We are down to the wire on our visit to Arizona’s White Mountains and we have been trying hard to squeeze in everything we need to get done before we hit the road later this week.
There are several old friends who wanted us to stop by for a visit, but we just ran out of time. Our priority has been spending time with my daughter Tiffany and her family, and soaking up all the grandkid time we can. To those whom we didn’t get to make contact with, our apologies, but there are just so many hours in a day.
It seems like every day we’ve been here we have hit the ground running, and not stopped until late in the evening. We love spending time with our family and friends here and just wish we could get to everybody and make everybody happy. But we made a decision after our Yuma rally, when there were so many demands upon our time, that we are going to set our own priorities, and do the best we can but not stress over what we cannot do.
We received sad news last night; well-known RV author Alice Zyetz passed away from congestive heart failure. Alice authored or co-authored a number of RV books, including RV Traveling Tales: Women’s Journeys on the Open Road (with Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak), The Woman’s Guide to Solo RVing (with Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak), Taking the Mystery Out of Retiring to an RV, You Shoulda Listened to Your Mother: 36 Timeless Success Tips for Working Women, and Taking the Mystery Out of RV Writing (with Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak). Alice and her longtime writing partner, Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak, were also the publishers of the popular RV Lifestyle Experts website. We crossed paths with Alice many times over the years and she was always an interesting and charming lady. Our condolences to Jamie, and to Alice’s family and legion of friends. Rest in peace, dear lady.
A few more RVs have trickled into the Show Low Elks Lodge campground, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to stay here after tonight or not. We are scheduled to leave Thursday morning, though I was hoping we might squeeze in an extra day or two, but it’s still up in the air. As the old Harry Chapin song Sequel said, “I guess only time will tell.” We’re not too worried about it, because one way or the other, whatever happens or wherever we end up, we’re still at home. I sure love being a fulltime RVer!
Hey, did you notice gas prices lately? Remember all those dire predictions of $5 a gallon gas this summer? Blog readers from all over the country have been writing to tell me how the prices at the pump are falling just about everywhere, except maybe California. Rob Crutcher wrote from North Carolina to say that regular unleaded was $3.17, somebody wrote from Georgia to say that unleaded in the Atlanta area was around $3.25 per gallon, and Richard Prevallet e-mailed me last night to say that gas in New Braunfels, Texas was $3.10 per gallon. Here in Show Low, Arizona pump prices are around $3.66 per gallon, which is cheaper than in the Phoenix area. When will people stop listening to all the gloom and doom prognosticators who are always telling us the sky is falling? Yes, we’ll probably see a little spike over the Memorial Day holiday, but I think prices will drop back down again. And no, I don’t think we’ll see that $5 per gallon price everybody was so worried about.
Thought For The Day – I am not bipolar! I don’t even like bears!
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Well the gas thieves in our area of Ohio got the jump on the Memorial Day gouging picnic and raised prices from 3.63.9 to 3.79.9 yesterday.
Yeah, it’s better than the $5 scare but it’s still disgusting.
THANKS!…Nick. Now you’ve gone and done it! By assuring us we won’t see $5/gallon gas prices, it is almost a sure bet some fool will blow-up a pipeline somewhere and by July 4, we’ll be paying $5+ for fuel…. 🙂 JEESH!
Unfortunately, Marsha & I are touring CA, OR, and WA this summer and get to pay the highest fuel prices in the nation. Diesel is running $4.59, if you can find a dang station on CA-101.
Have a good trip and be safe
Paul
I’m so sorry to hear the news about Alice. I feel so blessed to have met her at your Casa Grande GJR what seems like eons ago. Thanks for updating us.
Gas is $4.17 to $4.40 and diesel is from $4.21 to $4.50 today in Ellensburg Wa. Prices were a little cheaper when we first got here 3 weeks ago but not much.
I am sorry to see the sad news about Alice Zyetz. I met her at a New Year’s get together for 2011. She was indeed an interesting lady who kept things lively and entertaining.
Glad to hear that you two are getting some family time in and that well deserved rest.Lydia and I left CT almost a year ago and the feedback from there regarding the fuel prices are that they are pretty high.AZ wasn’t to bad in comparison but Paul,this summer will take us from Ca where we are, thru OR and WA. The advantage though is that all of those miles will be spreadout over three months time.Diesel in San Diego $4.25 plus. I think that we will be buying fuel only one time in the next six weeks as most of our stops are for five to six days at a time.
Yosemite area alone is two weeks.Diesel pusher 8.2 mpg w/ toad
sorry for the loss of another dear friend. Gas prices here in the Tacoma area are still outrageous if you ask me they range from $4.08 to $4.35 depending on which station you use. Diesel is still over $4.39 +. We have also ran into stations that are charging and extra dime a gallon if you use your debit card. We have also earned 10 cents a gallon off at both Fred Myers and Safeway, both have limits of 35 gallons. Cannot get the motor home in either so in someways it sucks. We are heading to Montana after we leave here in a couple of weeks and prices are said to be lower, we can only hope. California is still the highest in some area is is still over $4.50 not sure what diesel is running there. They do not call it the golden state for nothing.
You are very lucky gas in northern Washington is much higher. Gas is on the average $4.25 a gallon.
Gas here in Lincoln, Nebraska is $3.41 and diesel is running between $3.55 and $3.75.
Nick:
I have recently been following a blog, I think Miss Terry might find to be of interest. I happen to like it because of the improvements they have been making to their RV. The pair are from Wisconsin, trying to sell their Stick Built home, before becoming full-time RVer’s. Karen is a weaver, like Terry is commencing. She even sells and does some teaching about the art of weaving. Check out Karen’s Blog at: “http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/”. I think Terry will find the blog to be of interest.