The dilemma of mismatched socks

As you get older, you learn things. One thing you learn if that you waste a lot of time. If you are really lucky you learn exactly how you waste time. I, for example, waste time sorting socks. In this picture, you can see socks I have that do not match. The stack gets bigger all the time. I do not know how this is possible. How can I have so many stray socks? Even when I wash a load of laundry with only six pairs of socks, there will be one sock that does not match when they come out.

I have decided I will no longer sort socks. From now on, I will buy and wear only black socks and white socks. I don't know why someone needs gray socks or blue socks or fancy socks. Who ever looks anyway? Do you know what color of socks you are wearing now? How about the person across the room from you?

So I am going all black and white. Future sorting will be easy. I am tired of wasting my time sorting socks. There is more to life.

Frankly, when you think about it, what rule says socks have to match? I bet if you wore one brown sock and one black sock for a month, nobody would notice.

I RECENTLY BOUGHT a pair of brown shoes. There was only one shoe my size on the shelf at the store, so the clerk brought its mate, put them in a box and I brought them home. I wore them for three months. No problem. Then my daughter returned from college for Thanksgiving. A couple of days later she said, "Dad your shoes do not match." Sure enough, one was a lighter brown than the other. I didn't even notice. I don't think anyone else noticed either. My daughter noticed because it is a duty of a daughter, especially one in her teen years, to identify all defects in her parents.

It comes down to this: there is no rule that says sock must match or even that shoes must match. I am surprised with all the fads that come and go that wearing mismatched footwear has not caught on.

I'm done worrying about it and wasting time. I'll wear what I want. Who cares?

A Thanksgiving story about a turkey named Tom

In honor of Thanksgiving I would like to tell you about my favorite turkey of all time. His name was Tom, which is a good name for a turkey. He lived in Douglas, Wyoming with the Jim and Bobbi Herrick family. I met Tom many years ago. He was the friendliest turkey I had ever met. Truth be told he was the only turkey I ever met except on a plate. Tom was a pet: his owners vowed to never eat him.

Tom loved children. Many mornings he would follow them down Smylie Road to wait with them for the school bus. The driver would always leave Tom behind because turkeys are not allowed in classrooms. So Tom would return home in a fowl mood. Tom was also a champion belcher. He could burp better than any guy at any bar.

I wrote a short article about Tom. He became pretty famous. He got fan mail. One day, about a week before Thanksgiving, my phone rang. It was a producer at the Tonight Show. "We would like to have Tom burp on our show on Thanksgiving," she said. I said that sounded like an excellent idea. So I called the Herricks to see if they were interested.

Jim answered. "Oh, Tom can't do that," he said. "He was killed a few weeks ago. He was following the kids to the bus stop and someone went out of his way to hit him." Jim sounded sad and I think was sadder when he learned that the accident had cost him a free trip to Hollywood.

Anyway, that's my story about Tom. He was an entertaining bird who loved childen and aspired for an education. I will never forget him. I will think of Tom on Thursday as I eat one of his cousins.

I am water and so are you

It's been a long day of writing. A little earlier, almost done with my weekly newsletter, I needed a break. So I plopped down on my couch for a brief nap. My couch is way too comfortable to be in close proximity to my home office. It always temps me. "Chuck, come over here, lay yourself down and I will comfort you." That is what it says. Okay, that is not what it says. But that is what it could say if it were alive.

But being alive is what I want to write about. On that couch, in my pre-nap state, I became very aware of the pleasing sound of my small water fountain. It's a very nice sound. A soothing sound. I started thinking about why I liked it so much. Then I thought, "I know." It's because it's water!" And I knew then, as I still know, that I am made of about 60 percent water. I don't look like water or feel like water, but Wikipedia says I am 60 percent water, so I am pretty sure I am, really and truly, a water kinda guy. Actually, I'm basically a big glob of water. And it should be very apparent to me because I know from experience that when I get hot I begin to ooze out of myself. I believe that some times I have gone from 60 percent water to perhaps 58 percent water.

I have always wondered why people spend tons of money for a house with a view of water -- the ocean, a lake, even a stream. I think they must simply take great pleasure in looking at the same thing that they are made of even though it looks nothing at all like them.

I like the ocean and lakes and streams and beautiful water falls, and I even like my little gurgling, $25 water fountain. I think now the reason I like water is because I am water, well at least most of me except maybe bones.

