Blogging

Blog Book | Dog Days of Summer

by Ingrid

It’s hot. I mean really hot, as in 116 degrees F hot (46 C). But we expected this when we decided to spend the summer in Phoenix, Arizona. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I literally look forward to those cold fronts rolling in when it’s only 96 degrees Fahrenheit, haha. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for this, but I do know, we’ll start feeling a slight reprieve in another month or so, and that can’t come soon enough.

In reality, I’m not complaining. Travel burnout is a real thing, and although a part of me wishes we were spending our summer back in northern Wisconsin, I find the mere thought of traveling between Arizona and Wisconsin to be exhausting let alone actually having to do the drive. Yep, I’ve totally embraced sitting on my a*s in one location and allowing dust to gather on the truck … for now, anyway.

The truck unmoved in our driveway gathering desert dust. Wonder if he needed a travel break as much as we did?

This fall we will have lived in our house for exactly one year. Even though life has slowed down quite a bit, the time has still gone by quickly. We’ve accomplished some remodeling on the house but kept it simple with minor repairs, painting, and a little decorating here and there. We kept our promise to each other to push any major renovations down the road, and I am so grateful for that decision. Supply chain issues and a shortage of labor are just a couple of factors that were considered, but allowing ourselves time to decompress and start feeling bored was the main goal.

Without the everyday decision-making and stress surrounding RV travel, Al and I have been able to focus on our health. He and I are both dealing with some issues, fortunately very manageable and nothing life-threatening just things to be mindful of, seek treatment, focus on eating healthy, exercise regularly, and get a good night’s sleep … all easier said than done … sigh.

AND we are becoming first-time grandparents sometime in August. Our son and daughter-in-law live nearby and are expecting their first child. That alone was worth settling down in the Phoenix valley and enduring the summer heat.

Al and Ingrid aka Grandpa and Mimi look forward to welcoming a little baby girl this August.
Book One of my blog

Blog to Book

So being housebound in air conditioning, I found myself with a little extra time on my hands, thus I finally got around to printing Book One of some of my early blog posts. I’m thrilled with the way it turned out, but it did take a fair amount of trial and error. I had four platforms on my radar that specialize in turning blog posts into books.

  • intorealpages.com
  • blog2print.com
  • blookup.com
  • pixxibook.com

First up was intorealpages.com I’d heard good things about this site from another blogger and therefore decided to start with this one. I uploaded my site with the appropriate range of blog post dates and after several minutes, I had the beginning of a book. How cool is that? But upon close inspection, I realized page after page was designed in a column-type of format. Meaning all the verbiage was in a column on the left side of the page along with a column of medium-sized images stacked along the right side of the page.

I hated it. Thus, deleted the project and started over. The second time, it loaded just like the first and again in a layout that just wasn’t what I was looking for. I acknowledge user error may have been involved, but I feel I did my due diligence and gave the site well over an hour of my time before moving on.

Second on the list; blog2print.com I was super happy with the way this site loaded and the way my images were displayed along with the text. The game changer for me was the inability to delete the date when the post went live. Last year (January-March), I stepped back in time and rewrote some of my earlier blog posts in preparation to turn posts into a physical book. Thus, the date of the post had nothing to do with the dates of my stories making this a no go for me.

Third on the list; blookup.com I couldn’t even get this site to load up. Although it tried. I gave this site a couple of attempts to no avail.

Blog posts into a printed book via Pixxibook.com

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Pixxibook.com This site was easy to navigate and customize. It loaded quickly, and I was able to remove the posted date. The price seemed reasonable and less expensive than the other sites. I received my finished product less than two weeks after I placed the order. The book arrived in perfect condition. They did a great job packaging the book in such a manner to prevent any possible damage during shipping which was much appreciated.

Very happy with the way the pages were laid out

The overall quality of the book and the paper used exceeded my expectations, so much so that I’m already planning on printing Book Two. If you too are considering a way to preserve your blog posts, I highly recommend trying Pixxibook.com (no affiliation or sponsorship, just a happy customer).

