The other day the mail brought something special to us. Our 25-year member pins from the Escapees RV Club. Wow. 25 years is a long time. And though we are no longer RVing, we are lifetime members of the very best club for those who travel full or part time or are just weekend campers.
If you’re not familiar with them, the Escapees are more than just an RV club. They are a total support system for RVers. Besides having 19 campgrounds and co-op campgrounds around the country, and an excellent discount program to hundreds of commercial campgrounds, they have an excellent mail forwarding system for those living on the road; they have annual rallies offering dozens of seminars on all aspects of the RV lifestyle and vendors selling anything and everything you could ever need for your home on wheels, as well as a multitude of other educational and social events.
They also have CARE at their Livingston, Texas headquarters. CARE is an independent living program where RVers who can no longer travel can live in their RVs and are provided with assistance for everything from dumping their holding tanks to laundry and housecleaning, along with free transport to local medical services, weekly Walmart shopping trips, social activities, and someone to be there when needed.
But more important than all of that is that the Escapees are a large extended family. You’re never a stranger at an Escapees campground or event. We found out what that family part really means 18 months after we started our fulltime RV lifestyle when Terry was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer while we were in northern Michigan late in the year. Members of the club we did not even know circled around us from afar, sending cards and letters, offering any support they could, volunteering to donate blood, and letting us know we were not alone. We were parked in a relative’s driveway, and once a week we had to go to a campground to dump our holding tanks. An anonymous member of Escapees contacted the campground and paid for them to let us in once a week to dump our holding tanks, even though they were going to be closed for the winter season. Another member of the Escapees called us to tell us that his family owned a completely furnished vacation condo there in Traverse City and that if we were not comfortable in the RV, we were welcome to use it as long as we wanted at no charge. All we had to do was bring our toothbrushes.
Years later, when we came back to the RV one night at a shop in Indiana where we were getting some work done to find our window broken out and a burglar inside, two different members of the Escapees club told us they were traveling and had homes locally that we were welcome to stay in until our RV was ready to travel again. Yeah, that’s family. And that is why we will always consider ourselves part of the Escapees family.
On another note, my new book, Big Lake Accident, is climbing up the charts. Yesterday afternoon it was listed at #1,024 out of the estimate 40 to 50 million e-books on Amazon, #20 on the list of the top 100 Hot New Releases in Police Procedurals, #42 in Crime Fiction, and #88 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. Thank you all for your support.
And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. This one is courtesy of my dear friend Judy Rinehimer.
Thought For The Day – A clown’s average salary is $40-50K a year, and here I am, being one for free.