America's cutest gas station needs some tender loving care

The Teapot Dome gas station just off Interstate 82 near Yakima, Wash., was looking pale and sickly when I passed by a few weeks ago. Paint is peeling, metal is rusting. The gas station in the shape of a teapot needs some tender loving care. The last we heard, the town of Zillah, where it is located, was working with Friends of the Teapot to raise money to move the historic structure into town where it can be protected.

So far, there is no visible damage from vandalism. Even though the outside is peeling, fading and rusting, the inside appears to be in excellent shape.

The tiny gas station is listed in the National Historic Register of Historic Places. The state of Washington recently declared it one of its "most endangered historic properties." It was built in 1922 as a political statement about the Teapot Dome Scandal, which rocked the nation during the Warren G. Harding presidency.

If you would like to make a donation to the Friends of the Teapot, call 509-829-5151 or 509-829-5200. A fund has been set up at a local bank.

Happy in my little motorhome

A friend asked me recently if I didn't feel claustrophobic traveling for long periods in my 24-foot motorhome. I said, "No way!" Here's a little video I recorded explaining why I am perfectly content in my pint-sized RV. Please keep in touch with me at Facebook.com/cwoodbury3.

Who do we choose for our hereafter?

I'm camped across the street from an old cemetery in Cincinnati. Most of the headstones are upright and made of granite. As I walked around, trying to soak up a little bit about who these people were, I was struck with a thought. I noticed many graves marked "Mother and Father" or "Husband and Wife" -- partners who most likely spent their lives together and then, in the end, were buried side by side. Often, their children were closeby, sometimes in the family plot.

It made me wonder about today, where families are so mixed up. Divorces, step-kids, half-brothers and sisters. . . I wondered where people choose to end up when it's their time. If your parents are divorced, and one is in Fresno and the other in Peoria, where do you chose to spend your eternity? If you were married three times, and had your kids with partner number one, do choose the family plot along with your ex and your kids, or do you choose to spend eternity with someone you maybe only knew a relatively few years?

This seems very complicated. What do you think?

Stuck in a big rainstorm

(Friday, Oct. 1, 2010) -- I'm pinned down in a dark, heavily wooded campground in the western Massachusetts town of Pittsfield in the heart of the Berkshires. A huge storm is passing through. Rain is pounding on my roof. Just before daybreak a small tree toppled, glancing off my roof. But there's no damage that I can see. I had planned to leave here today but will stay until tomorrow rather than risk driving in this mess. I'll use the time to finish the RVtravel.com newsletter. Here's a little video I recorded earlier as I pretended I was a TV weatherman.

The views out my RV window

This stream is about 20 feet behind my motorhome at my campsite at the Thousand Trails campground in the Rondout Valley area of New York. Two nights ago, the view out the front window of my motorhome was of the Statue of Liberty: I was camped in Jersey City, NJ, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

I think one of the best things -- one of the most stimulating things -- about traveling with your very own moving house (an RV), is you never get bored with the scenery because it keeps changing. Some days are better than others, yes. But the difference from place to place always keeps the view interesting.

The endangered pay phone

It won't be long before the last pay phone disappears, at least as we know it today, where you deposit a coin and then make a call. Cell phones have made pay phones obsolete. Years ago, if you owned a business and you had a pay phone installed inside or outside your store, you got a cut on each call. It was a good deal for a small business person.

Many of today's pay phones look like the one in the picture. And more look like it every day. And not too long after the phone is gone, so goes the pedestal.

A few years ago, as my then-16-year-old daughter and I passed a pay phone, I asked her if she had ever used one or if she knew how to use one. She answered "no" to both questions.

New York City and chocolate pizza

This is a pizza. But there's no pepperoni or sausage. It's a marshmallow and chocolate pizza served at Max Brenner's in Union Square, New York City. Almost everything on the menu at this most unusual eatery is filled, smothered or prepared in some way with chocolate. If you love chocolate then a visit to Max Brenner's is pretty close to visiting Heaven. I didn't try the pizza because I was already filled with a concoction that involved a waffle, Rice Krispies, a sliced banana, powered sugar and lots o' chocolate. It was my breakfast, a vast departure from my usual ham and eggs. Lucky for me I walked five miles around the city afterward. Maybe I worked off the calories.

I didn't spot the pizza until I was leaving the restaurant. It was displayed for all to see with a price tag of $6.50 a slice. But I didn't take a piece to go. My stomach would have erupted like a volcano.

