Anticipation

In two days I'm hitting the road to Death Valley and beyond. Just thinking about leaving is almost as good as doing it. But when departure time is a mere 48 hours away like now, the pain of waiting is acute: I want to roll at this very minute! But I have chores to finish and a motorhome to load. . . So, gotta wait just a little bit longer before turning the key to ignite the engine. Ever been to Death Valley? It's not a wasteland as some people think. It's beautiful. I'll park the RV at the Furnace Creek oasis, where there are a thousand palm trees and gushing spring water that helps keep everything green, even on summer days when the temp hits a ridiculous 125 degrees or higher. I've been going to Death Valley since I was a little kid, and that was back in the dinosaur age. But not a whole lot has changed. It's good to return to a familiar place, one that hasn't been overrun with franchise food joints. Did you know that Death Valley is America's largest National Park? Yup, it's true. And in case you don't know, it's in California.

Postcard of the Week: Critter with sunglasses

This postcard should probably be in the Western Postcard Museum. Unfortunately, I do not believe there is such a place. But it is a very popular card, found at roughly five out of six rural roadside trading posts and other tacky tourist places. You can still purchase this card today for 25 cents, which is a bargain when you consider that it will one day, perhaps 50 years from now, be a collector's item worth at least 75 cents. Do you have a wacky postcard that you would like me to publish here? Send it to Chuck Woodbury, RVtravel.com, 170 West Dayton St., Suite 103, Edmonds, WA 98020. We cannot return the postcard, so please keep that in mind.

Why a campground went bust

Sometimes when you drive around the countryside as I do in an RV, you come across interesting things. Daa! How stupid is that statement? Of course you come across interesting things! Anyway, one day I spotted this sign for a trailer park that was up for sale, as you can plainly see by the sign on the sign. As any junior college business student will tell you, there is a simple reason why this park went belly up: RVers just drove thru instead of paying to stay the night! If I owned an RV park I would call it the "Stay Overnight or a Week Park," and not the "Drive-Thru Park." The owner of this place was stupid and if you don't agree then I urge you to never open a business.

Happy (belated) Holidays from Joe's RV

Joe from Joe's RV wishes his customers a Happy Holiday. Even though the holidays are long gone, we can't resist sharing this video of hope, hype and mostly cornball humor.

My magical powers

This photo was taken a year ago but I have kept it a secret because I was afraid to reveal my magical powers. Well, I have reconsidered and now feel it is perfectly okay. Mind you, I can’t do everything magical. But what I can do, as you can plainly see in this untouched photograph, is make trash cans levitate. By simply holding my hands over a typical state park trash can, I am able to "will it" to float in mid air. Do not try this on your own and please do not ask your children to do this, because it takes special powers. To try this without the proper powers could result in spilled garbage.

Wacky Postcard of the Week: Rattlesnakes!

If you poke around postcard racks at rural roadside trading posts of the West, you won't have a problem finding cards with a snake theme. This one has been around a long time and may only be available nowadays in antique stores. The postcard's message illustrates the fascination that people had (and still have) about the wild critters of the American West. Do you have a wacky postcard that you would like me to publish here? Send it to Chuck Woodbury, RVtravel.com, 170 West Dayton St., Suite 103, Edmonds, WA 98020. We cannot return the postcard, so please keep that in mind.

Rocking out in Olympic National Park

This guy rocks out in his RV as he drives through Washington State's Olympic National Park. Give the video about 15 seconds for the guy to break lose, as he rock and rolls to "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean."

Our new motorhome

A couple shows off their new motorhome to their children.

Why buffalo disappeared

These days as you RV through America, you will seldom see an American Bison, which most of us commonly call buffalo. Most people probably see these animals at Yellowstone National Park. But there were once millions of American Bison. What happened? Here is the answer according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred head by the mid-1880s, from which all the present day's managed herds are descended. One major cause was that hunters were paid by large railroad concerns to destroy entire herds, for several reasons:

*The herds formed the basis of the economies of local Plains tribes of Native Americans for whom the bison were a primary food source; without bison, the Native Americans would be forced to leave or starve.
* Herds of these large animals on tracks could damage locomotives when the trains failed to stop in time.
* Herds often took shelter in the artificial cuts formed by the grade of the track winding though hills and mountains in harsh winter conditions. As a result, the herds could delay a train for days.