The only thing I’m not totally satisfied with is the quality of some of the images. I don’t blame Pixxibook for this though. I know some of the images weren’t great to begin with plus I also wonder if I should increase the resolution of the images uploaded to WordPress. I always shrink them to 800 pixels for quicker load times but feel that may be too low for printed images. I’m torn between image quality versus load times. Perhaps in a future blog post, I’ll upload some images with a higher resolution for comparison. 🤷‍♀️ I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Stay tuned for more travel tales and turning a blog into a book!

94 thoughts on “Blog Book | Dog Days of Summer”

    1. Fortunately, now that it’s mid-August, the worst is behind us.🙂 I’d still rather deal with the extreme heat than the extreme cold… been there done that. My snow shoveling days are a thing of the past.

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    1. Thank you! South Mountain Park is still on my list of places to hike. Since we’ve spent most of our time at the north end of the valley and now northwest, I’ve hit most of the regional parks along with some favorites in Scottsdale and Cave Creek. I love that there are no shortages of places to get into nature around here. Not much longer and we’ll be back to hiking temps. 😊

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  6. I lived in Arizona for some time and I HATED the heat. “It’s a dry heat” they would say, but no. Hot it hot! 😆 The blog to book thing is AMAZING! I think I’d love to have that for Christmas! How incredible. Thanks for putting it on my radar!

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    1. Yep, hot is hot and it does get old, but then again, so do cold winters in the north. At least I don’t have to shovel heat 😂 I highly recommend preserving your blog via a hard copy. I love having my pics and tales in print.

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      1. See I have the best of both worlds 🥰🤗 I live in the mountains of north Georgia. It doesn’t get that cold- we still get snow every couple of years or so- the mountains are lush, it’s still hot here but there’s plenty of forests to block out the sun and a ton of fishing spots to cool off in 🤪 Arizona is not for me. I didn’t like living in the desert nearly as much as I love living here. The book however sounds absolutely incredible and I am definitely going to have to order myself a coffee maybe to celebrate my one year blogging anniversary this December

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  7. Congratulations on becoming grandparents!! It’s wonderful that you’ll be close enough to spend time with your family. 🙂 Also, thanks for the feedback on the blog to book project! I remember reading that you were planning on doing this and then I sort of forgot it existed so your reviews were much appreciated.
    Hope you get some nice monsoon rains soon!

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  8. Hi Ingrid, I can’t believe you’ve been in your home for a year already! I’m so glad you’re happy there, and how wonderful that you have a new member of the family arriving soon. 🙂 Your book looks fantastic. I’d like to do the same one of these days, so thank you for sharing such great information about the process. Meanwhile, I have a lot of posts to catch up on, LOL.

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    1. The book turned out great. Now I have to turn the remaining 8 years of RV travel into books 😱 Once this weather breaks and we can sit outside, we’ll have you over for happy hour 🍷😁

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  10. Wow, Ingrid. I can’t believe you’ve lived in a house – and abandoned the RV lifestyle – for almost a year. Time flies. And, yes, travel burnout is a thing!! I had it big time after our eight years on the boat.

    I have to admit, staying in a little house in Belgium by myself for two weeks was extremely comfortable and a novelty. I might be able to get used to that! Sometimes I wished for us to sit still “long enough until I get bored” too. But I’ll never get bored. And I definitely never sit still long enough. There’s always more writing, reading, or learning to do. Or exploring.

    Thanks for the scoop on the blog-to-book platforms. One day, whenever I retire – or have time to get bored – I’d love to create books from my blogs as well. It will be a timely and expensive pursuit, though, after fifteen years of blogging at least once a week!

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    1. Oh, there’s always plenty to keep us busy living a stationary lifestyle. It’s just nice knowing we don’t have a schedule to maintain and can actually chill and push things down the road allowing us time to watch the clouds roll by.

      The nice thing about the blog-to-book platforms is the ease of upload and minimal time involved. It is far from the work involved in writing a memoir. Yes, it does get pricey. That’s why I started small and will break down the travel into various books over time. This first book made me really happy knowing when my blog goes ‘poof’, the memories are still preserved.

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  11. Wow, thanks so much for the in depth review of these blog-to-book platforms. I have had an interest in turning my complete blog into a book for personal use – I want to gift it to my daughter one day, for a keepsake. So this is so great to know there’s a wonderful platform out there that will make it a whole lot easier! Thanks again, Ingrid! So good to see you back on here 🙂

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    1. Thank you and preserving our tales for future generations is what it’s all about. I wish I had something similar from my parent’s RV travels. I would highly recommend experimenting with your own blog posts. Totally worth it!

