Saturday, May 30, 2009
History and Bicycling in Sedalia
Friday, May 29, 2009
*Now* the sun comes out!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Internet on the Road seminar
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Welcome to the Escapade
We are in Sedalia, Missouri. We're here to attend our first Escapade. That is the annual rally of the Escapees club. Isn't that a great name though? Thousands of others, like us, have 'Escaped' the normal lifestyle of a stationary home and traded it in for a home on wheels. The tagline is 'Home is Where we Park it.'
Missouri has some very nice roads and green rolling hill scenery. And we are having gorgeous weather right now. Here is the road coming into Sedalia:
And, here's a little video about our welcome to the Escapade.
In the video you'll see a clip of a local newspaper story about the hundreds of RVs that are descending upon this small town. It's a nice story, but I wonder whose idea it was to sandwich it between a headline article about poor driving skills, and an ad for relocation services?!
In any case, we hope to have a very fun .. and profitable .. week here. Our booth is all set up and ready to go.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Higginsville ... Pleasantville
Green grass, birds singing, warm weather, no wind, people jogging in the park, kids playing baseball ... I know we're in Higginsville, Missouri but it sure feels like Pleasantville.
I went into town and got a haircut - always an experience. I've learned to take a photo with me of past good hairdays since I'm always at someplace new ... it doesn't seem to do much good though. At least it's out of my eyes now! On the way home I went grocery shopping at Piggly Wiggly ... where did they get that name?! Jim washed the rig - it looks a lot better without the blanket of bugs and grime, but now I can see the corrosion spots even worse. I asked Nick and Terry to look at it and see if they had any ideas of how to fix it. "Yes!" They said ... they did have an idea.
"Get a new motorhome."
bummer ... I love this motorhome. My way of fixing it is just to think about something else
ahhh dinner time.
Jim put some chicken on the grill and Terry made potato salad and some delicious banana nut bread. I'm not kidding - this is Pleasantville.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Higginsville Fairground RV sites

Saturday, May 16, 2009
Dinner and a Movie
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Small Town, USA
In 1980, I lived in Morro Bay, CA. With 9,000 people, I thought that was small. According to the 2000 census as reported by Wikipedia, Gravity's population is 218. So, our presence here increases the number of people by almost a percentage point!
We hear that, not so long ago, it was quite a bustling little town, with a school, several churches, theatre, shops and gas station. But, apparently more people have left the town than have arrived. Here's the main street now:
The two old buildings are the Bank and the Post office and, of those two - only the Post Office is still in operation. It sure makes you feel warm and fuzzy when, after only one visit, the Postmaster recognizes us and knows our names! Nice to meet you Cindy!
And it's easy to understand why the mayor stopped by to welcome Lynne and John when they first arrived. They want more people like them who will see the opportunity in taking over something like this hundred year old church and restoring it.
Being RVers, we are accustomed to being self sufficient ... a good trait for around here since it's 6 miles to the closest gas station or convenience store, and 15 miles to the closest laundromat! The nearest major cities are all about 2 hours away - DesMoines, Omaha, or Kansas City.
But, we might be seeing a rennaissance in Gravity. A new business just opened! A bar and grill! Nitro's. And, we could party as much as we wanted because it is only a 1/2 block walk home!
Actually doing the restoration is a lot of work, and will probably take a few years. But, they're going to have some fun with it too! This room will be Lynne's sewing room - here's her Mom, Frankie, making it bright and cheery.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
How many blogs?
It’s a cold day here in Gravity, Iowa. I was hoping it would be nice enough to take our kayaks to the nearby Lake of Three Fires State park – but it looks doubtful. At 49 degrees outside, I think I’ll stay in where the furnace is keeping me warm. Actually I may just crawl back under the covers and read my book today.
I’m feeling good because it’s just 8:30 and I already wrote my weekly post for the RV.net blog - which is due on Sundays. I wrote ‘What is Twitter’ – go read it, ok?
Now I’m writing here, in our personal blog. I also try to write at least once a week in our Geeks on Tour Articles blog. I might just copy the Twitter article there if I don’t think of anything else to write about. I’ve also been writing a weekly Picasa Tip on our GOT Articles blog. The Picasa tips have been taking over the whole GOT Articles blog, so I decided to make a new one. I was able to get the domain http://www.picasatutorials.com/ and got it set up yesterday with WordPress. I’ll separate the Picasa tips from the other articles, and now … have you been counting? I will be writing in 4 blogs.
I wonder if there’s a 12 step program somewhere for Bloggers?
But, no, I don’t want to stop … I want to keep working on blogs until I get it right! By ‘getting it right’ I mean making money. Everything is free on all our blogs, and I only have advertising on one – GOT Articles. But, all the free information is supposed to give us credibility, and give our readers the desire to learn more with our tutorial videos requiring a paid membership at http://www.geeksontour.com/. With the new blog at http://www.picasatutorials.com/, I will be setting up a separate membership system so people can pay just for Picasa tutorial videos. I’m looking at two membership systems now – http://www.memberwing.com/ and http://www.wpwishlist.com/. If anyone reading this has experience with either of these, or another WordPress membership plugin – I’d love to hear from you. The Geeks on Tour membership system I wrote from scratch with Coldfusion … I don’t want to do that again.
Wish me luck, this is how we support ourselves on the road.
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Friday, May 08, 2009
Spring has sprung
It's still chilly overnight, but we've had at least partly sunny days here in southern Iowa. The grass is green and the trees are in blossom! These look like cherries, just small.
And here's Lynne and John's church. They're renovating it as their home ... what a job! Being someone who only creates stuff on a computer screen, I am so in awe of people who can build / create stuff that's bigger than them. And, this is a *lot* bigger.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Shopping at an Auction
It was a gorgeous day yesterday, and 5 of us women went to an auction. Lynne wanted to get a washer/dryer for the church and, well, you just never know what else you might find.
What fun! And, what a great way for people to buy and sell stuff. The guys had to come get us with a couple of trucks before we were done!
Friday, May 01, 2009
Ring the Bell!
Kind of like breaking a champagne bottle across the hull of a new ship, Lynne and John rang the bell in their church.
We were also hoping that this would ring in the Spring as it’s been surprisingly cold and drizzly. And, sure enough, today is May 1 and the sun is shining!