THE PICTURE above, taken in the 1870s, shows a huge pile of bison skulls.

Bison skins were used for industrial machine belts, clothing such as robes, and rugs. There was a huge export trade to Europe of bison hides. Old West bison hunting was very often a big commercial enterprise, involving organized teams of one or two professional hunters, backed by a team of skinners, gun cleaners, cartridge reloaders, cooks, wranglers, blacksmiths, security guards, teamsters, and numerous horses and wagons. Men were even employed to recover and re-cast lead bullets taken from the carcasses. Many of these professional hunters such as Buffalo Bill Cody killed over a hundred animals at a single stand and many thousands in their career. One professional hunter killed over 20,000 by his own count. A good hide could bring $3.00 in Dodge City, Kansas, and a very good one (the heavy winter coat) could sell for $50.00 in an era when a laborer would be lucky to make a dollar a day.

My experiences with marshallows

I don't buy marshmallows at home. But when I take an RV trip, I always buy marshmallows. I cannot take a trip with my 15-year-old daughter without bringing along marshmallows. That would be a sin.

I have two special marshmallow roasting devices that I bought at an RV park for about a dollar each. They have a wooden handle and a long, very slender metal rod. You slide the marshmallow over the rod, and then roast the marshmallow over a campfire. You must roast marshmallows over a fire. You can't do it over a stove or you would be cheating. That would be like microwaving a steak.

I know a little bit about marshmallows because I once visited a marshmallow factory. It was near Las Vegas. You could take a self-guided tour. Behind glass walls you could see marshmallows being made. Workers wore white uniforms. Almost everything else was white.

I wrote about my visit to the factory. Ever since, when someone types in marshmallow into a search engine, my story comes up. So I get letters from all over the world from people who want me to distribute their marshmallows in the USA. Go figure!

The marshallow factory was next door to a factory that made rocket fuel. One day, the rocket fuel exploded. Boom!!! Marshmallow slop went flying everywhere. Bye bye marshmallow factory. I don't think anyone was hurt.

Believe it or not, marshmallows should not be eaten by vegetarians. Marshmallows are made mostly of sugar, corn syrup and egg whites, but commercial brands also use a gelling agent, which is derived from animal hides or bones.

How about that?

Dancing with Betty

Sometimes when you are on a long RV trip, you get weary of driving and you want to do something different. Well, here is a picture of me dancing taken quite a few years ago when I was a single guy (for the first time). I was in Colorado, all by myself, and all of a sudden a little voice spoke to me that said, "Chuck, you need to dance."

Now, this is either a true story or a dream I once had. I'm not sure which, so maybe it's not true. Anyway. . .

I stopped in a little dancing place near Pueblo, where you could actually pay by the dance. You paid a dollar and you got two dances. Normally if you go out to dance you bring a date and you buy dinner, wine and maybe two or three mixed drinks, and by the end of the evening you probably end up paying $4 a dance, maybe more. So this was a spectacular deal.

And so I paid $10 for quite a few tickets, which got me a lot of dances. I took a liking to a petite dancer named Betty, who had brown hair, brown eyes and a very nice shape. So we danced one dance after another, mostly slow dances because I am a terrible fast dancer. It was great. Records were playing Freddy and the Dreamers' songs.

Afterwards I asked Betty to have coffee with me, which she did, which was against the rules. But she was up for it. Then we took a stroll along a stream, which I learned later was named Terror Creek. Betty was swell. But I never saw her again because I had to move on to find an RV park, and it was far out of town. I always wondered what happened to Betty, but I guess I will never know.

Crazy Dog

In case you have not seen this video, here it is -- one of the absolutely funniest home videos you will ever see. The dog is definitely crazy -- believing that its very own foot is trying to take away its bone. If you don't laugh at this, you don't have a sense of humor.