"IS THAT A DIESEL MOTORCYCLE SIR??"

"Is that a diesel motorcycle sir" Thought it odd hearing those words coming from the young gas attendant fella at a Shell station in Goderich Ontario a few days ago. I had just rolled in on my motorcycle & topped up my gas tank. I generally run regular gas in the bike & about every 4th tank or so I fill it up with Premium. To-day I decided on premium, so by-passed the regular nozzle & without looking, reached for the premium nozzle on the other side of the pump & filled er up!! I said to the young fellow, "no, this is a gas motorcycle, to which he kindly replied, "well, you just filled up your motorcycle with diesel fuel......sir." ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!! There it was, right on the pump beside me....DIESEL. Well, to say I could feel my stomach sliding right out from under me would be putting it mildly. What a huge feeling of frustration & anger I had with myself. (not to mention embarrassment) Just taking things for granted & not paying attention to what I was doing again!!!!
Wheeled the bike around the corner of the garage, slunk out of sight & got the owner's manual out of the saddle bag. Tried to find out if there was some kind of a gas tank drain valve. Couldn't find anything. Even got down on the ground & had a close look for some kinda valve or something. Suddenly dawned on me that if I had a hose I could probably siphon the diesel fuel out right out of the tank. No hose at the gas bar so walked across the large parking lot to a Canadian Tire store at the far corner. Got me a siphon hose with a plunger thingy on it & headed back. The young fellow at the gas bar fetched me a big white 5 gallon plastic pail. The siphon didn't work well because the siphon part was a solid plastic tube so wouldn't bend well to get down into & around the bottom of the bikes tank. Back to Canadian Tire for a second time & got a 3' section of flexible gas rubber hose. Should have done that in the first place because this hose worked perfect except for one little thing. No suction plunger on this one so I had to use my mouth to start the diesel fuel flowing. Diesel fuel in my mouth, up my nose, in my beard down my chin, on my pants & all over my shoes. The bucket I was draining it into tipped over at one point so I had quite a mess of diesel fuel going on all over the place. Moved the hose around in the tank making sure I got as much fuel out as possible & by the time I was done I had about 3 gallons of diesel fuel in the 5 gallon plastic pail. Probably another half gallon on the ground & another half gallon on me!! Pushed the bike back out to the gas island, DOUBLE CHECKED THE GAS PUMP & re-filled my tank with V-Power Premium....GAS!! This whole ordeal lasted about 40 minutes but luckily ended well. If that young sharp eyed gas attendant hadn't noticed my mistake I would have rode out of there with a tank full of diesel fuel & promptly ruined my motorcycle engine. That would have been a major repair!! I thanked him & insisted he take $20. Probably should have given him another ten for not laughing at me & calling me a dummy. He didn't want to accept the $20 but I pulled rank on him using my superior age factor. Truly a nice kid. Next stop was the car wash to hose down the diesel infested motorcycle & the last stop of the day was home to hose down the diesel infested & somewhat embarrassed human!!!!

BAYFIELD ONTARIO, CANADA......OUR HOME TOWN:))

It occurred to me awhile back that I had lots of photos regarding our travels in the American southwest posted, but I didn't have any pictures of our own picturesque little home town of Bayfield Ontario, Canada. Bayfield is beautifully located on the sandy, windswept shores of Canada's second largest body of fresh water, Lake Huron. I took my camera (Nikon D50 SLR) for a walk (& drive) on Wednesday August 20th & came home several hours later with a few pictures. The photos start in the harbor area & move up into the heart of town. Drove around some streets with my camera perched on my arm out the window & took pictures of some Bayfield homes. (kind of gives new meaning to the term, "drive by shooting") At the end of the day I moved back down to the harbor area & awaited the sunset out on the pier. A mighty fine way to spend a relaxing Bayfield day.
Another reason for posting these pictures on the web was to make Bayfield more pictorially available. Noticed there didn't seem to be a lot of Bayfield photos accessible on the net & the few websites about the town did not concentrate on the visual aspect............ No doubt about it, we live in one of Canada's prettiest towns.................... :))

Click here for the photos. Try out the Slideshow when you get there.
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/BEAUTIFULBAYFIELDONTARIOCANADA

