Park City, Kentucky – Day 4

The motorhome is still parked at the Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV Resort at Park City, Kentucky. We expect to leave here later this morning.

The day before yesterday I drove the Bronco the about seven miles to the visitors center at Mammouth Cave National Park. At 400 miles, it is the longest known cave system in the world. What makes it more amazing is that it is all contained in about a seven mile diameter area and only goes down a maximum of 400 feet into the earth.

Because of Mary’s ongoing physical pains and problems we only took the “old folks” tour…1/4 mile in and out. We were in the cave for about 45 minutes. At the end there are 49 steps that go down to the bottom. Mary did not attempt those steps for which I am glad. I managed them okay.

Yesterday I showed you the photos from the visitors center. Today you get to see the actual cave photos…but first a word about the photos. I really dislike flash photography and hence keep the flash feature of my camera shut off. No flash photography for me! Park rules do not allow tripods on tours…so all the photos were taken in a hand-held mode.

The cave was very dark and lit by variously colored spotlights. So the color in any particular photo was directly controlled by the color frequency of the illuminating light. Because of the color of the lights, formations of the rocks and shadows, some of the photos approach an abstract perspective. I hope you enjoy them!

Here are some of the photos that I took…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

To read about Mammouth Cave National Park, click this link…
http://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm

You can also get more information from this Wikipedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Cave_National_Park

Enjoying beautiful national parks is another joy of the full-timing lifestyle!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Kentucky. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Thousand Trails Medina Lake RV Resort, Lakehills, Texas – Day 19

Mary remains at home in California tending to medical and personal business issues. She has made her airline reservations to join me at Harlingen, Texas on January 3, 2013.

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails about 40 miles west of San Antonio. I’ll be departing here Monday, December 10th.

Today…more of those very difficult to capture birds.

You may not know that professional wildlife photographers frequently bait the area to attract the animals, sit for hours in a photo blind, with very sturdy tripods and very long zoom lenses.

I am not that dedicated. Today’s photos were shot by myself and all were hand-held shots. You have to be really lucky and fast to capture hand-held photos of these birds.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Enjoying beautiful birds in nature is another joy of the full-time RVing lifestyle!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of Texas. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Heron Lake State Park, New Mexico – Day 73

The motorhome is still parked at Heron Lake State Park about 20 miles south of Chama, New Mexico.

I’ve been here for several weeks now and have photographed everything worth seeing within a 30 mile radius. I’m still not feeling that well that I care to drive lots of miles in search of photographs. The doctors told rest should be my #1 function.

Lake Heron has an amazing number of widely varied sunrises, sunsets and cloud formations. I’ve got some really neat photos to share. I’ve already taken them and will portion them out over the next several days.

 While they are similar because of the momentary setting…they are all very different and unique. I hope you will open each one and enjoy their uniqueness. I particularly like to enjoy the colors and the shapes. Just like staring at a fire from moment to moment…you never see quite the same thing…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Enjoying beautiful sunsets is another joy of the full-time RVing lifestyle!

I am recovering from my May 27th accident. To read about my recovery status, click this link… http://otrwjam.wordpress.com/recovery-status-page/

While I’m recovering, Mary remains at her home in California tending to doctor’s appointments, her rentals and other miscellaneous business.

If you have not checked out my new Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Was James Dean An RVer?

We’re still at the Golden Sun RV Resort in Apache Junction, Arizona where we will remain hanging out and visiting with friends. See my Blog entry for more information about this place… http://wp.me/pDCku-3wM

Yesterday was laundry day in preparation for our planned departure tomorrow. Today we’ll grocery shop and visit another of Mary’s cousins.

In the meantime..I thought you might enjoy this interesting RV story…
http://rvdailyreport.com/News/ctl/ArticleView/mid/427/articleId/18533/James-Dean-An-RVing-pioneer.aspx

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Bear Gulch Trail

Yesterday…on our final full day at Thousand Trails Thunderbird RV Resort in Monroe,Washington…Mary and I took an afternoon walk on Bear Gulch Trail which runs along a ridge above the campground. It was a delightful day to take some photos. You may click on them to see an enlarged view…

In case you are wondering…no…we did not see any bears.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Chinabago…

As we…the United States of America continue to send all of our jobs and money to China…we’re also sending them something else of ours…the RVing lifestyle. Just yesterday my Blog posting identified how motorhomes in the U.S. are smaller and less flashy than just a few years ago.

Here’s the link from China Times…

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1504&MainCatID=&id=20110807000024

Makes me wonder when this country is going to wake up. Must we wait until there are no more jobs and all are homeless?

The United States is such a beautiful country. It’s truly sad what the politicians have done to it!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://lulu.com/panamaorbust

I Visit “THE” Information Man Of…

the RVing World! If it has to do with RVing…Chuck Woodbury knows about it.

Yesterday I drove the one hour drive from my current camping spot in Monroe to meet Chuck Woodbury at his office in Edmunds, Washington. Chuck and I have chatted via email a few times in the last couple of years…but had not previously had a chance for a face-to-face meeting. Both of us have been RVing for many years…but have not managed to cross paths in all that time.

Chuck Woodbury is the editor of this, now electronic, weekly RVing newsletter which he has been writing for nearly ten years. In addition, Chuch writes several other RVing Blogs and runs the RV Bookstore…specializing, naturally, in books about the RVing lifestyle.

Here’s Chuck’s biography as taken from his newsletter…

——————————————————————–

About the RVtravel.com editor
Chuck Woodbury has explored America by RV for nearly three decades. In the ’90s he published the quirky travel newspaper Out West about his adventures, and he was an “on the road” writer for the New York Times Syndicate. Nowadays, he lives near Seattle where he drinks massive amounts of coffee and travels often in his motorhome and sometimes by plane when vast expanses of saltwater would turn his RV into a leaky submarine. He is the host of the Better Business Bureau DVD “Buying a Recreational Vehicle,” the definitive guide to purchasing an RV the right way.

———————————————————————–

We had a very enjoyable 2.5 hour visit comparing our RVing lifestyle experiences.

In the past I had queried Chuck about having my books in his RV bookstore and he was truthful…telling me my books were concerned with such a very small niche market…that he couldn’t handle them. I had absolutely no problems and understood fully.

So…while during my visit with him…I was greatly surprised when he suggested that we do a video interview and that he would use portions of it to promote my books in his weekly newsletter.

Here are some photos I took during my visit…

His “office” is in a warehouse in a nice business complex…

Here is the office…video studio and a portion of his storeroom…

Looking from the back of the storeroom towards the front door…

Finally, Chuch setting up the video camera for my interview…

Chuck told me that he has 21,000 regular subscribers to his newsletter and that it receives about 60,000 page hits a week!

If you are an RVer and are not reading his weekly newletter…you should be! If you are not an RVer…but have RVing friends…you need to tell them about Chuck and his weekly newsletter. Better yet send them a link so that can see and read it for themselves.

Here’s the link to Chuck’s latest newsletter…

http://rvtravel.com/issue490.shtml

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://lulu.com/panamaorbust

The Big Picture…

For the past several Blog entries, I’ve presented a lot of photos about my current camping spot at Thousand Trails RV Resort in La Connor, Washington. This will be the final Blog entry about this beautiful place…

First a Google Earth view showing the general area…

The a photo from atop Mount Erie….

You can view all 85 photos in one place by clicking the below link. Once you get there, click on slide show and enjoy!
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/ThousandTrailsRVResortLaConnorWashington

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://lulu.com/panamaorbust