My campsite and the Statue of Liberty

I am camped in the overflow area of the Liberty Harbor RV Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. My "campsite" is right up again a Hudson River marina with four or five dozen very nice boats and small yachts. But what is super great about this campsite is that you can walk a few blocks to a subway station and be in downtown New York City in about half an hour. It's a terrific place to stay if you want to visit Manhattan. This photo is from the front window of my motorhome, looking across the marina. Do you see what's in the distance? The Statue of Liberty! How about that? Tonight as I type, it's all lit up. I can't believe I am camped with a view of the Statue of Liberty.

And the cow said

A guy was wearing this tee-shirt today on my bus tour of the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There is nothing to laugh about on the tour, where you learn about one bloody battle after another, sometimes on the ground right where you're standing. But even during all this seriousness, when I spotted this shirt, I laughed.

Watch out for snapping turtles

It's pretty interesting for me to be traveling around the East. I know the West very well after exploring it for 25 years. But I am not very familiar with the East, and that includes its wildlife.

So, visiting with my neighbors Bob and Shirley here in the Sterling KOA park in Sterling, Connecticut, I asked if there were fish in its small pond. I thought I might try to catch one. But they said they didn't think there was anything in there worth catching. But they said that what is in there are snapping turtles. They said they are aggressive. For example, if a duck were to land in the pond, a snapping turtle might sneak up on it, grab its legs, drag it down, and then have a tasty meal.

I walked around the pond this morning but could not see a snapping turtle. I saw big polywogs, minnows, and every so often a frog would jump from shore into the pond. But I did not see a snapping turtle. Bob camps here a lot and he says you hardly ever see them. But he has seen them on occasion. He said they are about a foot long. I did a little research on Wikipedia and learned they can be a lot longer and weigh up to 75 pounds.

"Snapping turtles are omnivores, consuming both plant and animal matter, and are important aquatic scavengers," said Wikipedia "but they are also active hunters that prey on anything they can swallow, including many invertebrates, fish, frogs, reptiles (including snakes and smaller turtles), unwary birds and small mammals." It also said that "common snappers are noted for their belligerent disposition when out of the water, their powerful beak-like jaws and their highly mobile head and neck."

I have never heard of snapping turtles in the West. Maybe you have. If so, let me know. At the KOA here a sign says, "No Swimming." No kidding.

The moving house where I live

This is the house where I will live for the next two months. It's a 24-foot-long motorhome with a diesel engine in front. Here I am at work. My kitchen table is my office. Across the room is a couch where I can take a nap or watch TV. In the back you can see the small bathroom. There's a shower, too, but it's out of view. The kitchen has a big sink, a three burner stove, refrigerator with freezer, and a microwave/convection oven. The RV has hot and cold running water, and storage tanks to hold waste water until I can find a place to dump it. It has a high definition TV and DVD player.

A heater keeps the motorhome warm in the winter, and the air conditioner keeps it cool in the summer. Really, the big difference between this house and my real house is that this one is much smaller, easier to keep clean, and it moves.

My bed is behind the camera in the photo above, over the cab area. It's called queen-sized, but it's really just a double bed plus a few inches.

I can live and work here just as easily as back home near Seattle. A Verizon Air Card connects my laptop computer to the internet at broadband speed, and I have my cell phone, which is what everyone calls me on at home, too. I can also video chat on the internet with my friends and co-workers. It's almost like sitting across a table from them.

These days I use a Garmin GPS system to tell me which road to take to get somewhere. I call it Eleanor because it has a female voice.

Today I am in Connecticut, where I will be for at least two more days. Then I don't know where I will be. The view out my windows changes a lot, but inside, my little home always looks pretty much the same. This the life!

Welcome to Welcome. Not!

Most towns, big and small, try to attract visitors. They come up with slogans to put on billboards. Yakima, Wash., for example, calls itself the "Palm Springs of Washington," which is not true, but it says so on a billboard coming into town. So when I neared Welcome, Minn., I got excited, because I was pretty sure there must be a "Welcome to Welcome" sign at the city limits. That would be an excellent sign because people would take pictures of it and send them to their friends, each time adding a bit of fame to the small town. But, alas. . . guess what? No "Welcome to Welcome" sign anywhere. A big disappointment to me, for sure.

Bodie, the best ghost town in America

I snapped these photos in the ghost town of Bodie, California. Only about 100 of the original buildings remain. In 1879, there were 60 saloons alone. Now, California State Parks has preserved Bodie in a state of "arrested decay," meaning it's being preserved as it was 50 years ago when the last of its 10,000 residents left.

Bodie is by far the best ghost town in the West. It was once the wildest and most lawless town in the West. Gunfights, stage holdups, robberies, street fights and even murders were common. The town boomed only for a few years in the late 1870s. By 1881, the gold mines were depleted and only 1,500 residents remained.