A DIFFERENT TV MOUNT & AN ODOMETER MALFUNCTION

Just didn't feel comfortable with the television mount we had used for our new 23" flat screen television. It had a plastic type bushing in one of the joints that I just could not tighten up enough to stop the television from tipping too far down. Also felt there was a significant strain on that mount despite it saying that it was good for up to about 33 pounds. Our television weighs in at 24 pounds. To ease my concern I picked up a heavier all steel mount last Saturday morning at, The Source, (formally Radio Shack) & swapped the old one (from Wal-Mart) out. New mount is good for 40 pounds. TV is now much sturdier & I feel more comfortable with the all steel construction & the different way the joints are engineered. It seems I always have to do things back asswards all the time:(( It lends credibility to my earlier post about having somebody else do stuff if I want it done right!! The photo shows the newer mount. Awhile back when I started up the motorhome to run the engine for a bit I noticed the digital odometer cluster was not legible. This is the computer driven little device that gives you info like how many miles you are getting to the gallon, how many miles of fuel left in the gas tank, trip meter, plus a host of other technical info. To make a long story short, we found out that these clusters made by the Actia company have faulty software in them & many people with the Chevy Workhorse Chassis like ours have had to replace them. Some folks have been lucky enough to get it done under warranty, but of course, not us:(( In fact when I re-registered the motorhome with Workhorse a few months ago we found out that our coaches cluster had already been replaced once in 2005. It's been quite a run around but after many phone calls to local dealers, Workhorse in Arizona, & finally to the Actia company itself in Elkhart Indiana we're finally getting the problem solved as how to go about getting it fixed. I guess I should say Kelly is getting the problem solved because she is the one who makes all the phone calls. To make an even longer story even shorter.............the cluster is in transit right now & UPS should be delivering it to-morrow. Our motorhome is scheduled to go in for servicing shortly so we'll have the garage do the cluster switch. It certainly has not been cheap!! $354 for the cluster & we had a call from UPS at the border to-day saying it's going to be another $107 for taxes & duty to bring it into Canada. Had we known that we might just have simply stopped in Elkhart Indiana on our way south this year & picked it up ourselves. Oh well, so much for the old saying about the older we get, the wiser we get. Ya right!!!!

THE SUMMER IS WINDING DOWN

It's a cool, gray overcast, & rainy Sunday morning here in southern Ontario & a good time for catching up on computer stuff & doing inside neglected chores that need some attention. Might even kick the furnace on for a bit to get that nice cozy warmth in the house to take off the early Autumn chill to-day. Yes, the seasons are a changing & I'm glad they are. It's nearly mid August & once again the signs of our summer slipping away are beginning to emerge. The tiny invisible crickets have a different chirp to them, once lush green leaves are taking on a harder edged look, days are becoming noticeably shorter, & our ever present resident pond frogs are quieter now as they contemplate their long winter's hibernation. Who's going to get the best spot in the mud this year. The nights are definitely cooling down & soon the Autumn crispness will be in the daytime's air. It is my favorite time of the year which approaches. The exciting freshness of spring is long gone & summer's steamy rush is rapidly winding down. Autumn is a time for quiet reflection. Everything seems to slow as we shift to a lower gear. In a month from now the kids will be back in school, the Labor Day week-end will be behind us & a few trees will be starting to show some of their early artist's brush colors. Autumn is also a time of anticipation & preparation for the long cold winter months ahead. It's a cozy time as we scurry about like little squirrels getting ourselves organized & hunkered down to await the chilling winter winds. It's also a time of new learning. I've always had a theory that I think is probably true. Ever since we were kids first starting school we have become programmed to begin an educational process every September. This continues for many years in our early life & becomes embedded in our very beings & I think it lasts forever. Even though I've been out of the school system since the early 60's I still feel that learning process beginning to kick in around mid August. Over the years I have enrolled in various night classes starting in September. Half a dozen photography related courses, a beginners computer course, Tai Chi exercise classes & probably a few others I've forgotten about. It's always a nice feeling to be learning something new & especially at a time of year when we have been programmed to do our very best learning. It takes me back to my early public school days & that fresh smell of new books, erasers, new ink in the ink wells & fresh apples in our knapsacks. Aw yes, Autumn. My favorite time of the year:)))))) Think I just talked myself into brewing up a fresh cup of coffee, lighting up a cinnamon scented candle, & kicking on the fireplace for a cozy stay at home musically relaxing day.
The photos are from our flower gardens around the house. The one above shows a white Yucca growing up through some orange Day Lilies.

UPDATE ON OUR TELEVISION PROJECT

It's been awhile since I updated any of our minor RV renovations but I'm happy to report that our little TV project is actually going a bit better than expected. I was able to remove the clunky old television cabinet from the top center of the windshield without too much injury to myself or the motorhome. A carpenter friend of ours is going to finish that hole off with a cupboard. Got the flat screen mounted ok & it appears to be solidly anchored. The only other place in the coach it could go was on the end of the kitchen cabinet so that is where I mounted it. I've included some pictures & you can see how it swivels around making it viewable from all angles. Picked up a couple of 52 inch men's leather belts at Wal-Mart & they go around the television & loop through those door handles you can see above the TV at the ceiling line, making the television snug & secure for travel. Television is also now much easier to see from the computer chair below the screen. No more 90 degree neck cramps. It's also much easier to see when the slide is out because we sit across from it instead of having to lean forward & turn our heads sharp left all the time. TV is also more accessible for hooking up additional cables because we can swing it out & pivot it around quite a ways to get at the back. It all looks & sounds good in theory but the real test will come once we're on the road again. If I can sit here & post a note next spring & tell everyone that the television never even fell down once in our travels I will then (& only then) consider this little adventure a humble success..........:)) You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Nice to see the fuel prices coming down a bit but I'm sure it's only temporary before the next big gas hammer drops on us. I actually had my maps & atlas's out the other night along with MapQuest & Google Earth checking the area between Silver City, New Mexico & Phoenix, Arizona. We haven't been to that part of Arizona yet & I'd like to have a look at the Superstition Mountain area. In the meantime we're remaining as optimistic as we can under the current shaky economic & worldly situations............

