The phenomenon of people starting travel blogs has really gained steam since we first started ours back in October 2005.   Just counting the current Airstream travel blogs, I can easily find dozens.   To keep my blogroll under control, I only list the blogs of full-time Airstream travelers (you can see the links at right), but there are many more.

Usually we meet the fellow bloggers after they have been traveling for a while, but in this case we found the opportunity to meet some future Airstream travelers/bloggers before they actually got on the road full-time. The blog is called Malimish.com, and it is the product of a nice family of three from California. At this point they’ve only had their Airstream for two months (traded up from a T@b trailer), but they seem to already be in love with it and are planning to hit the road full-time in the spring.

Our luck stems from the fact they they like to go to Tucson for vacations, and so through a series of fortunate coincidences we discovered they would be at Catalina State Park this weekend.   So they popped over for dinner last night and we got to meet the entire crew (except for the cat) plus Carrie the guest traveler.

It’s amazing how much we always have in common with other young full-timers.   (Hey, no cracks about us being not-so-young-anymore!)   I like to share the knowledge and experiences we’ve accrued with other people, in the hope that they’ll go out and have even more fun than we did (by avoiding our worst mistakes).   Honestly, I think a year on the road is something everyone should experience in their lifetime.   Whether you do it all at once or a month at a stretch, full-timing will change you for the better.

I am especially impressed with the fact that these cool folks are doing it with a cat and a toddler.   That might seem scary, but most kids seem to thrive on travel, and it’s not really much harder than raising a toddler at home in my opinion.   We started traveling with Emma up to five months per year when she was just three years old.

The cat, I’m not so sure about.   I’ve never had a cat or dog that didn’t get sick in the car, or howl incessantly.   But hey, if your cat travels well (and I’ve seen many that do), who am I to say anything against it?   Our friend Sharon (see The Silver Snail blog, linked at right) travels with both a cat and a dog. So it can be done successfully.

We may encounter the Malimish crowd again in January, when we are roaming California, but there are no specific plans yet.   I am very interested to see how their blog shapes up once they start full-time travel next year.

This week my focus is the annual RV Industry Association trade show, which is always held in Louisville KY around this time of year.     This blog entry comes to you from Las Vegas airport, where I am awaiting a connecting flight.   I’ll be at the show Tuesday and Wednesday, then fly home on Thursday assuming nobody has managed to give me a cold.   The RVIA show is where the manufacturers show their new products and try to get orders from dealers.   It’s also a major opportunity to conduct all kinds of RV-related business, which is why I’ll be there with Brett.   We are going to try hard to get some new advertisers.

Believe me, little else could get me out of Tucson and into the snowy/rainy gloom of Louisville this time of year.   Tucson is a paragon of sunshine and pleasantness this time of year, while Louisville is facing that grim “mixed precipitation and high winds” sort of forecast that makes my skin crawl.   Just call it “40 to 60 percent chance of blecccch,” and you’ve got the concept.   But I’ll be indoors all day, roaming around under the giant tungsten lights and washing my hands after every handshake, so for the most part I won’t notice.   Wish me luck.