Book Sales and Brook's debut on TV at the Legos Display

The book is doing well.  Thank you so much for the great response!  It has been fun!

Over the course of deciding to give it a go and actually seeing it to completion, my main thought was, “Writing this book is a hobby -- let's not get too complicated.  Let’s see if we can actually get across the finish line.”

Having said that -- my goals are changing a little bit and you can help!
Its never too late to post a 5 star review on Amazon about the Wonder of RV Living! 😳
If you are inclined to do so, that would be great!!

Meanwhile, we are climbing up the ranks on the Amazon Bestseller List:

I didn’t really know what to look at but this is a quick snapshot.  I am pretty sure we were at 432,000 in Books, so we are climbing up the list!
Also - if you are considering writing a book, I highly recommend it.  It has been fun!  It took a long time but I find the whole process intriguing.

It reminds me of an earlier hobby I had -- making custom to fit golf clubs.

Back in the 1990’s I caught the bug and started putting them together and was shipping sets of clubs to England, Hawaii, California, Tennessee, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.  It was a learning process too, and I loved the mystery of it all.  I learned about suppliers and marketing and a whole host of other things.

This book-writing reminds me of that in many ways.  Apparently one has to have a marketing plan with a Book Launch to propel sales at the start.  Maybe we’ll do that for Vol 2 "Full-timing-Our First 7 Months on the Road.’  I’m looking for a Spring release on that one.  Stay tuned.
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Now on to other fun stuff.  The boys have had a couple of up and down weeks.  Mostly up but with the winter season, there have been some colds and worse.  First the fun stuff.

The weather here in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area has been pretty mild.  It has had some 70+ degree days and now there is snow in the forecast.  Early last week the boys and Kelly, Pam and I went to the Botanical Gardens in Norfolk to see the Legos displays.

 The boys came well-prepared with their scooters to zip around the walkways.  After a few hundred yards, we came upon the 12 displays that were impressive.  Each display depicted gardening or animals and birds that one would find at he gardens.

 I really liked the fact that it also had information on how many Legos it took for the display and how many hours it took to build it.

 The boys accommodated the photographer from time to time.

 Near the end we saw the hummingbird and then went to another display.

While there, a videographer from a local TV station asked if they could film Brooks.  Just like that, he was added to the list of kids at the gardens who got to say a few words.

Brooks had a few words to start off the clip. There is a brief look at Pam and Kelly and Harry and Brooks walking.  Have to be quick to see it.

The last couple of weeks have flown by!  Hope you and yours are well and if you haven’t taken a look you can check out the book on Amazon here.

Thanks for joining us on this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Checking Out the Tidewater RV Show

I’ve been looking forward to the Tidewater RV Show for some time.  A few months ago a friend said he envied the lifestyle we used to have in the Roadrunner and said he wanted to go with me next time it came to town.

It didn’t work out for him and me, and the Brooks and Harrison were coming over for a few minutes to check out Pam’s garden.  I thought about having them join me but Harry was getting over a cold, so I knew his stamina would not be able to withstand the rigors of traipsing around the RV show.  The option with grandma and her garden was better so they did that while I ventured down to the Virginia Beach Convention Center on my own.

It was a short but memorable time!  Amazing what can happen in a couple of hours.  Would you believe I bought an RV.....?

Naw -- didn’t think so.  I know better than that.  Actually I wasn’t really tempted, but one of the of the things I wanted to do was to see what was new and maybe find something that might fit our needs down the road.  I think we are currently looking at a trailer to pull behind our F-150.

They had some overflow RVs parked outside near where I was parked so I wander over there first.  I like the feature of this trailer that had a small door on each side of the bed.  I am an early riser, so I like the idea of getting up and closing off the bedroom so I don’t wake Pam.

I took a quick look at a couple of other ones but was anxious to see what was going on inside.

Next I went inside paid my $9.00 ($1 off for a military discount) and set out looking around.  I’ve done this more times than I can count and wandered up and down a few aisles looking at things.  Nothing in particular sparked any excitement.

I see more and more tiny RVs that are very small which have a basic double bed and that is about it.  I don’t quite get it.  Looks to me like an expensive hard shell / tent type of a deal.  But I guess they must be selling or they would not be making them.  There are all kinds of ways to do the RV thing.