Last photo shows Kelly talking to her daughter & husband in Spain using Skype. Kelly is pointing our Microsoft web cam at the screen so Rebecca & Ricardo can see themselves. Works great:))

http://www.skype.com/

A TOUCH OF WINTER IN JULY:))

It's nearly mid July & with all the hot weather going on I thought I'd throw in a little slide show to cool everyone off:))
Be sure to click on the word, SLIDESHOW when the site opens.
A TOUCH OF WINTER
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/ATOUCHOFWINTER

"AN EXTRAORDINARY MOMENT"

Awhile back I came across a website entitled, "An Extraordinary Moment." It may take a minute to load & about 5 or 6 minutes to play. It's well done & makes a lot of practical sense to me. How refreshing it is to see a truly realistic thought process & approach towards the beginning of mankind instead of the usual warring & fanatical religious beliefs. www.globalcommunity.org/flash/ex.shtml And, while I'm at it I would like to add some thought to another controversial argument. I have had an interest in Astronomy for quite awhile now & have found people often get Astronomy mixed up with Astrology. One deals with fact & the other deals with fiction. I came across the following explanation & comparisons a few years ago & thought it was explained very well.

ASTRONOMY vs ASTROLOGY
"People sometimes confuse Astronomy with Astrology. Although related in ancient myth they are literally light years apart in the realm of fact & fantasy. Here is a brief explanation of the difference....

"Astronomy is a science that compels us to seek beyond ourselves and our small world, a science of discovery that enriches our lives by exercising our brain and our intellect. It empowers you to think clearly and rationally. It improves and sharpens critical thinking skills." It may even encourage you to free up your mind to think beyond conventional religious beliefs. (to think beyond religious beliefs is the key phrase here....AL.)

"Astrology disempowers you. By placing your future in the accidental configuration of planets and stars, you avoid taking responsibility for your actions, you fail to make decisions based on your own best self interest, and you give up the power to control your own destiny. Belief in astrology results in a degradation of critical thinking skills, which, combined with the loss of power to control your own destiny, can only serve to degrade your life, not enrich it."

"Be in charge of your life. Experience the mystery, awe, and excitement of observational astronomy."

(The photos are of fireworks that I took on the beach at Deerpark Lodge)

SHORT VIDEO CAM RIDE ON THE MOTORCYCLE

Thought I would take the new mini video camera for a trial run on the motorcycle Wednesday afternoon. Curious to see how it would turn out. Video only lasts about 60 seconds & isn't very exciting despite what looks & sounds like a mishap seconds after turning the camera on. I should have shifted up into 5th gear before firing up the camera so what you see is my clumsy attempt to shift gears with the same hand the camera was in. Not too smart I'd say. However I did manage the shift & even got the cam turned around for a brief mugshot. Well, that probably wasn't too smart either because I could have easily broke the camera right there!!!! Stay tuned & next time I'll see if I can jump over a hundred & five end to end school buses. Any volunteers to sit on the back seat & hold the camera? :))

IF I WANT IT DONE RIGHT........

Many times over the years I've heard lots of men make the statement, "when I want something done right I have to do it myself." For me it is the total opposite, so that's why I usually have to have somebody else do the carpentry, plumbing, car repairs, roofing projects, or whatever things those mighty manly types do. My motto is, "if I want something done right I had better get somebody else to do it." And so it goes with some minor motorhome renovations lately. Decided to add some shelving in the kitchen area & enlisted the help of a good woodworking friend. Bruce is one of those guys that kinda drives guys like me nuts. He simply takes his time & does things right. He has the patience to work away at a piece of wood, sanding & staining forever. Over & over & everytime you think he's done he's back going over it again with an even finer piece of sandpaper or something. In my world, sandpaper is something you read on the beach. Bruce has these tools that puts those fancy swirls & curls in the wood too. Beveling I think he called it. Beveling was something I thought you did with the motorhome to make it level on a rough surface. Oh well:((
But, sometimes ya just gotta do some of the stuff yourself. A couple of weeks ago we decided to haul the big old heavy & soon to be outdated television out of it's cabinet in the center of the windshield at the top. The fact that I even got it out without dropping the whole thing through the windshield is nothing short of amazing. I never did like that television up there anyway. Now we have a big clunky square cabinet with nothing in it & we don't intend on putting another television back up in there either, so, here's Al's plan. Oh no!! I am attempting (and attempting is the key word here) to put some shelves in there for the satellite TV receiver & CD player to sit on because I've never liked those narrow crammed little inaccessible cabinets up along the windshield where that stuff usually goes. We intend to get a 19 or 26" flat screen LCD-HD (whatever all that means) television that will easily sit right on top the dash. It will travel on the bed & when we stop somewhere we'll just bring it up, set it on the dash & plug in the wires. I figure we could even set the television outside if we wanted to simply by adding some extra lengths of cables. Sounds good in theory huh. Well, you know what usually happens to theories so I won't get my hopes up. In the meantime I've got myself quite a mosh of wires, hunks of old wood for shelves, screws, brackets, & whatever else I can find, all jammed up there in that old television space. Cables & wires everywhere & I haven't a clue as to what cable goes to what machine or why. I know the outcome probably isn't going to be nice but afterall, I'm doing it myself, right!!. I stand there & look over to the woodwork Bruce has done & then look back at what I'm about to do & it's almost enough to make a grown man cry. Maybe I could trade Bruce some of my hair for some of his smarts. Hmmmmm, I do not think he would see that as a good trade!!