Today you can pay $7 to visit Bodie. There's nothing there but the old buildings, a few of which are open, some rusty old cars, the cemetery and odds and ends from the past inside the old homes and stores. The town is deep in snow during the winter, so don't even try to visit then. From mid-May to mid October, it can be reached via U.S. 395 just south of Bridgeport, Calif., and then about 13 miles of mostly paved road (the last three miles is dirt). There are no food concessions, just a water faucet or two.

If you want to see a really great American ghost town, this is the one to see, no doubt about it.

Then and now, my girl and me

Eighteen years ago, on a road trip for my newspaper Out West, I paused for lunch along Highway 395 in Topaz, Nevada with my wife and baby daughter, Emily. Last week I stopped again, but just Emily and me.

Here are two photos -- one from then, the other from last week with my same Emily, but grown up now and nearly 19 years old. Where did the time go?

I was surprised to find the same picnic tables and in the same place as before -- faded, but almost exactly as they were those approximately 6,600 days ago.

Emily wondered why we stopped and why I insisted she sit at the one picnic table in particular, in one particular place. Then I pulled out the old photo. I know it became a special moment for her, but I believe it was far more special for me, knowing that in less than a month I would be dropping her off at college 3,000 miles away from my home in Washington state.

I love my big girl, but I sure do miss that little one a whole bunch.

A very vaulable dress

This is my daughter Emily in the Silver Queen Casino in Virginia City, Nevada. The picture behind her is of the Silver Queen. It takes up most of one wall. The Silver Queen's dress is very, very large. Would you believe that it is made up of 3,261 silver dollars, and that her belt is made of 28 twenty dollar gold pieces? If you believe that, then you are absolutely right. The Silver Queen the best thing in the casino except for maybe the bar if you want to drink rather than look at a big picture of a woman in a dress.

Sad man, happy dog

Look at this sign I spotted at Lake Tahoe. The bottom part of the sign, which I am not showing you here, was a message about picking up after your dog. In other words, your dog poops, you pick up. That's what "picking up" means. It's not like picking up a girl or picking up something you dropped, and it has nothing to do with a pickup truck. Anyway, as you can see very clearly on this sign, the man is very unhappy about having to pick up, but the pooch is very happy, which I think is understandable.

Endangered sign

I was in Virginia City, Nevada a few days ago where I spotted this sign in front of one of the five thousand or so tourist shops in the still-alive-and-kickin' ghost town. I shoot digital photos these days -- have done so for close to ten years now. Most people take pictures with digital cameras now. You can buy a halfway decent camera for $50 and after that, there's no cost for film or developing. I think signs like this are an endangered species.

A friendly burro

How's this for a friendly burro? I took the picture along U.S. 395 south of Bishop, California. The burros come right up to the barbed wire fence along the highway, hoping a tourist will stop to feed them an apple. I was in a motorhome and did, in fact, have an apple, which made this burro very happy.

I know we are not supposed to feed wild animals, but burros aren't really wild. They were abandoned in the desert by early miners, after which they had a grand time reproducing. In Oatman, Arizona, a small tourist town on old Route 66, shopkeepers sell bags of carrots for $1, which you can then feed to the burros that wander the town. But you can't feed the carrots to baby burros because for some reason (I can't remember) that can kill them.

Are you living your dream?

I met a woman the other day, early 70s, I think, who told me that she and her husband had planned to be traveling these days. They worked hard their whole lives, saved money, and dreamed of when they would be free to travel. Then, about the time they were counting down to their freedom, her husband developed a rare disease that took away his eyesight. End of dream.

How about your dream? Are you living it or waiting for some "perfect" time when circumstances are just right? Years ago, when I was in my late 30s, I left a comfy life to follow my own dream. I sold everything and bought a tiny motorhome to become a wandering travel writer. Invigorated, but often questioning my sanity, I hit the road. For much of the next ten years, I drove 150,000 miles of America, writing and publishing my "on the road" newspaper Out West. Not a month passed that I didn't receive at least one letter from a reader who said, "Chuck, I admire you for following your dream. I had a dream, too, but then I got sick (or my wife got sick) and now it can never happen."

In my case, those ten years were incredibly rewarding -- ah. . . the people, the places. . . the adventure! Alas. . . that decade also left me broke. Still, it was worth every penny I didn't have.

If, in your heart, you have a dream for your life, then march toward it beginning today. Don't wait! No excuses! Time has a way of swiftly slipping by, and it has no preference whether we live a life of dreaming or live the life we dream.

