Searching for a baseball bat for my RV

I was searching through a sporting goods store the other day for a baseball bat, not to play with but to use to smack against my RV tires to make sure they aren't flat. But do you know what I learned? I learned that it is hard to find a wooden bat. At least nine out of ten these days are made of aluminum. The wooden bat, it seems, is going the way of the wooden golf club and the wooden tennis racket. This is good for the aluminum industry and bad for the wood industry. It is proof, once again, that one's person's loss is another person's gain.

Truck with with funny (but true!) message

I followed this truck for a few miles on I-5 in Northern California. I liked the passing instructions printed on the back. Just in case you can't see the photo clear enough to read those instructions, here is what they say. The message on the green sign, which directs you to pass on the left, says "Passing Zone." The other sign, in red, points to the right and says "Suicide Zone." It's nice to see a truck with a sense of humor.

Mystery of slot machine woman never solved

I bet that you have never seen a slot machine like this one I photographed about 20 years ago in a casino in Virginia City, Nevada. When I visited the casino a few years ago, the machine was gone.

For awhile after taking the photo, I tried to learn where the machine was made. I wanted to meet the woman who modeled for it, or learn if such a woman ever even existed. If the slot machine was made in, say, the late '40s, then the woman was probably born somewhere around 1920. That would have made her about 68 back then, or 88 today.

Alas, I never found her. My guess is that the machine was the likeness of a real woman. I wonder who she was? And where is this machine now? Maybe one of her grandchildren bought it. Boy, that would be strange -- having an image of your grandma as a beautiful young woman on a slot machine in your living room.

If you own this slot machine and want to sell it, please let me know.

New RV has slideout balcony: just what the world needs!

I nominate the new Veranda by Country Coach with its very own slideout balcony as the stupidest RV to come around in a long time.

The Veranda's balcony can hold 3,000 pounds, so about a dozen people can occupy it at once, which would be like like standing at a busy street corner in Tokyo. The deck adds extra weight to the rig, which is good news for Exxon and Shell. But the best thing about this new and "exciting" RV is that its owners never need to step on actual grass or dirt to get some fresh air -- a great savings in shoe leather (or rubber). In this picture, Dad is tossing a football to little Linda and Billy. Dad doesn't even need to get out of his rig to do it. How 'bout that?

Manufacturers of big coaches are having tough times right now because what people really want are smaller, more fuel-efficient rigs. So Country Coach, which laid off 100 workers earlier this month because its product sales are tanking like its competitors, has answered with this.

The future of RVing is in Scotland

I have seen the future in Scotland -- the future of RVing.

I've been in Scotland now for three weeks, exploring the countryside -- the big towns and the little villages (lots of them). Everywhere I go, the roads are packed with motorhomes and travel trailers. In the United Kingdom, travel trailers are called caravans. Those who travel with caravans or motorhomes (sometimes called campervans or motorcaravans) are called caravaners.

RV parks are everywhere and are called caravan parks. Most are non-descript grass-covered fields with designated campsites (called "pitches"). The cost to stay is about the same as in the U.S. -- $25 to $35 a night in our dollars. Most offer hookup and non-hookup sites. Holing up in a freebie place is called "wild camping" -- the U.K. word for "boondocking."

The cost of unleaded gasoline here is roughly about 4.5 British pounds -- which translates to about $9 or $10 a gallon in U.S. dollars. Ouch! But the steep price isn't stopping the "caravaners." In Oban the other day, on the West Coast, a parade of motorcaravans (small motorhomes) passed through town one after another, morning through evening. I was stunned at the numbers.

MOST CARAVANS (trailers) are in the 15- to 20-foot range. Motorhomes seldom exceed 24 feet with most 18 to 22 feet. They look a lot like the fuel-efficient U.S. motorhomes built on the new and very popular Dodge Sprinter chassis. Only rarely do you see a motorhome here with dual wheels in the rear: 95 percent have only four. Of the thousand or so RVs I have seen, only three were recognizable American brands. The big diesel bus-type motor coaches favored by full-timers in the USA are absent. They would be a tough fit on the mostly narrow, two-lane roads of this country.