WAITING QUIETLY IN A THICK FOG OF APPREHENSION

I came across another bloggers website in the RV Net Forum last week which I found interesting because of his take on the gas situation & how to maybe adjust accordingly. It is an encouraging concept in the face of all the gasoline related RV gloom & doom these days.

RV Net Forum......http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm

The second article, also found in the RV Net Forum, is by author Garrison Keillor & I'm afraid his predictions for the future are probably correct. Somewhere between these two viewpoints many of us are standing quietly beside the road, waiting in a thick fog of apprehension, wondering which way to go..............

First, the article by, "See Ya Down The Road"

Their Website is....http://www.seeya-downtheroad.com/

The High Price Of Fuel
Recently I have received many questions about the high price of fuel and the questions fall into two categories. 1) Will the price of fuel curtail your travels? 2) I am thinking about going fulltime and now I'm changing my mind because of the price of fuel - what should I do?
First, fulltiming and even part-timing is a lifestyle and not a vacation. If you think traveling in a RV is cheaper than living in a house you are wrong, but RVers can dictate how their money is spent and still enjoy the RV lifestyle.
The best way to save money is to travel slowly and stay in an area long enough to see everything before moving down the road. Drive the RV 100 miles and stay a week, then drive 100 miles and stay another week. In the winter stay in one place in the sunny south three months and during the summer pick a place in the north and stay two months.
Doing the above you will be moving the RV seven months a year and averaging 400 miles during those month for a total of 2,800 miles a year. If your RV gets 8 miles per gallon and fuel costs $5.00 a gallon you will need 350 gallons of fuel during the year and spend $1,750 or an average of $146 a month. Surely you can afford $146 a month for fuel for your RV.
You say driving 400 miles a month is crazy because you want to see this beautiful country. Lets look at one trip. You have just spent the winter in Orlando, Florida and you want to spend two months in Michigan in the summer. Leaving Florida you travel 100 miles a week and tour the states of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. The trip is 1,227 miles and after your stay in Michigan you decide to spent the winter in Corpus Christi, Texas. So on you trip south you tour Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. The trip south is 1,567 miles so your RV mileage for the year is 2,794 miles - just under the targeted 2,800 miles per year written above and your RV fuel cost is $146 a month.
The same type of annual trip can be taken from southern California to the Canadian border and back to Arizona or most anywhere in the USA going north and south. Of course you will need fuel for driving to the grocery and sightseeing, but those trips should not cost too much.
Another advantage of staying a week or months in one place is many campgrounds offer a discount for longer stays. We have stayed in campgrounds that have a daily rate of $30, a weekly rate of $175 and a monthly rate of $400.
There are many other ways to save money as you enjoy your RV lifestyle and I will name just a few. Drive slower to save fuel, use discount campgrounds such as Passport America, eat in more than eating out, when you eat in restaurants get the daily specials which are usually good until 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., use coupons (often found on the internet), do some of your own maintenance and repairs, go sightseeing with another couple so four people can ride in one car, and if you have a craft make gifts instead of buying them.
So don't get too concerned about the price of fuel because there is nothing you or I can do about it. But there are many ways to control the cost of fulltiming or part-timing so get out on the road and enjoy this beautiful country and the RVing lifestyle.
Their Website is....http://www.seeya-downtheroad.com/