"To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top." -- Robert M. Pirsig

"How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!" -- Jane Austen

"Today's egg is better than tomorrow's hen." -- Turkish proverb

"Charlie Bit Me"

The first time you watch this you may think "What's the big deal?" But a few minutes later, you may have the urge to watch it again, and then again. . . The fact that more than 200 million people have viewed home video snippet pretty much says there is something special about it. I'd call this video "charming." See what you think.

A whale visits our offices

A gray whale dropped by our RVtravel.com/RVbookstore.com Edmonds, Wash., offices on Monday, June 7. Well, the whale didn't quite make it into our offices. But it fed for most of the day about 100 yards away at the ferry dock. A ranger said the whale was about 30-feet long. People stopped by all day long to check out this big fellow. The anglers on the adjacent fishing pier probably weren't too happy having the whale gobble up their booty. About two weeks earlier, a pod of Orca Whales was in the same area.

Just north of the ferry dock is a Washington underwater state park. Scuba divers usually poke around down there most days checking out all the fish and the sunken boats. I figured if the whale passed there on its way 50 yards south to the ferry dock area they must have got a quite a shock. Watch the 20-second video to see the whale.

As you can see in the opening scene, two bald eagles were checking out the action, too.

Taking a break from the bad news

I've spent quite a bit of time lately in front of my TV watching baseball games and the NBA playoffs. I've also cut back my time at the computer. I've been watching sports because I am so upset with the news headlines these days about the awful Gulf oil spill, terrorists who think killing innocent people is the way to prove they are right and everyone else is wrong, and greedy corporate executives.

I'm especially weary of the massive, seemingly endless discussion on TV, on blogs, and in comments on Web postings about these things and who's to blame, which usually boils down to Bush or Obama.

If you are like me and get much of your news on the Internet, then you are constantly bombarded by reader comments that are often from people who in past years would have probably voiced their opinions to a few friends at most. Now they can blast away from the privacy of their home computers -- their inflammatory words unedited and typically anonymous.

I've started reading a daily newspaper again. I find it refreshing. The editors filter out intelligent comments from those from people who have a chip on their shoulder and/or who exhibit their stupidity with comments that would be laughable if they weren't so mean-spirited or ignorant.

I've never been a huge sports fan, but now, as a break from the dreadful news of the day, attending a game or watching one on TV is a pleasant way to escape for a few hours. I am also turning off my computer on Sundays -- and what a breath of fresh air that has provided.

Mama and Papa Duck

These are my two favorite ducks. I call them Mama Duck and Papa Duck. The have visited me every year for seven years. They think my condo's swimming pool is a pond. As you can see from the short video, they are friendly. Still, they are technically wild ducks.

Every April, I wait for them to return. The day I see them swimming in the pool, I become very happy! It's a sure sign of spring. About every other year, they have babies. In my opinion, there is nothing much cuter than a baby duck. One year, all the babies got trapped in the swimming pool. They couldn't jump high enough to get out onto the deck. Mama Duck was very concerned. But I came to rescue. I got the pool cleaning wand and one by one lifted them out. They just waddled away.

Last year was disappointing because Mama and Papa Duck returned to the pool at different times. I never saw them together. Mama would show up, wait awhile and leave, and then Papa would arrive. I don't know if they every hooked up. So no babies last year. And no babies so far this year. I saw Mama and Papa Duck just yesterday.

I have loved ducks since I was child. My family's next door neighbors, Helen and Sam, had a white duck named Louie. He was a very friendly duck. But what I remember most about Louie was the mess he made. Our neighbors' concrete patio was a slimy mess thanks to Louie.

If I lived somewhere where I could have a duck as a pet, I would have one. I would also have two chickens.

The garbage train

If you ever visit my office in Edmonds, Wash., you do not want to be about 50 yards west, at the railroad tracks, at 1 p.m. That's when the Seattle Garbage Train passes by. It's a train of about 60-70 cars, each stacked two-high with big white cargo containers filled with garbage headed east from Seattle over the Cascades to be dumped far from the crowds. The reason you do not want to be there is that the train stinks.

A friend of mine lives about a mile north of my office, right along the tracks -- which are just a few yards from the shore of Puget Sound. He says that if he's in his backyard when the Garbage Train passes he has to go inside.

I believe the empty westbound train passes by early in the morning. Even though it's empty, it still reeks of garbage! If they were to give this train a name, I think it should be "Old Stinky."

Too many pens

Now this is embarrassing. What you see in this picture are five coffee mugs, each filled mostly with pens. This is from my home. Two of the mugs are from my desk. One is from the top of a bookshelf in my living room. One is from on top of a floor-model 1940s Motorola radio in my dining room. The other is from my kitchen counter. I do not know how many pens there are except "too many."