RV shows are also great places to see the unusual and find some interesting items.  I signed up for a chance to win $100 and $500 at a few places knowing I can ‘Unsubscribe’ pretty quickly.  I passed a tent arrangement on the back bed of a Ford  F-150 and had a nice chat with the sales person there.  Plus I picked up a nice roll-up throw blanket I can put in my truck.

After about an hour or so I made my way along the back wall and talked with some more vendors.  One handed me some personal products and talked about reducing chemicals on the planet. Reminded me of Norwex products.  Our daughter Kelly and good friend Hillary sells those products.

The booth belonged to Dana McKee with whom I talked for a few minutes.  Turns out she is

advocating for safer laws in DC to get safer personal care products on the market.  Her website is 

beautycounter.com/danamckee.  

As we talked, I found out she is also a John Maxwell certified speaker. 

Interesting.

Another thing I found out was that she plays a key role in the RV show and is the contact person for vendors to get space at the show.  The more we talked, I decided I very well may have a table at next year’s show to promote one or two volumes of my upcoming book

I was telling Dana how much we like Dodd RV and have been to their stores many times over the years.  I think last year when we were talking of downsizing while we were in Williamsburg, we found their store in Yorktown and visited there looking at Class C’s.

I said we are fans of Dodd’s RV (who sponsored the RV show for the 39th consecutive year) and Dana suggested I talk with with Susie Dodd, who is the manager of the entire show.  I met her and learned more.

After that, I found some items for the boys and headed home.  I scored pretty well with the boys who tried on some sunglasses I picked up.

They fit perfectly!

It was fun to go to the RV show and I met some interesting people and got some good ideas for our next RV.  It was time well spent!

Thanks for joining u on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  In the next edition, we’ll finished up with Part 3 on how we sold the Roadrunner...

Big Weekend with the Boys

We get to babysit often and we love to be able to do that.  While Kelly and Jon were gone for the weekend we had the boys (Brooks and Harrison).

We spent some time at their house but the big deal was that they spent their first two nights with us at our house.  We let them know back in April when we first got out place that the extra bedroom with two twin beds was “their room.”

We weren’t sure how it would actually go because: 1) they were not in their own beds, and 2) they usually don’t sleep in the same bedroom.  We went through the ‘normal’ routine after dinner with play time, reading books and then getting baths.  Harry, being 2 years younger, goes to be 30 minutes before Brooks.

Usually he goes right to sleep but when it was time for Brooks to go to bed, Harry was still talking to himself and tossing and turning.  We had to turn on the light when Brooks went down so that didn’t help things.  Then they finally both were settled down.  I could hear them talking a little from the other room but I expected some of that.

About 20 minutes after Brooks went down, they sheepishly presented themselves into the hallway and announced they had to ‘go to the bathroom’. Hmmm.  One begins to wonder if this is the first of many ‘up and downs’....  They did their business, got a drink of water again and went back to bed.

Another 20 minutes, I checked on them and Harry was still talking to himself a little and Brooks was out.  Harry followed shortly after that!  Yay!  We all got a good night’s sleep.  Brooks was up earlier than usual the next morning but we went with the flow.  It turned out fine.

We pulled out all the stops with Donut Day, Chick-Fil-A playtime and lunch and then we went to their house (12 minutes from our house) for naps.  We followed by going back over to grandma and grandpa’s house for the rest of the day and night.  We prepped them for the idea of going to our church the next morning.

On Sunday we arrived on time and both were in the same class which helped.  Ms Karen met them and they had a great time.  Unbeknownst to us; the 8 member children’s choir was scheduled to sing “Jesus Loves Me” at the morning service.

We pushed the envelope and decided to stay for that and let the boys participate and it turned out great.

I got permission to share this with you.  After several attempts at different school and such, we hoped for a good video of the kids at their best.  This is it.  Brooks was going for it! And little Harry was trying to keep up with the hand motions the older kids learned that morning.  

It was fun and a milestone weekend.  Kelly and Jon returned on Monday and things got back to normal quickly.

Meanwhile, Pam had some appointments in the last couple of days and we are ready for her breast cancer surgery on Monday Nov 18 at 10:30 AM.  We are very thankful it is Stage 1, it is small and it was caught early.  We are expecting great things.  Thanks for your prayers and interest.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner(less) Chronicles!