Eulogy for the Winnebago
Garrison Keillor
June 18, 2008

Eighty-six percent of the American people believe the price of gasoline will climb to five bucks a gallon this year, a big shift in public opinion from a year ago when most people felt that oil prices were spiking high and would soon return to normal—which is 35 cents a gallon, same as a pack of smokes—and we'd be able to head west in our Winnebagos for a nice summer vacation.This does not appear to be in the cards and Winnebago stock has fallen about 50 percent in the past year. If you are selling a big box on a truck chassis for as much as a quarter-million dollars when gas is at $4 and rising, you are aiming at a rather select clientele indeed, folks who might rather buy a beach house in Costa Rica than go cruising the Interstate.Nonetheless it's sad to see the motor home fade into the sunset. I used to despise them when I was a canoeist, of course. You paddle up to a campground at the end of a hard day and see a few RVs parked there, the air conditioners rumbling, the flickering blue light of the TVs in the windows, and as you set up your tent as far from them as possible, you feel a moral grandeur purer than you will ever feel again. A holy Christian pilgrim among the piggish heathen.The fantasy of comfortable vagabondage lies deep within each one of us, though, and once, 30 years ago, driving a GMC motor home around western Minnesota, I fell under the spell. To have the freedom of the road and the comforts of home—your own books on the shelf, your clothes in a drawer, your brand of beer in the fridge—is an aristocratic privilege and I was happy to give up moral grandeur for a couple of weeks and enjoy it.
Five-dollar gasoline is pushing that fantasy to the wall, and it's also showing most of us that we live in communities whose design is based on the assumption of cheap gasoline—big lots with backyard privacy make for a long drive to the grocery store. In the big old-fashioned city neighborhood, if you're bored in the evening you just stroll out the door and there, within five or 10 minutes, are a newsstand, a diner, a movie theater, a palm reader, a tavern with a bartender named Joe, whatever you're looking for.But in the sort of neighborhood most Americans prefer, there are only a lot of houses like yours and residents who give evening pedestrians the hairy eyeball. The mall is a long hike away and it's an amalgam of chain outlets, with a vast parking lot around it. To a person approaching on foot, it feels like an enemy fortress.So we will need to amuse ourselves in new ways. I predict that banjo sales will pick up. The screened porch will come back in style. And the art of storytelling will burgeon along with it. Stories are common currency in life but only to people on foot. Nobody ever told a story to a clerk at a drive-up window, but you can walk up to the lady at the check-out counter and make small talk and she might tell you, as a woman told me the other day as she rang up my groceries, that she had gotten a puppy that day to replace the old dog who had to be put down a month ago, and right there was a little exchange of humanity. Her willingness to tell me that made her real to me. People who aren't real to each other are dangerous to each other. Stories give us the simple empathy that is the basis of the Golden Rule, which is the basis of civilized society.So when gas passes $5 and heads for $8 and $10, we will learn to sit in dim light with our loved ones and talk about hunting and fishing adventures, about war and romance and times of consummate foolishness when we threw caution to the wind and flung ourselves over the Cliffs of Desire and did not land on the Sharp Rocks of Regret.I'll tell you about the motor home trip and how lovely it was, cruising the prairie at night and drinking beer, stopping by a little creek and grilling fish on a Coleman stove, listening to coyotes. The vanishing of the RV only makes your story more interesting. One thing lost, something else gained. Life is like that. Garrison Keillor is a radio host and author.

ANESTHETIZED BY THE SODDEN ROUTINES OF A NORMAL LIFESTYLE

I sometimes think that people who have never traveled & have not been bitten by the travel bug are the fortunate ones. Simple lives & routines. Contented to live from day to day with all their interests close by. No urge to look over the fence to see what's on the other side, no desire to climb the nearest hill to see what's over the horizon. Happy with the nightly schedule of television, spending time with nearby grandchildren, the weekly club meetings, church, & card games. Backyard BBQs & just sitting on the front porch watching the world go by. Nothing wrong with all that & I am somewhat envious of those people. But, they don't have the itch!! RV people refer to it as "hitch itch." It's that gnawing urge many of us have that just never leaves us alone. That urge to hitch up the car or trailer & head out onto that open road again in search of new adventures. That compelling urge to look over the fence & climb that next hill. That urge to drive those extra miles, slip around the next bend in the road to see what's around the corner. It is because of those urges that I sometimes envy the stay at home people who have no interest in the traveling lifestyle & it is that conflict within that makes for these anxious days. We have been fortunate enough to have traveled 3 out of the last 4 winters & with each sojourn we have become increasingly enamored with the RV lifestyle. We now have the knowledge of comparisons. Comparisons are a tricky thing & one has to be careful in stacking one lifestyle against another. Seems to me that there are 3 elements at work here. I'll call the first one, Suburban life. It's simply life at home in a stick house forever & it is the norm. Second is a cross between Suburban & what RVers call Fulltiming so I'll call it, Suburban Vacations. Suburban Vacations is living in the stick house for 6 or 7 months of the year & living in the RV for the remainder of the year. We moved into the second category a few years ago after spending the past 60 years or so in the first category. I think many people are happy & content to stay here in number 2 but it is here that many others begin to feel the itch growing, which brings me to number 3.......... Fulltiming!! And it is here where things really begin to take on a whole different meaning & concern because it has to do with some big lifestyle altering decisions. Sort of like having one foot on the dock & the other one in the canoe. Bit of a precarious position. What to do, which way to go. Will it be the security of the dock or the risky adventure of the canoe on open water.