I bet I did not buy more than a dozen of these pens. Most were giveaways. Some of these pens have traveled a bit. About a half dozen are from Best Western Hotels. There's one from the Silver Legacy Hotel in Reno and one from the University of Redlands Alumni Association that says "Alumni Make a Difference." Two pens came from Gregory B Moulton DDS with the message "Family Dentistry with a Gentle Touch." I have never heard of Dr. Moulton. There's a pen from Chuck's RV, and one that simply says #1 Grandpa. I am not a grandpa, so nobody gave me that pen.

I bet I have another 100 pens in drawers. It's ridiculous. Why does a person need so many pens? I could easily get by with about a half dozen blue ones, a couple of black ones, and maybe a red one or two. I don't think I would ever need a green pen.

The problem with having too many pens is that:
--It's really hard to make yourself throw away something that still works.
--You can't give them to other people because they have too many pens, too.
--You can't sell them because they're worthless.

And to think that ballpoint pens were once an amazing, expensive thing! The first big success selling ballpoint pens came in 1945 when Gimbels Department Store sold 10,000 in one day at $12.50 each! People lined up outside the store to buy one. A lot of people tried to invent a ballpoint pen before then, starting in the late 1800s. But the pens never worked right. In 1952 a Frenchman named Marcel Bich hit it big when he introduced the "Ballpoint Bic," which is known today as the Bic.

So what should I do with all my pens. Have any ideas?

A good back scratch is an excellent thing

Do you like your back scratched or rubbed? I know many people who would rather have it scratched. I grew up in a family of back scratchers. To this day, I need my back scratched. It's not that my back actually itches: it's the pleasure of a back scratch. If I close my eyes when getting my back scratched, I can fall into a trance and even hallucinate. Who needs drugs?

A back RUB is nice. I enjoy a back rub. But when given a choice between a back rub and a back scratch, I will take a back scratch every time.

I own a couple of back scratching devices so I can scratch my own back. The best ones are made out of wood. You can buy them for a dollar. They work okay, but offer only modest satisfation. The best people for back scratchers are those with long fingernails. People who bite their nails are almost worthless.

If there were a device available like the one shown on this page, I would buy it.

One very significant reason to have a spouse is to have a live-in back scratcher. People who crave back scratches should avoid marrying someone who is reluctant to scratch. Kids are good, too, but they often don't have much patience, so they are kind of a hit-and-miss thing.

I do not own a dog. But if a dog could be taught to scratch backs, I would definitely get one.

There are many businesses where you can pay for a back rub. But I have never seen one where you can pay for a back scratch. If there were such a business, I would be a good customer.

A TERRIBLE THING TO A PERSON LIKE ME who craves back scratches is to be in the same room as someone who is getting one. It's almost painful to watch, because you start thinking of how good it feels, and then your back really, really starts to itch, and you can hardly stand it.

If I were as rich as Bill Gates, I would hire a full-time back scratcher. I would give the person other chores, too, because you need frequent breaks from back scratches so your mind can have time to crave another one. Part of the pleasure of a good back scratch is the anticipation of getting it. As far as the actual back scratch, the first 90 seconds are by far the best. This is when you get goose bumps. When you no longer get goose bumps, then a back scratch is still good but it's more of a relaxing thing than a stimulator of dopamine, the feel-good drug your body releases during great pleasure.

Now that I have written this, I really need a back scratch. If you like back scratches, then you probably do, too. Sorry about that.

So what do you prefer? A back scratch or a back rub?

RVing without a schedule means freedom

I wrote last week in my RVtravel.com newsletter about a rude letter I'd received from a reader about my essay two issues before. The essay was about two mediocre RV parks where I had stayed.

And, again, I received letters. Many people told me I could avoid crummy RV parks by simply using the Trailer Life or Woodall's directories to find a park along my route with a good rating, and make a reservation.

Well, the fact is, my style of traveling does not usually mesh well with planning ahead. I don't like making reservations. And I see no need for them in the off-season when most RV parks are wide open.

So, when it's time to call it a day, I rely on billboards and what I observe alongside the highway: if I spot a park that looks good, I pull in. Sometimes they are fine, sometimes they are lousy. But, frankly, I don't care very much. Because I earn my living writing about RVing, it's good for me to see the good and the bad and the ugly. I'm talking only about overnight stops here, not places for extended stays (where I would definitely consult a directory, plan ahead and make a reservation).

