 is two lane, with frequent pullouts and passing zones.

At Heber we started seeing the effects of the terrible Rodeo–Chediski Fire, which burned over 460,000 acres in 2002. It will take a lifetime for the forest to recover. The inferno actually started as two separate fires, both intentionally set, that merged into one terrible blaze that destroyed over 400 homes, and did over $50 million in damage.

It makes me sick to know that all of this destruction was caused by a couple of idiots with no regard for anyone or anything.

We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Show Low about 3:30 p.m. When we made this same trip in our bus, it took eight hours, and in the Winnebago it was less than half of that.

The Elks Lodge has a campground with full hookup 50 amp RV sites, all for $15 a night, and we managed to get one that offered us a clear shot through the trees so our satellite TV dish would work, even if it is not 100% level. We do love our HWH jacks!

By the time I finished registering at the lodge, my daughter Tiffany and granddaughter Hailey were there to greet us.  Seven year old Hailey helped Grandpa hook up our water, electric, and sewer connections, and it only took me about twice as long as the chore usually does. Once we were settled in, Tiffany picked up her younger daughter, Destiny, and hubby Jim, and we all headed for dinner at Pizza Hut. I’m glad, because by then we were famished.

We’ll be here a couple of weeks, or maybe more, as we enjoy family time with Tiffany and her family before we start our summer travels. It’s a good place to be.

Thought For The Day – Learn from the mistakes of others. Trust me, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. I’ve tried!

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Yesterday was our last day in Apache Junction, and as much as we enjoy visiting with Terry’s parents, Pete and Bess Weber, we’re ready to get back up to Show Low, where it is a little cooler, and we can get another grandkid fix.

I spent part of yesterday doing some bookwork and maintenance on our subscriber mailing lists, and logging in several vendor registrations for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Elkhart, Indiana.

As of now, we have less than 20 of the 50 amp full hookup sites left, and twelve 30 amp full hookup sites. We still have quite a few 30 amp water and electric sites, and lots of 20 amp water and electric sites, but the folks who wait too long to register, and then expect full hookups, may be disappointed.

While I was doing that, Miss Terry installed another set of the Levolor window blinds that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. These went on the small window in our bedroom, and I think they look pretty good.

A few people asked me if the blinds would rattle going down the highway. I don’t think so, since they come with metal brackets that attach to the wall or inside the window frame, depending on your installation. The bottom of the blinds slide into these brackets, which holds them securely and prevents any movement or rattling. At least that’s the game plan, we’ll know for sure after we actually do any traveling.  Plus, there is room for the blinds to pull up snugly in the header at the top of the window, where it is unlikely they can rattle.

Today we have an 8 a.m. appointment at Camping World in Mesa to get the problems with our inside dual wheels corrected, and hopefully we’ll be out of there in a couple of hours. Then we’ll head back up the hill, as local folks call it, to Show Low.

We have our choice of two routes, either U.S. Highway 60 east to Globe, and then the same road north through the Salt River Canyon to Show Low; or we can take State Route 87, the Beeline Highway, north to Payson, and then State Route 260 east to Show Low. The first route is the more scenic, with the dramatic drop down into the Salt River Canyon and the climb back up, but the route through Payson is a little easier and the road is better most of the way.

Since we came down through the Salt River Canyon, I’m leaning toward the Beeline Highway going back up, just for a change of scenery if nothing else. But I never know for sure which way I’ll go until I get there. That freedom is one of the advantages of the RV lifestyle. We usually don’t have to travel by any certain route, or be any certain place, unless we want to.

We have met a few fulltimers who are so rigidly locked into schedules that they never leave themselves any room to explore whatever comes up along the way, or even  to have a buffer in case bad weather or mechanical difficulties interrupt their trip. Most folks like this either loosen up and learn to roll with the punches, or they realize that fulltiming isn’t for them and they eventually find themselves settled down, either in a long term RV park setting, or back in a sticks and bricks house.

Thought For The Day – Everything worth knowing leaves bruises.

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