I like the way a fellow blogger puts it below. He has dispensed with the stick house & is on the road full time & I like his attitude as he travels about the country never liking to stay in any one spot too long. My feelings exactly:))

RV Boondocker Explorer http://rv-boondocker-explorer.blogharbor.com/

(Quote) Consider camping in one place all season long, which I've done a couple times, in the winter and summer. It's comfortable, you meet people, and find out where to buy or fix this or that. But one day follows the next. After the season is over you look back and realize that you don't have many lasting memories. It was too uniform and uneventful. It is the misadventures that get remembered. An entire season has dissolved into the anonymity of comfort and routine. In contrast, the fresh sights and experiences of travel are like insoluble fluids that float on the landscape's surface. They retain their identity. They stand out from the surroundings.After watching a whole season disappear you experience a recrudescence of the rage that caused you to become a full time RVer in the first place. You remember that "Life is Short" was more than a platitude to you--it was an action item. Maybe hot-headedness makes some of us become full time RVers. Others might agree that normal life is dreary nonsense, but they are calm and mild about it, and don't want to rock the boat. Off we go to find the next misadventure. At least we travelers will be sensitive and alive to what happens next, instead of being anesthetized by the sodden routines of a normal lifestyle......(unquote)

SOME OF OUR RIGS

I realized after the last post about RVing that I hadn't included any pictures so after digging through some old photo albums the last couple of days I've come up with some memories. These two photos show our 1979 Dodge Centurion which we bought in August of 1998. Pictures were taken in September of 98. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

In October of 2001 we bought a 24' Prowler Travel Trailer & towed it with a 1997 Dodge Ram p/u truck.

October 2003 saw another change when we purchased a 1992 Ford Gulf Stream 22' Conquest Class C. Took this one down to Big Bend National Park in Texas but the Class C turned out to be too small. I've included a few pics from that trip.In September of 2006 we decided on a truck & fifth wheel combo so purchased a 2005 28' Rockwood 5th wheel & a 2000 Chevy Silverado half ton 1500 p/u truck. They came as a combo & were fine to-gether under normal flat driving conditions but after driving it for a bit I just didn't have the confidence in the lighter 5.3 engined truck to do the job in the heavy mountains I knew we would be going through later. It was a really well kept & sharp looking truck, but...........

November of 2006 saw us trade in the Chevy Silverado on a heavier 2004 GMC 2500 Sierra heavy duty truck. Bigger engine & a stronger truck for towing. This p/u was totally loaded & I found it a bit overwhelming with all the gizmos. Traveled around the American Southwest in 06 & 07 but realized that the truck & 5th wheel just were not suited for us. Remember, we have 3 dogs & they had to ride in the small back seat of the truck. Oooooo, about 4,000 miles of continuous dog breath. Not nice!!!! This is the GMC & Rockwood. In April 2007 we traded the truck & trailer in on a 2003 Damon 33' Motorhome & that is what we have at the present time. No plans for any more changes at this point:))

HOW DID YOU END UP WITH A CLASS A??

Recently while reading one of our favorite RV forums here on the internet, RV NET http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm I came across the topic, "How Did You End Up With A Class A Motorhome?" There were quite a few responses & I found them all interesting so decided to throw my 2 cents worth in as well. Well, you know what my 2 cents worth ends up being. On & on & on I go. How do people keep things so short & concise?? Well anyway, figured I may as well copy & paste it into the blog here in case it gets booted out of the RV forum...............................

Guess it started with an old beat up Volkswagon hippy van back in the late 60's. It was pink & white & somebody had painted "Van-go on the front. Next was an orange Volkswagon camper van in which I took myself out to the east coast of Canada & back in 86. That was followed by a full size Dodge conversion van which I took a real beating on. A few years after meeting Kelly in the early 90's we bought an old 79 Dodge 17' Centurion Class C. It was a bit of a beater but we did manage a few local trips with it & that little rig was instrumental in putting us on the one way RV path of thinking, forever. Next came a 24 Prowler TT. Nice clean rig but I wasn't crazy about the hooking up arrangement. We became busy around that time & didn't use the trailer a lot so finally sold it. But, the RV bug never leaves you alone. Not ever, not never. A year or so later we bought another Class C but by the time we got down into Texas for a quick holiday in December of 05 we new it's 21 foot length wasn't big enough. It was a Ford Gulf Stream & we sold it a few months after returning home. It had some issues. Then in August of 2006 came the opportunity to finally move up the ladder a bit. But, what to get. Our choice was narrowed down to either a used fifth wheel or a Class A. We had tried all the rest so it was time to have a go at something different. Back & forth & back & forth we went weighing out all the pros & cons & comparisons. Read all the RV forums, talked to RV owners, & read the RV mags trying to make sure we made the right decision. Class A motorhome or a truck & fifth wheel combo. No room for error this time!! After many discussions we finally made our choice...........Truck & fifth wheel it was. (GMC truck & Rockwood trailer) Off we headed for the American southwest for a couple months. I don't know just where or when it was that we both began to realize it, but maybe it was the look on our faces after awhile somewhere between Texas & Arizona that told us.....oooops. You know that kind of look. It comes over your face when you finally come to the realization that you have just made a very big mistake. I won't go into all the details of why we knew we had made a mistake because I don't want to get pounded out by a lot of fifth wheel drivers out there. It's a great way to go but it just wasn't for us. We returned home around the end of January 07 & a short 3 & half months later we traded that truck & fifth wheel in on a 2003 33' Class A motorhome. This past winter we spent over 4 months in the southwest again & have never once regretted our decision to move to a Class A. It's been a long expensive road from the pink & white hippy van to our Damon Challenger but we are finally happy campers.............well, maybe if we had a little more length:)) Awwww nuts!!