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  12. Ingrid, I enjoyed your post and congratulations to the soon to be grandparents!

    I was interested in your thoughts on the various book printing companies. I used Blog2print for a couple books and wasn’t real happy with the experience or the results. Next time I will check out pixxibook.

    We didn’t leave Tucson until mid-May this year. There were already 100+ days. That is pretty unbearable in an RV. We were glad to get to Colorado where we are spending the summer.

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    1. Thank Deb and congrats on your nuptials. It’s tough living in an RV in those hot temps. Glad you were able to get back to Colorado. We are currently without an RV and hoping by next summer that we’ll have something small and nimble to get back up to the western slope for a long overdue visit and get a reprieve from the desert heat.🤞

      Every blog print platform seems to have its own tweaks, and it’s just a matter of taking the time to play around with each site. I am very happy with Pixxibook and will definitely use them again in the future.

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  13. What a great idea. The pages look nice. What a wonderful thing to be able to hand down to your grandchildren. Thanks for giving us the scoop on all the different platforms that turn blogs into books.

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    1. Hi Duwan. The thought of all my blog posts/travel tales disappearing one day was the impetus for researching various ways to preserve my stories. I’m already working on Book Two!

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  14. That is some heat! We had 40C in London recently (breaking all records) and I found that quite unbearable. Mind you, we don’t have a/c in our homes here so that makes it much worse!

    What a great idea to create a book from your blog 🙂 I’ve done a few photo books from our travels (I use Blurb) but not thought of doing anything with my blog. I may investigate, so thanks for the recommendation!

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    1. I’ve seen on the news the record breaking weather occurring in London. Here in Phoenix we expect that weather and are prepared. I can’t imagine enduring those temps without A/C. Hopefully, that extreme heat has moved on.

      I’ll be looking into other platforms when I want to do something even more personal especially dealing with the boxes of photos I have stored in the guest room. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it. The blog 2 book was super easy …. once I got organized.

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  16. How EXCITING and How COOL – ahhhh baby news – exciting – Congrats! and oh so cool in putting together a book. 🙂 I was thinking about all the pictures taking up space in the closet this weekend and thought about finding a site that can take them and just make them into digital photo albums. Glad to hear all is well. It has been hot here but not like your hot. So far the Summer is going good and cannot believe it is August already. Take Care – Happy Day – Enjoy

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    1. Thank you, Renee! FL and AZ are both dealing with the usual hot, uncomfortable summer weather, and we expect it. My heart goes out to the folks up north who aren’t prepared for the extreme heat and crazy weather going on this year.

      Don’t even get me started with bins of photos stored in the closet. I really need to start purging and organizing. So far, procrastination is winning. LOL My daughter has used Shutterfly for photo album making. Perhaps that’ll be next on the agenda.

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  17. Wow! Your first blog to book project was incredibly successful! It really looks great, Ingrid, and I was fascinated by the process. Thanks for sharing the trials and tribulations. Food for thought there, that’s for sure.

    There is much to be said for slowing down and focusing on good health habits. I always find that more difficult to do when we’re on the road, but it’s an important factor that impacts our quality of life – present and future. Happy to hear that you and Al are enjoying the down time.

    Best wishes to your family as you all prepare for your tiny bundle of joy!

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    1. Thank you, Mary. We are excited about the arrival of a little granddaughter. I’m staying strong and not walking through the baby dept at Target or elsewhere. Challenging!

      I would HIGHLY recommend you look into printing your own memory book from your posts. You’ve done such a great job sharing your past excursions on your blog that it’d make a great physical book. Tidbit; all you’d have to do is remove those beginning paragraphs talking to your blog audience about stepping back in time.A few edits here and there and voila, ready to print. Once I had the posts themselves edited, I simply popped the info into Pixxibook, did a little customizing, and thirty minutes later placed the order – easy peasy. I’m here if you have questions 😊

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    1. I knew you favored ‘intorealpages’ but we both know, you are more tech-savvy than I. 😁 Have fun on your excursion and we’ll see you when you get back to AZ.

