Prior to owning an RV park and campground in the Shenandoah Valley for eight years (as detailed in my first book, Renting Dirt), our family lived in Manassas, VA while I worked as editor of The Guild Reporter, a now defunct publication of The Newspaper Guild, a labor union. Earlier in my career I had been a reporter, columnist and editor for a variety of small, medium and major newspapers, many of which also are no longer with us. I do not take any responsibility for their demise. During those years I spent much time backpacking, both in the Mountain West and in the Appalachians, and our little family did a modest amount of RVing in pop-ups, small trailers, and Class Cs. Once we owned a campground and I was able to leave its operation to my family for a month each winter, I also took extensive overseas hiking trips in New Zealand, Tasmania, Nepal, Bhutan, Peru and Patagonia. The last is as close to heaven on earth as I can imagine, but then again, I like wind. Since retiring from active campground management I've been maintaining a blog about all things RVing, renting-dirt.com, to which I post approximately twice a week, and have contributed erratically to RVtravel, an online RV publication. Turning Dirt is my second book on the subject.