COMMUNICATING WITH THE RIG & A STORY ABOUT MY OLD DUSTY HAT

No, that's not dirt on my hat, it's just good old wild west Arizona desert dust!!

From where I sit in my big cushy recliner in the living room watching television I can glance out the window to the right & see the motorhome sitting in the driveway staring back at me. Sometimes we just kind of blankly look at each other & sometimes we sorta kinda communicate. It's the same questions on both our minds. If & when we get rolling again, where are we going & how much is the gas going to cost to get there!! What if we get 3,000 miles from home & the gas prices double or triple in the 5 months we are away. Would it be cheaper to put the rig into storage in New Mexico for 7 months & bring the car home until returning back in the fall. If we could return at all. Some folks in the neighborhood have already sold their rigs & bought or rented mobiles in the south for the winter months. Some have downsized their units, some have given up & put the "for sale" sign in the windshield. Others have resigned themselves to spending the coming snowy cold winter at home in hopes things will turn around for the following year. And others have shortened their travel routes & restricted themselves to the Georgia/Florida corridor instead of the long haul to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or California. I guess it all boils down to preferences, gas prices, & how much change you got in your pocket when October & November roll around. For now, all we can do is play it one day at a time...................

I've had some humorous comments from other RV folks about my mishap with the motorhome's bin door & the pine tree & that reminded me of some other really dumb things I've done. It takes me back to December of 06 & Jan of 07 when we had a truck & fifth wheel while touring around in the southwest. We were camped at Hickiwan Trails RV Park in Arizona (our first time there) for a few days. I kept a blog at that time as well & here is what I wrote, dated January 8 2007:

Boy oh boy oh boy, did I ever do something dumb last night. I had been re-organizing my wallet after cleaning sand out of it in the afternoon & laid it on a small wood table beside my lawn chair. Max, in his quest to get a game of sticks going, bumped the table & knocked my wallet over the edge into the doggy guys water dish. No problem I thought as I lifted it out, but noticed it was already pretty wet inside. In order to dry everything out I made the first part of a big mistake. I laid my wallet on the tonneau cover of the pick-up truck to dry. Laid out some credit cards, driver's license, CAA card, etc. The tonneau cover is black & felt warm from the sun so figured everything would dry quick. Well, you probably know what's coming. A couple of hours later just after supper I decided to head down the road to update the website at a remote wifi spot near another campground. Out I went, jumped in the truck, & took off out of the park & down the highway. When I reached the wi-fi site I stopped, got out of the truck, walked around to the passenger side to access the computer, glanced at the back of the truck & "OH OH!!" In a sickening flash I remembered my wallet & cards that I had laid out there earlier, and..........they were all gone. Jumped in the truck & raced back to the trailer, rushed in & told Professor Rockhound (Kelly was collecting a lot of rocks at that time) what had happened. I knew the only hope I had of ever finding anything lying on the ground was to get an expert ground scanning person involved. She quickly headed out the driveway to the highway in full scan mode. I took the truck & started driving the highway shoulder & immediately found my Scotia debit card lying right in the middle of the highway. Continued up the road aways & turned around. By the time I got back to the area where I found the debit card I saw the Professor busily scooping things off the highway & alongside the road. Oblivious to traffic, she was on the job!! By the time I got the truck stopped she had already retrieved my wallet which had been lying open upside down in the eastbound lane. I probably drove over it myself in my rush to get back to the trailer a few minutes before. She had also found what was left of my driver's license. It was the only thing damaged. I found one more card on the southbound shoulder & that completed everything. We were only moments away from complete nightfall but the eagle eyed Professor had saved the day. Nothing missing from inside the wallet either. Both American & Canadian money were intact. It sure would have put an unfavorable dent in our vacation plans if all had been lost. Thanks to our superb ground scanning Professor Rockhound, we were spared to travel another day. It was a close call & I had to promise that I would not be so dumb in the future. Well, that didn't work because here's what I did just a few days later.
Decided to clean up the cab of the truck so opened the passenger door to pull the floor mat out. I was wearing my black cowboy hat which I had just purchased near Carlsbad New Mexico a few weeks before. As I bent over I knocked my hat off so just reached down, picked it up & casually tossed it around the corner onto the tonneau cover behind the cab. Sound familiar!! Finished the clean up & went inside the trailer. Kelly said she was heading into Ajo for some groceries & would be back in an hour or so. I had some stuff to catch up on with the computer so said, "ok, see ya later." It was probably about 10 minutes later when the hair on my head almost stood straight up as I suddenly realized............my hat was on the back of the truck!!!! Oh noooooooo!!!! I rushed out of the trailer, down the road, around the corner & up to the highway vainly looking off in the direction Kelly had traveled with the truck. No black object on the road or shoulder resembling a cowboy hat. Walked a short distance along the road but knew it was futile. My hat was gone forever & that's all there was to it. I'm not a hat person & this cowboy hat was the only one I had ever stuck on my head that I thought didn't make me look like a total nerd. I was like a little boy who had just lost his most prized possession of ever. And I was sooooooooo mad at myself because of the wallet incident just a short time before. Why didn't I learn my lesson that time about setting things on the back of the truck. I beat myself up so bad for the next hour that I was barely human by the time Kelly got back. I was in the trailer slumped in a chair when I heard the truck pull in. How was I going to explain to her that she had probably married the dumbest creature on the planet. The thought did occur to me that she was most likely quite aware of that already:(( The screen door opened & Kelly came in with a couple bags of groceries and there perched atop her beautiful blonde head was............................ my cowboy hat:)))))) At that moment I was the happiest little cowboy kid west of the Pecos.