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  19. Good to hear from you again! I’ve never regretted getting off the road and feel my life is much fuller now. We really like having the two places, one in Arizona and one in Minnesota for the summer, with flying back and forth. Glad to hear the health concerns are nothing serious. Congrats on being a grandmother, and to a girl…that’s the best! I’d love to get together with you this fall when we return early October.

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    1. I was just at IKEA over the weekend and thought of you. It has been way too long since our last visit. We WILL definitely plan a get-together when you guys are back in the valley. I envy you with the second home in the north. Al’s sister in Wisconsin will be selling and moving here next year leaving us without a summer place to escape to. We so enjoyed our summers up there, but in reality, the drive was getting more difficult each year. You guys are wise to fly. Thoughts to ponder!

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  20. Hi Ingrid. So delighted to hear from you! I’ve been wondering how it was going. And huge congratulations on your new granddaughter coming soon. People say that is the best of all! I appreciate your doing the legwork about blog to book. I’ve been thinking of doing that myself. I assume I just need buckle down and figure out topics for each book – probably by place. And then find the pictures and text. Well that will take awhile, but like you, I don’t want to lose all the information and I really like the feel of a book in my hands. Take care!

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    1. I absolutely love having the travel memories in a printed album. The organization was key to the outcome. You’ve taken some very memorable trips that would work great to print. My friend MonaLiza aka Lowes Travels, printed about 8 different books. Each focused on a particular area of travel.

      What I did Jan-March 2021 was rewrote earlier posts in preparation to print my personal book. It would be really easy for you to do the same. You just have to remember to write for you and not a blog audience. Email me if you have any questions.

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  21. Ingrid, reading your post just made my day! I feel like I’ve reconnected with an old friend! Congratulations on becoming a grandma soon! When we were expecting our first grandchild (he’s 18 now and off to college in August) a friend told me “grandchildren make you crazy.” She was right. Enjoy every second with you precious baby.
    So glad you are enjoying your new home. I totally understand how you don’t miss those long travels. And your blog to book looks wonderful! Welcome back to the blogging world.

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    1. Hi Beth, I’ve missed connecting. Life got a little hectic with health issues (a cancer scare) but all is well and manageable now and no C involved.

      I know there will come a day when I won’t continue supporting this blog platform, thus all my tales will one day go “poof”. Preserving my stories and images in a printed book format is the perfect way to share these memories with a new generation. Hopefully, my granddaughter will be interested in hearing about Mimi’s adventures. Always nice hearing from you 🙂

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  22. I sooo get it about tiring of the travel life. We sold our fiver last Fall and spent the Winter in Florida..moteling it and looking for a home. Prices were insane and we were a bit disappointed not buying one. However , the search is not over. We are also considering a place in Wisconsin. ..anything but Illinois. Our grandkids are nearly grown, 24,22,18,14 and 11, with the first two being Police Officers (grimace). Congrats on the granddaughter and a wedding coming up. A whole new chapter is beginning…Great to see you on your blog…Your house looks wonderful..Keep in touch!!

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    1. Hey Donna, nice to hear from you. I totally get not wanting to stay in IL. I try not to tell people I grew up there LOL. Char and Steve will be selling their place in Hayward next year and moving to Sun City. We all have mixed emotions considering that’s a beloved lakefront home. The Lund boat is already on the market and the ’98 pontoon will be given away when she’s taken out of the water in Sept. Sigh! We planned on going back up in ’23 cause Char originally wasn’t going to sell until ’25, but life happens. Al even found a great eye doctor up there for his macular shots. Oh well, we’ll have to find other places to go to escape the desert heat.

      Good luck on the house hunt. The market is changing so hopefully you’ll have better luck in your search.

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      1. Just curious,what lake does Char live on? My Grampa had a cabin near Grindstone…and our family has vacationed at Treland’s on the Chippewa Flowage…You can pm me on messenger if you want. FYI, Dennis gets monthly shots for Macular Degeneration too..Tell Al, misery loves company!

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        1. I’ll dm you via FB. Al’s macular D is holding steady. He liked his Dr. in WI as much as his Retina Specialist here. and never missed a treatment, but that was a major reason why we no longer meandered between AZ and WI. We had a schedule to maintain.