SOME RVers LIVE BY THEIR SCHEDULES. They have their travel days all planned before they set out. I don't: I like to stop a lot. If I pull into a small town cafe and meet somebody interesting, I may stay and chat for an hour or two. Heck, I've had people ask me to stay in their homes or park in their driveways. Some of my most memorable RVing experiences have come from those encounters. If I come across a great museum, I might spend an afternoon there. If it's a gorgeous day, I might pause in a city park for hours to read or write at a picnic table or take a nap. Only rarely am I in a hurry to get somewhere. For me, RV travel is almost always about the journey and not the destination.

Without a reservation set in stone, I can linger as long as I want in a place without having to look at my watch and say, "Oh, gotta go. I'm due at the RV park 100 miles up the road in two hours." I love RVing because I can travel at my own pace; I can turn left when the road looks more interesting than turning right. My "motel room" is with me. If worse comes to worse when darkness comes I can pull into a parking lot or rest area for the night. But put me on a schedule where I have to show up at a certain place at the end of the day, and I'd just as soon drive a car and stay in a motel, where I can show up at midnight.

Now, just to clarify. I DO make reservations in the tourist season, but usually only when I plan to stay for more than a day or two. And, for the record, in the tourist season, I'll take a state park or national forest campground over an RV park almost anytime.

Davy Crockett, dead again at 85

My hero Fess Parker died today at age 85. Back in the 1950s, Parker was television's Davy Crockett to millions and millions of youngsters, me included. The first installment of "Davy Crockett," with Buddy Ebsen as Parker's sidekick, debuted in December, 1954 as part of the "Disneyland" TV show. I am pretty sure I was watching.

Parker, as Crockett, was handsome, brave and definitively cool. He was what an American should be -- a genuine good guy. He was a tall man, 6 foot 6 inches, and he spoke with a slow, smooth, southern drawl that I can still hear in my head.

He made coonskin caps famous. I had one. All my buddies had one. Heck, every kid had one. I had a Davy Crockett lunch pail, too.

I'll never forget how sad I was when Fess Parker's Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. Fess Parker put the Alamo on the map.

And now my hero Fess Parker is really dead, not TV dead. All my childhood TV idols are gone -- Hoppy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger. Those guys should never have died. They were too big, too strong, too brave, too famous. . . too "everything."

Reality strikes again, and I am sad.

Motorhome is a dinosaur

Wow! How long is this Bounder motorhome? My guess is 38 feet, but it looks longer. Could it be 40 feet? I spotted it in a Sacramento RV park while talking my evening walk. The motorhome has no slideouts. Who would want such a motorhome anymore? You wonder why it took so long for RV manufacturers to make slideouts -- so RVs could be wider at the push of a button rather than just longer and longer and longer. Can it be that hard to make a slideout?

Did anybody even think about making a slideout 20 years ago? If not, why not? Nowadays, RV makers don't keep making RVs longer and longer, they just keep adding slideouts. Five slideouts is no big deal. I bet you will see six before long. This Bounder motorhome with no slideouts is a dinosaur. My guess is that a super long motorhome like this with no slideouts worth a pittance. What do you think?

Monster centipedes along the highway

What does this look like to you? To me it looks like a long centipede. Or maybe some kind of monster. These huge sprinklers are everywhere in farm country.

An RV campsite too good to be true

I'd really liked to be camped here. This photo appears in an ad promoting RVing by the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association. I believe that in my life I have camped in at least 2,000 campgrounds. Most were non-descript RV parks. Some were in National Parks and National Forests, and pretty. Others were in the middle of nowhere -- sort of like in this photo, but not nearly as super spectacular.

I don't think I have ever found a campsite as gorgeous as the one in this ad. For one thing, I don't see a road anywhere. So how the heck did the RV get in? And, as an ex-fire fighter (long ago) I can tell you that the ranger might not be happy about the blazing campfire surrounded by high and probably dry grass.

I wish there were a lot of beautiful, remote places like this to camp that didn't require having your RV dropped in by a helicopter. But I suppose showing a scene like is better for selling RVs than showing a cramped RV park, which is an all-too-common sight.

Reno in the good ol' days

I love the photo on this old postcard. Ah, Reno in the good ol' days. I lived in Sacramento, Calif., for many years -- between the '70s and early '90s. Reno is across the Sierra about two hours away from Reno over Donner Pass. In college, my buddies and I would drive there to cruise South Virginia Street which is pictured in the postcard. A city with gambling seemed exciting then.

