Sunday Is For Relaxing

Feb 1, 2009 – 6:14pm

Every once in a while we all need a day to just relax. Do nothing, well, except surf the net. That’s what I did today, nothing! The weather was very nice today, right around 80’s. Life is pretty good when you are sitting in 80 degree weather in February. So today I took Jake for a walk around the RV Park, surfed the internet, and watched TV. It’s pretty quiet today. I like that. I’m a little bummed out because Bingo has been cancelled here because of the Superbowl which I’m watching but not. I’m really watching all those neat commercials. So I’ll keep this short but I want to share something with you. There another blog I follow, Nick Russell with www.gypsyjournal.net. He has a daily blog and one of this blog entries recently caught my eye. Why? Because finally someone has written (very well) a blog posting on what fulltime RVing is really is about. How do you describe fulltime RVing? He described it very well. You can read the blog posting here, it’s very well written and hits the topic right on. How I see RVing…..Nick has put into words. What he doesn’t hit upon is that when these wheels are turning, it’s costing money. He does not say much about creating an income to supplement the cost of RVing. He’s  has his own business creating an RVing newspaper about what he’s up to, it’s published bi-monthly, and his advertisers and subscribers pay for his RVing lifestyle. Alot of RVers have found a way to work while RVing supplying the RVing lifestyle with income from a few different ways, including the Workamper Program or starting their own business. But what if you are on a fixed income, collecting Social Security? I  know of some RVers that will work around the RV Park for a “paycheck” to pay for their site…..their site is paid for and depending on how many hours they work, they receive a small paycheck. A couple in Las Vegas I was talking to has their site paid for and gets a paycheck for $170 a week working 40 hours a week. So don’t think that you need alot of money upfront to RV fulltime, because these days, there are plenty of opportunities to work, meet great people, and continue living the great life of a RVer. Have a great night and I’m not sure what we are doing tomorrow. Thanks for checking on me.

Salvation Mountain

January 31, 2009 – 11:30pm

Hello and welcome to Salvation Mountain. This tourist attraction (yes, it is named an official tourist attraction) has been visited by thousands of visitors every year. This is in Niland, California, and I really don’t know how to describe it……let’s look at pictures and you tell me what words should describe this masterpiece that took 26 years to build from scratch…..

Meet Leonard Knight – website link is here (don’t be shy to click, all my links open to a separate new window)

Meet his masterpiece and you can tell how proud he is of it from the way he talks about it……

It was well worth the trip to see it. Salvation Mountain is about a little over an hour from Yuma, Arizona. The town of Niland is very small….population about 6….okay 8 tops. I didn’t see alot of poeple around. It’s like an old ghost town, we stopped at a little diner to look around but there really wasn’t much to look at. We moved on pretty quickly. I would talk alot more about Salvation Mountain, but it’s website more than describes it better than I ever would.

I did pick up some free postcards and a free 35 minute video on the history of Salvation Mountain. I watched the video tonight before hopping online, great video. I think you can get a free video online, but don’t quote me, check it out and see. The video is extremely good. Oh, it’s funny, when I was talking to Leonard Knight, he saw I was holding my camera, he told me that the one other thing that he loves second to God are cameras.

Leonard’s works at expanding that mountain every single day. He’s got a great personality and he shows the world that you can live great……living on nothing at all. He lives right there at Salvation Mountain with No rent, No bills, No nothing, and he loves his visitors that come to see him and his work every day. All the hundred of thousands of gallons of paint were all donated and still is, water is donated, the makers of his postcards and videos – all donated services, the trees inside his Salvation Mountain “Museum” (that’s what he called it, a museum), all dragged in from the desert, car doors were dragged in from the side of the road from his visitors, little pieces of everything is put together to make this mountain……it is simply amazing.

When we left Niland, California we went to the Sand Dunes of California. This location is 20 miles west of Yuma. I’ve been to this before and it’s one big RVers Off-Road Party. Just bring your four wheeler out here and you can have fun for hours…….

Surprisingly, the sand dunes weren’t too busy today. When we got back to Yuma this evening, we all, all five of us, had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant. We have a Texas Roadhouse restaurant back home in New Hampshire but I don’t go to it that often at all. So we enjoyed dinner and Margaritas there and then off to Paradise Casino (don’t you start….), yes, again. I’m trying not to make this a bad habit, but it looks like it’s too late to hide that fact. I didn’t win anything tonight and I spent most of the time at the blackjack table. Lost $40 dollars there and we all went home. Now it’s relaxing time and tomorrow we are sticking around the RV in front of the TV, I mean, come on, it is Super Bowl Sunday! 🙂