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  23. So happy you’re happy with settling in, heat notwithstanding. Being near your kids is a big plus for you, I know, and soon with a grandbaby, you’ll be over the moon! We often miss what we no longer have or do, but how very fortunate we all are to have had and done so much. Now you’ve found a beautiful way to preserve that in your printed book(s)! The first volume looks great. Thanks for posting/sharing; I hope you’ll continue to do so. ❤

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    1. Yes, we’re very happy here. Happier than we thought we would be. This isn’t something I would’ve pictured a few years ago, but life has a way of taking us on journeys we never imagined. Putting some of those blog posts into a book was a great way to preserve travel memories, and tales I look forward to sharing with grandchildren. Now it’s time to start on Book Two and shift through external harddrives for photos…. sigh, I sense some procrastination on my part.🙂

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  24. Great information! We printed one book using blog2print but weren’t exactly thrilled with the way the pictures fell on each page.

    We’ll give pixxibooks a try next time and see how that comes out.

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    1. Hey Jim. I’m enjoying armchair travel with you this summer. Fun adventures!
      I know you didn’t like how the photo caption was printed in your book. I’m pleased that Pixxibook kept it with the photo and didn’t put it into the paragraph. I think you’ll be happier with this platform. Safe travels on your way home.

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  26. Hi, Ingrid,
    What a pleasant surprise to have Live, Laugh, RV back on the air! Congratulations on the new addition to the family. Our grandchildren arrive from both coasts on Friday and we are buzzing with excitement. Grandparenting is a great gig. Just curious–how many posts did you upload? Enjoy your summer and give our best to Al. Joe

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    1. Hey Joe. It’s good to be back. We’re looking forward to becoming grandparents. Last January ’21 – Mar ’21 I rewrote posts from our travels in 2012-2013 and these are the posts that went into Book One. It’s around 81 pages – $58. My plan for Book Two is to rewrite posts from where I left off and focus my tales and images for us personally and not necessarily for my blog readers. These next stories will lead up to us deciding to go full-time.

      I would highly encourage you to try printing a book for yourselves. I so wanted to retrace some of my parent’s RV excursions but lacked info thus I’m printing these posts for my children and grandchildren. Sooner or later I’ll stop paying for this WP site and all my tales and images will go poof! I can’t let that happen. Hugs to you and Helen.

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  27. How lovely to open up my email and see you have posted a blog post! So nice to hear from you.
    I really appreciate your knowledge on making the book from your Blog. I definitely would enjoy doing so.
    Congratulations on your upcoming grand baby! Let the cute clothes for a little girl begin!
    Happy Sunday to you my friend!

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    1. I think you’d enjoy having some of your blog posts in print form. I was more thrilled with the product than I imagined. With the little grandbaby on the way, I find myself struggling for self-control at the stores. So many cute things out there.

      Look forward to connecting when you return to the valley!

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  28. Hi Ingrid, welcome back! Nice to see you. Congrats on your book, it looks wonderful! And, congratulations to the expecting parents too! I like to travel once in a while but there’s no place like home, right? It’s been just as hot up here in Vegas too but the monsoon has cooled us down a bit which is wonderful. Stay cool!

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    1. We too have been enjoying the storms. Funny how much we appreciate rain in the desert compared to living in the Midwest when storms are such a regular occurrence. Agree … no place like home. Despite the heat, we’re grateful to not be traveling these days.

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  29. Nice to see a post from you, Ingrid. Congratulations on the new upcoming grandparenthood! So exciting! It’s the best! We spend many days with our 3 grands during the warm months. Went on 2 state park camp trips with them this summer and it was hot both times. But it’s cooling down as August arrives. Glad to hear you are settled into your new place and enjoying being at a home base. Enjoy your time off the road. We’re glad not to be there for that heat! Wow! But we’ll enjoy the AZ sun again this winter. We didn’t go to Phoenix at all last year. Too busy!! Take care of yourselves and hi to Al. Maybe we’ll all find time to get together this year!