Driving down Virginia Street was a visual delight -- neon lights everywhere -- in your face big time. The wide front entrances of casinos never closed. On cold days you could feel the heat pouring out. On hot summer days you'd feel the air conditioning before you ever stepped into the buildings, right before you got a whiff of the casino itself -- cigarette smoke and grease from the slot machines. I've heard it said that the doors on Nevada casinos don't have locks because casinos operate 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

When Indian casinos came along in California and elsewhere, you didn't need to drive to Reno to play a slot machine. Las Vegas, far to the south, was much bigger than Reno by then and just piled on the attractions making it a destination with a whole lot more than just gambling. It thrived despite the competition from the Indians. But Reno began a slow decline. Virginia Street today is still glittery, but the excitement is gone. There are bigger and better casinos on the outskirts of town, but none of those come close to the grandeur of the casinos in Las Vegas.

Reno really was a "big little city" 30 years or so ago. I'd say that now it's a "little big city" with freeways, shopping malls, suburbs, and casinos are that are not very remarkable anymore.

My computer and how it runs my life

It's about 5 p.m., Friday. My eyes are tired of looking all day at the computer screen. Every Saturday, my online newsletter at RVtravel.com is posted. I've been doing it for about nine years now. Sometimes I can get an issue done ahead of time, but most times I go right to my deadline on Friday evening.

It takes me almost two days to write and put together the newsletter. It's a grind. Still, I love it. Every week, when it is done I get to celebrate another few days where I can do something else, maybe even turn off the blasted computer. It's hard for me to remember my life before my computer. I do recall that in the beginning I used it only to write. And that was it. Then the Internet and email came along. Then came high speed Internet. And that was when my life in the real world got all whacked out by the constant temptation to dive into the cyberworld to write yet another story or research something or check the weather or my stocks or look for some cool YouTube videos or see who had emailed me in the last 4.3 minutes.

I still have about one hour of miscellaneous work to do on the newsletter this evening. Then I will have dinner. Then I will pass out from being brain dead because I lack willpower to get away from my computer.

The computer is a miracle. It's also a curse.

Visiting cemeteries

I like to visit cemeteries when I travel. You can usually glean sometime about the people buried there by examining their headstones. You can learn about their towns and sometimes about hardships of living there, for example when you see many children's graves or those of adults who died young. In many old West ghost towns, it seems every other grave is a child's. Sometimes you come across a headstone that makes you laugh -- like this one of Douglas Kiss. Whether he wrote the epitaph himself or someone else did after he was gone, the message is a good one. I think I would have liked him.

When I visit a cemetery I almost always pause at a few graves to ponder the person below me. Who was he or she? Most often you can't determine much, but I enjoy just stopping to say "hi." I hope that long after I am gone someone will visit me, too.

I believe the best headstone slogan of all time is this one:
Remember me as you pass by.
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be.
Prepare for death and follow me.

##rvt744essay

My new blog

Please check out my new blog "Why We Need English Teachers," a collection of photos I have snapped through the years of misspelled signs and other English irregularities.

I was never much of an English student in my school days, but I improved when I grew up and began to write for a living. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new blog. If you know any English teachers, please tell them about it.

A flagger sign and a wooden Indian

I took this photo about 20 years ago, back when I was shooting black and white. I have always liked the photo. But until now I don't think I have published it anywhere or even shown it to anyone. I don't know if the photo is anything special or just ordinary. I do know that I have never been able to write a caption for it that made any sense. Do you have any ideas? Does this photo bring any thoughts to your mind? Please leave a comment.

Immortality in a picnic table

A lot of people carve their names into things. Or they paint their names onto things. Favorite places are rocks -- like in these two photos -- the top one in the Southern California desert, the other at Independence Rock in Wyoming where western emigrants passed by in covered wagons in the last half of the 1800s. They carved their names so that friends and family behind would know they had made it that far west.

A lot of people carve their names into picnic tables or into trees. In Calaveras Big Trees State Park in northern California, a trail leads by a fallen redwood with signatures of soldiers from more than 100 years ago. Basque sheepherders from about the same period carved names and images in Aspen trees: most of the trees are gone now.

We don't tell stories with our paintings and carvings these days like American Indians did with their pictographs and petrolglyphs. I think people leave their marks today for a couple of reasons: to come back later to be reminded of their previous visit or to gain some sort of immortality.

Immortality won't happen, though. All the carvings and paintings will eventually fade. A recent TV program concluded that if humans were to disappear from the Earth anytime soon, that in about 10,000 years (or thereabouts) every trace of them would vanish except for one thing: Mt. Rushmore.