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Four Winds of change

 

The Cliftons will be touring the USA in Four Winds RV

 

As my focus on travel-writing broadened, it became clear that two things were missing from my arsenal for attacking the problem of up-grading and up-dating my Examiner column. First, travel writers, travel. That’s how we bring personal insight to an event or destination. Otherwise, one could copy the marketing work already done, change a word or two, and publish. I don’t work like that; I’m a creative writer, not a color copier.

To that end, I decided to take fairly drastic action given the dismal state of the economy and the competitive nature of travel writing and publishing.  First, to deliver my cherished readers an even more exciting, diverse travel column on a regular basis, I would need to enrich and expand my own travel experiences. I decided that I needed to go further, stay longer and see more of this beautiful, expansive country in order to pen the best column for you.

The second epiphany was that there needed to be another element to my stories. Many interesting and humorous things occur when I attend an event or visit a community. Often, they have little to do with the main travel topic. Some are dramatic, like when we were camping in Juniper Springs, Florida and a hard freeze developed overnight. I had to scour the forest for firewood in the middle of the night to keep the navigator and me from freezing. All of our water froze solid, and I still remember my little dog licking the ice in his bowl when the sun finally rose over the campsite. Then there was the winter my sister-in-law’s tent was swept away in a midnight flashflood leaving four of us soaked and shivering in my drooping tent telling scary stories.

More recently, somewhere in the North Georgia Appalachians one evening around dusk, my wife spotted a giant black grizzly bear. She slapped at me with one hand while pointing wide-eyed at a nearby hillside. It was an ominous vision to say the least. I had no gun, no knife, not even a large stick with which to fight the animal that must have weighed as much as a Volkswagen. The monster was still far enough away that I figured we might outrun it, but then my fifty-something wife is no track star, so we stood there and gawked.

Suddenly, a skinny arm flew out from its side. At first, I wondered how such a massive beast could have such a diminutive limb. The polio plague of the fifties came to mind, but I was pretty sure that was a humans-only disease. Then, truth dawned and my BP tumbled back to normal. The enormous black bear on the hillside was actually a fat, black cow facing away from us in the diminished light, and the skinny limb was its fly-swatting tail.

Such personal episodes can add color to a story because they invite my readers to experience the fears, joys and reflections of the Travel Examiner from a more personal perspective. So here then is the rub. After much research on RV vehicles and lifestyles, we purchased a motor home and have made plans to travel the country writing freelance travel columns for this and other publications. I will interweave the RV lifestyle and our personal experiences on the road with the specifics and descriptions of travel events and destinations to create compelling travel stories from around the USA.

Our 31’ Four Winds Chateau will be our home for much of the year. Perhaps you have seen the movie, RV; if so, you have an idea where I began in terms of my RV experience. However, I managed to find a used hog-lift and installed it to carry my motorcycle, we had a Blue-Ox-hitch installed on my Jeep tow-car, and we take delivery on the Chateau late next week. Insurance is updated, towing service is prearranged, and we have informed Buster and Bitsy, our Boston Terrier and Chiuaua, their lives are about to change dramatically.

Remember, the travel column isn’t going anywhere, even though the title will receive an update, so subscribe now and follow the adventures of your favorite Examiner as he and the Navigator explore America up close and personal. I’ll see YOU on the road.