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    1. Hi Kathy, fun that you were able to get away on some summer camping trips. I don’t see us done RVing, merely taking a break as we too would love to get in some state park camping trips again. For now, we relishing the break. Keep me posted on your AZ travels and we’ll try and connect 😊

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  30. Was thinking about you and Al just the other day as I see the heat gauge rising in Arizona. So glad to hear alls well and getting back to sticks and bricks has been a easy adjustment. A grand baby is definitely exciting news!

    I absolutely love the idea of your blog book. I’ve taken a hiatus since last November from blogging and the idea of a book is getting me motivated to jump back in.

    Hope you stay cool!
    Xxoo
    Brenda

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    1. Hi Brenda, I’ve been following your travels on FB and think you really have some great explorations and stories worth preserving. There’s something about turning actually pages and reading the tales of our travels on paper that’s motivating me to redo some of those earlier posts. This first book was a trial and I was able to test what worked and what didn’t. However, the thought of going through pics on external harddrives has put me in major procrastination mode 🙂

      Is the ‘Great Loop’ still in your plans?

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  31. Thank you for this post. First, glad you’re surviving your 1st Arizona summer. This the the 1st summer we stayed in Arizona, but we are 1/2 way in our month of RVing in the state. I must say that monsoon season is definitely interesting. 2nd: congratulations on upcoming grand baby! 3rd: thanks for review of these blog to book sites. My son has encouraged me to do this with my blogs for the family. Can you pick and choose which blogs you want in the book or does it just download all of them?

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    1. Thank you and welcome to AZ. Navigating the various elevations throughout the state is key to surviving the temps in an RV. AND paying attention to flash-flooding!

      Yes, you can pick the date range. My first Book was printed from blog posts dated mid-January ’21 to mid-March ’21. Before printing, I made sure there weren’t any published posts in that date range that I didn’t want to be printed in the book. I would highly recommend printing your travels for children/grandchildren. I so wanted to retrace some of my parent’s RVing journeys but lacked the info. I really liked using Pixxibook but have friends who have liked other platforms. It’s just a matter of playing around and seeing what fits your needs. Shutterfly might be another option as well. Feel free to email me if you have any questions on Blog to Book or Arizona. Happy trails!

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  32. Thanks for the recommendation. Someday, I would like to have a hard copy of some of my posts. Is this for just you – or to sell? Congratulations on being grandparents soon!

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    1. Thank you. We’re looking forward to becoming grandparents. The blog to book is strictly for personal use. I doubt anyone would be interested in actually paying money for my frivolous travel tales 😁

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  33. Ingrid, how nice to hear from you First, congratulations on becoming Mimi! That must be very exciting. And second, congratulations on publishing your blog book. It looks impressive in the photos. Thank you for sharing your experience and for the recommendation.

    We have been hearing about the oppressive heat in many parts of the country this summer. We find it ironic that Florida has been one of the ‘cool’ states. If you consider 90 + cool, of course. 🙂

    P.S. what are the measurements of your book?

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    1. Thank you, Suzanne. Should be an evenful rest of the year. This summer’s weather pattern is crazy. 100’s in Phoenix and 90’s in FL are normal for us thus we’re prepared, but those in the far north are experiencing similar heat and many without A/C. Now, that’s challenging.

      Knowing that I have a lot of photos to accompany my stories, I chose a 8 1/2 x 11 print size for the book. I used to scrapbook many years ago and this feels like a printed version of one of my photo albums.

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  34. Congratulations for your first granddaughter! I usually buy: Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch Ultra Radiance Lotion Sunscreen – SPF 30 – 8oz. I’ll keep an eye out for the Banana Boat brand. For the past several years around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Kohl’s online has a good selection of Rash Guard sun shirts on sale that I stock up for summer as we aren’t big on the sunscreen feel. They are nice to wet if it is hot and feel instantly cooled. How fun for the book! Thank you for the information!

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    1. Thank you and thanks for the sunscreen recommendation and Kohl’s idea. I too like wearing rash guards especially when we’re up north and dealing with bugs as well as sun.
      We’re pretty excited about welcoming a little granddaughter. I’m doing my best not to keep buying her things. 🙂

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    1. Ah, Linda! You are too kind to actually be willing to pay money for my silly travel tales. The Blog to Book is more like a personal photo album not meant to be sold but I thank you for the compliment.

