It just occurred to me that I haven’t posted a real update in about a week. So here’s a real update.
I had a good stay near Gila Bend. Friends drifted in and out of camp during the week I was there. The cold, wind, and rain have finally gone away, and warmer temperatures are returning. Stacey and I were the last to leave last Wednesday, each of us making our own way back to Quartzsite, with a quick side trip to Buckeye for supplies before leaving civilization. I’ve been back at my camp in La Posa South ever since.
It’s still fairly busy here, but enough people have cleared out after the January madness that I can now navigate through town without traffic or having idiots almost run into me every time. Our core group is still here. Life is pretty much back to whatever my version of normal is out here.
Then that Cheap RV Living video got posted. My YouTube channel, which just crossed the 1,000 subscriber mark last week, is up to well over 1,200 now. These are small numbers for the big successful channels, but they’re huge numbers for me and a 20% increase in viewers. I had no idea that video was going to drop when it did (we shot it over a year ago), but by luck, I was perfectly positioned for it to happen when it did. I’ve been posting videos regularly and already had a growing subscriber base on my own merits. I’ve found a style that works for me, and my viewers comment that they enjoy it, too, so I’ll run with it. That video took what I was already doing and accelerated it to Ludicrous Speed.
At this point, if I just keep doing what I’m doing, I’ll be able to monetize the channel and turn it into another income stream. I doubt I’ll ever truly make a living by making videos. I also don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket like that, especially YouTube’s basket. The more small baskets, the merrier. That way, if the bottom drops out of one income stream (either YouTube or one of my freelance writing or editing gigs), I’m still okay.
Afternoons are now getting warm enough that it was worth putting up my shade cloth to keep things a little bit cooler. I’m no longer using my heater at night, and only briefly using it first thing in the morning to take the chill out of the air. Soon, I won’t even need to do that. It’s nice. In another month, it might start getting a little too warm, at which point I’ll start moving somewhere cooler. I still don’t know where my summer travel is going to take me. I should probably start working on figuring that out.
Smokey Da Van 