Have I mentioned lately how nice and laid-back life is now that we’re not chasing the RV rally scene as vendors, teaching at Life on Wheels, holding our own rallies, and mailing out the printed edition of the Gypsy Journal?
There was a time when we put an average of 15,000 or more miles per year on our motorhome running back and forth across the country with all the commitments we had. Now the only commitment we have is the Escapees Escapade rally in Essex Junction, Vermont in late July.
Sure, we’re still working RVers. I write my daily blog, I’m busy writing my books, putting out the digital edition of the Gypsy Journal, marketing, and things like that. But after a lifetime of putting out daily and weekly newspapers before we hit the road, and then the hectic pace we maintained for many years out here, it’s about as close to retirement as we’ll ever get. And we’re loving it!
Yesterday was a fun day for us. After a leisurely morning, Terry cut my hair and trimmed my beard, then at 5 PM we met Jim and Gail McManus at Culver’s for dinner. We first met them years ago when they were students at Life on Wheels, and Jim has been a blog reader for a long time. They’re staying up the road a ways in Flagler Beach and drove down to see us.
As always happens when RVers get together, we did a lot more talking than we did eating. Jim and Gail are fun people and interesting to talk to, and before we knew it four hours had slipped away. We’re looking forward to seeing them again at Escapade, if not someplace else between here and there.
Back at home, we didn’t do much at all; watched a little television, cruised the Internet, answered a few emails, and that was it for the day.
Among the emails I had were two from companies offering to give me free blog posts. Wow, you mean they’ll actually do my work for me? How cool is that? Of course, what they really are doing is looking for free advertising. They send you a blog about, say RV backup cameras, or RV tire safety, or most recently, RVing in New England, complete with photos that they just know your readers are going to love, and when you actually look at it, it is just one big plug for their products, be they RV backup cameras, or RV tire pressure monitoring systems, or a campground in New England. Nope folks, there is no free lunch.
There is also no free publicity in this blog or the Gypsy Journal. I always reply that if they want to buy an ad, our rate card is attached, and if they want to send us one of their products to use, I’ll be happy to write an honest review. Honest meaning that if it’s good, I’ll tell our readers about it. And if it’s crap, I’ll tell our readers about it. It’s amazing how few of them I hear back from in response. Why is that?
Congratulations Ken Chudzinski, winner of our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Blizzard, the fourth book in my Big Lake mystery series. We had 146 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.
Thought For The Day – A thief broke into my house last night. He started searching for money so I woke up and searched with him.
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Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Hay you wisieguy…so you helped the thief search fer your mula ($$) ?? hahahahahahahahahahahaha that was a good one. I wasn’t ready for that…hahahahahahahahahahaha…Take care,friend..Gene..hahahahahaha