It was a movement in the rear view mirror that caused her to look as she was accelerating down the highway after leaving the park. That movement was my cowboy beginning it's take-off roll across the tonneau cover runway in preparation for lift off into the big blue Arizona sky. She quickly backed off the gas, slowly braked & pulled over to the side of the road & retrieved my precious hat. Now she was faced with a decision. She could turn around & bring the hat back before I probably even knew it was missing or she could keep on going & let me stew about my missing hat until she got back. She made the right decision. She cranked up the burner, continued on her way, & let me stew for an hour real darn good!! Do you think I learned my lesson?? Say, did I tell you about the time I.................................................:((

This was our truck & fifth wheel before we had the motorhome....................

BANKRUPTCY OF PURSE OR BANKRUPTCY OF LIFE!!

Let me start off this blog with a quote that Kelly found on the internet this morning. It is from actor and adventurer Sterling Hayden's book, Wanderer:
"We are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, and playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.Where, then, lies the answer?
IN CHOICE!!.Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?" (end of quote)

With our economy (& lately our weather) seemingly headed into the dumpster of disaster I once again turn away from CNN's daily reports & consider the fate of the proverbial Ostrich. There he stands, head buried in the sand, oblivious to the world's troubles around him. Is his head in a state of bliss & serenity under that sand? Has he discovered a new & wonderful world down there? Does that Ostrich truly understand something the rest of us do not? His reaction to his environment is not considered the norm which in turn leads me to something else someone said on the internet lately under the title, "Advice For People Who Don't Want the Normal." It applies to us at the moment & probably to a lot of other RV type people in the same boat facing the same decisions about their future......... "Go today, not tomorrow. The hardest part is untying the dock lines. If you wait a few more years for the stock market to come back...your Social Security to kick in...your retirement to vest at a better rate...or to finish a few more projects to make the RV perfect, you might be waiting too long. Health issues for one spouse or the other can potentially put your dreams back on the shelf in a heartbeat. Nike said in their commercials, "Just Do It".

"Just do it!!" Oh, if only it were that easy, but for all we know, maybe it is. I've been doing a lot of reading on the RV forums of late http://www.rv.net/ & people are in various states of lifestyle changes right now mainly because of the rising price of fuel. For RV owners it's a difficult time & puts new meaning into the saying, between a rock & a hard place. Can't afford the price of fuel but can't sell the RV either because they have basically all turned into big white elephants sitting in driveways across the land. Good time to buy an RV if you got some extra gas money in your pocket but not a good time to try & sell one, even at give-away prices. Therefore, it's the rock & a hard place syndrome, but I can tell you, we have no intentions of trying to sell our motorhome. We have a very big deterrent up here in the north for about 5 months of the year & it's called, WINTER!!!! With the price of fuel constantly rising it's beginning to make the long trek to the southwest in November seem like an improbable if not impossible venture, or as in the quoted words above, we "just do it!!" For us at this point it may seem improbable at times but it definitely is not impossible, so we are thinking forward & continuing to do more small renovations & improvements on the rig. I have already re-organized about a third of the basement storage space for this coming winter's journey to wherever that might be. The rig is due for some maintenance work so that has to be done yet as well. We want to keep our big white elephant in tip top shape. Afterall, it carries a big trunk & may become our future home someday.........................:)) (now if only we could just feed it peanuts instead of gasoline) The photo is from atop our rig in the driveway. I had to shrink wrap the solar panels because of sap dripping from pine trees close by & gumming them up.........