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  36. Dual Congratulations! How exciting to become grandparents! So glad you are close to them. You guys will be the perfect grands! And the book looks great. The pictures look wonderful to me. We are enjoying our time currently in CO, WY and upcoming ID. To get out of that heat has been a blessing, though everywhere is having a super hot summer. We are looking for a place in one of these states and hopefully become snowbirds in AZ. We will see. Again, super congratulations.

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    1. Thanks Jana. I’ve been following your travels via FB. You’re visiting some of our favorite states. We called CO home for over 20 years and look forward to revisiting once we decide on a small, nimble RV. Right now, we are RV-less and enjoying the break. Havasu and Phoenix are perfect 7-9 months out of the year, thus fingers crossed you find a summer home to escape to during the heat.

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  38. Great to hear from you, Ingrid. Jon and I were talking about you and Al yesterday. Glad to hear you are settling in, caring for your health, and taking things slow. Grandparents! Your going to live holding a little bundle in your arms again and watching the little one grow. Do you ever tire from the Arizona sunsets and sunrises? They are spectacular. Take care.

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    1. Who could ever tire of the beautiful skies in AZ? Unfortunately, I don’t have the vista views from my home that I did RVing, but life is all about trade-offs. One day, we’ll be back out boondocking enjoying those unobstructed views, but for now, we’re content with the views we do have and being near family. The due date is Aug. 22 but that little one could show up anytime throughout the month of August and I’m thrilled we’ll be around. I know I’ll love holding that little bundle.

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    1. You welcome! Pixxibook made it super easy and I think I had it complete in 30 minutes. Let me know if you give it a try. Most important is knowing the range of dates you want printed.

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  40. So great to see your post, Ingrid and I’m so happy you got your book published. Thanks for the details of that and descriptions of how to and what not to do. Yep, we experienced that heat–we hung out earlier this month in Prescott and Fountain Hills, most days were hovering around 113, with nights a mere 90. Hard to walk the dogs, and we all suffered from heat effects. Then we came home to high heat here in Washington. Congrats on becoming grandparents next month! I’m glad you are safely at your home and can relax. Take good care, and say hi to Al!

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    1. I’m sorry I missed you and the blogger get-together. If it hadn’t been an appt. I’d booked months earlier, I would’ve rescheduled. I actually felt bad for you that you chose to visit during the summer. It’s very challenging living in an RV in that kind of heat … been there, done that 🥵

      The blog book turned out great. Sure, there were a few things I wasn’t totally happy with but that was all on my end. I’ll be rewriting some of my older posts in preparation for Book 2 and hopefully be a tad wiser in the process.

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  41. Ingrid, what a lovely surprise to read your post. This morning, I was going back and reviewing several posts from the early days of WordPress – it is amazing how much has changed and how much in my life has stayed the same – the routines and things I experience are cyclical. Congratulations on the news that your son and daughter-in-law are expecting as well as your book. I am certain there are some amazing photos, you always had a way of finding the right (aka perfect) images to convey your adventures on the road. Glad to read that you and Al are doing well and thriving in your new home. Stay well, safe, and keep making your days count! Peace.

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    1. Good morning Clay. It is fun to revisit some of our old blog posts. In my case, I noticed the evolution in RVing going from total newbies to ‘seasoned’ RVers. Plus, I’d forgotten so many tales that I’m grateful I blogged about them and enjoy traveling down memory lane. Hope you’ve been able to enjoy lake time this summer! I sure am missing our WI excursion.

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  42. So glad you are enjoying your home and your family and congrats on becoming grandparents soon! I understand your distaste for long travels. When we travel from Alberta to Yuma I always comment to my husband “it’s too bad Yuma isn’t just one day closer to homer” the rewards are great once you are there, but the getting back and forth is harder the older we get. Have a great summer!

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    1. Thank you and yeah, the trek from Alberta to Yuma is a long one and I totally hear ya on it getting more challenging each year. The first summer we made the 2,000-mile trek to northern Wisconsin, we took 3 weeks and meandered along the way. The following summers, we transitioned to destination driving and would put in 8-10 hour driving days. Our return to Phoenix last September was beyond challenging making it an easy choice to stay put in Phoenix this summer. At least we don’t have to shovel heat, eh! 🤣

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