Trailers are pulled by four- and six-cylinder cars and vans. If you listen closely when a motorhome passes you will hear the tick-tick-tick of a small, fuel-efficient engine. There are no fifth wheel trailers in Scotland, and only a few truck campers. You very seldom even see a pickup truck. RVs don't have slide-outs. Instead, many, many RVers pack along a tent patio which attaches to a caravan outside its entry door.

Europeans have paid a lot for petrol for a long time unlike we North Americans who are still in shock over seeing the cost of our own fuel more than double in the last couple of years. The Scottish newspapers report that caravaning is more popular than ever despite rising fuel prices. In fact, with so many RVs on the road, a new term has been coined -- "caravanger," as in "caravan anger." The term applies to the feeling of drivers stuck behind a slow caravan on a two-lane road.

IN AMERICA, with our wide roads, larger RVs are much easier to maneuver. And until recently, how much fuel they burned wasn't much of a factor in the cost of RV travel. But suddenly, the high cost of fuel has become an issue with Americans and Canadians to the point where many are traveling less or even selling their rigs.



A caravan with a tent-type patio. This is a common scene in caravan parks.

Here in Scotland, I see the future -- where RVing is as popular as it ever was in the USA or Canada, but with most RVers traveling with smaller, more fuel-efficient rigs. What I have seen leads me to believe that while RVing in America is going through a tough time, as the months and years pass and more RVers opt for smaller, more fuel-efficient rigs, the pace of RV travel will return to where it was when our fuel was cheap.

And a final note: if you are looking for a beautiful country to visit, put Scotland on your itinerary. A great way to get around is to rent a motorhome.

Cheers!

Cell phone ring or ice cream truck passing by?

An ice cream truck just passed through the campground. As it passed, the ice cream man eyed my campsite, probably looking for a kid. When I first heard his truck's jingle I reached for my cell phone to answer it. I do that all the time when I hear jingles, whether on the radio, on a CD, or from another person's cell phone. This wasn't the first time I tried to answer an ice cream truck. Too many things ring nowadays. We are a society of ringing things.

I don't know how that ice cream man sleeps. That jingle must go through his head over and over long after he parks his truck, even at night in bed. You can't just put a pillow over your head and make a tune go away! Maybe he changes the jingle throughout the day to help keep a single song from getting stuck in his head -- that would make sense. If you are an ice cream man (or woman), please email me and tell me if you change your tune.

A lot of people are forced to listen to the same thing over and over. At my local grocery store, many customers use the self-checkout. A voice tells you what to do. After you scan an item, a female voice says "Please put the item in the bag." I have always wondered if it's a real or a computer voice. If it's real, then I would like to meet the voice to put a face to it. Not much chance of that, I don't think.

A lone grocery checker monitors all eight self checkout stations. "Please put the item in the bag," repeats over and over, all day, probably a thousand times in one checker's shift.

When the checker goes home, he or she probably just crashes in a comfy chair to zone-out after a day of standing up and being nice to people. I bet "Please put the item in the bag" goes through the checker's head. That would be awful. It would drive me nuts.

Is this, was this, a real girl?

This is not a girl, but a doll. I spotted it in a Snohomish, Wash., antique store. Don't you think a real girl modeled for this doll? The face is too different from most dolls, and who would ever think up such a face?

I didn't buy the doll, just took a picture.

If the doll is based on a real girl, then who was she? I have a big urge to find out. Maybe someone will read this and tell me. It would be great to find out, and then meet the girl, who would probably be a senior citizen by now, as I think this doll must be pretty old.

As I starred at this doll, I wondered what it would be like if someone created a doll that looked just like your own daughter or sister or someone close to you -- or even you when you were young. What if you were in a store -- like I was in Snohomish, and you turned a corner and there it was -- a doll that looked just like you or your daughter when she was young? It would be eerie -- a Twilight Zone kinda experience.

This kind of thing can happen. I don't want to find a doll that looks like my daughter when she was little. Well, maybe I do now that I think about it. I'd buy it, for sure. I know that.