|
Stories From The Current Issue Geocaching, The Perfect RV Hobby Some Of Our Favorite RV Web Sites Read What Others Have To Say About The Gypsy Journal From Our Archives - Stories From Past Issues You Can Bring Nick Russell To Your Campground, Dealership Or RV Event! Yes, You Can Make Money Writing Visit Our New Motorcycle Travel Website
|
Nick's Blog Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Yesterday we left
the Thousand Trails near Wilmington,
We had to go in
through the main entrance at the As I’ve written
before, I really don’t get the entire horse thing. I spent much of my
life in cowboy country, but I’ve never had any interest in any animal
that’s bigger than me and that I can’t eat. (Actually, I’m pretty
sure that the I probably inherited my feelings about horses from my dad, who spent many years in a saddle. He didn’t like horses at all, much preferring a mule, which he swore was a much more intelligent and reliable animal. As long as I’m
busy making the horse lovers mad at me, I’ll risk the wrath of my
friend Orv Hazelton, who lives here in However, Thought For The Day –
Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Monday, September 29, 2008 Life in an RV is never dull. We have all of the toys to entertain us that folks living in a conventional home enjoy, from satellite TV and a stereo, to a high speed internet connection delivered by our Verizon air card. We have good books to read, projects around the bus to keep us occupied, and the whole country as a back yard to play in. But sometimes people watching and innocent eavesdropping provides some of the most fun of all. Sit around your
average RV park and just watch the folks around you and you’ll see
things that will amuse, amaze and appall you. Often within a span of
minutes. On our very first outing in our first motorhome, we were
sitting outside of our rig one evening at Zane Gray RV Park in And I missed it! Terry came inside to spare herself and our neighbors any further embarrassment, but I sat outside another two hours swatting bugs, and all I ever got to see was the guy in his boxer shorts! Timing is everything. A while back, at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, I watched a lady dump her holding tank, and then stick her sewer hose up against the water faucet at the dump station to rinse it. A fellow who had been standing there talking to her and waiting his turn in line then pulled up to the dump station, emptied his holding tank, and then hooked his water hose to the very same faucet and filled his fresh water tank! Yuck! I can’t tell you how many people we have secretly giggled at while we watched them back into their sites at RV parks. I’ve seen more than one lady windmilling her arms in every direction, like a sailor with semaphore flags talking to the ship next door, as she guided her husband in for a landing. (Of course, I have no room to talk. With Miss Terry’s expert guidance, I can usually slip into an RV site with a minimum of effort. But give me an audience, and I’ll back over the electric box, water bib, and a French poodle in the process.) It’s not just RVers who provide so much free entertainment. I was having some copies made last week and overheard the very pregnant young woman behind the counter discussing her condition with her co-worker “I just have no idea how this happened,” she declared. “It’s a total mystery!” Now, I’m just a goofy guy in an old bus conversion, but even I could have explained that to her! A couple of weeks ago, we stopped at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken for a quick shot of cholesterol, and Terry and I both lost it when we overheard an exchange between the girl behind the counter and a customer, who had just ordered a wing and a leg. “Which side?” the girl asked, indicating the side orders, which ranged from French fries to red beans and rice. The customer stared at her a moment, wrinkled his brow, and then shrugged his shoulders and said “Left?” Thought For The Day –
Being on the tightrope is living. Everything else is waiting. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Sunday, September 28, 2008 We love small
town festivals and in our travels we have attended many of them, from
the Trout Festival in Kalkaska, Michigan, to Verde Valley Days in Small town festivals are great fun. They allow us to mingle with the local people, enjoy all kinds of entertainment, admire arts and crafts that we have no room for in our motorhome but still enjoy seeing, and to sample all kinds of interesting foods. Yesterday we
drove a few miles to
There are some very talented folks all over this country coming up with ingenious things that you’ll never see in a WalMart, but attend a few small town festivals and you’ll find goodies like cloth bags stuffed with herbs that you can heat in the microwave and use to sooth a sore neck or back; soaps handmade from natural products; or honey flavors like clover, apple blossom, and orange. Do you need a wooden flute, a picture frame made from barn wood, or an original painting of a pastoral scene? Head to your nearest festival and it’s probably waiting for you.
No small town
festival is complete without food booths, and we have sampled everything
from deep fried turkey legs to funnel cakes to shish kabob at the many
festivals we have visited over the years. Sure, none of it’s probably
on my diet, but when in One of our
favorite festivals takes place in We enjoy small
town festivals so much that we have a page on our website devoted to
helping you find some great ones wherever you are traveling. Visit our
Small Town Festivals page to find one near you. Two other great sources
for festivals are www.festivals.com
and www.festivalsandevents.com,
where you are sure to find something to interest you in every corner of Thought For The Day –
If the enemy is in range, so are you. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Saturday, September 27, 2008 Miss Terry and I were relaxing in the hot tub here at the Thousand Trails campground last night, and got into a conversation about the people we have met on the road, as opposed to the people we knew back in our old life. When we were housebound and shackled to a job, many of the “friends” we had were friends of convenience. They were the people we worked with, the folks who lived next door - the interactions of our daily lives were the only real connection we had. Were they really “friends” or were they just acquaintances? Those relationships have not stood the test of time and distance, so it’s obvious it was the latter. Of course, I do have a few buddies that I go way back with. We were pals back when we all had hair, and will be forever. As the old saying goes, “they know where the bodies are buried.” I may not see them for months, or even years, and we may not talk often, but when we visit, it’s always just like old times. But those friendships are in the minority. The friends we have met on the road are some awesome people. Our backgrounds may be very different, but we all have much more in common than we ever did with those folks in our hometown. We share a love of travel, a sense of adventure, we’re all pretty much nonconformists, and we have all come to the realization that owning “stuff” doesn’t make you happy. We know that happiness is the freedom we have to roam this wonderful country of ours, to explore the back roads, and to just relax under the awning with a cold drink while the rest of society is caught in a traffic jam during their evening commute. Overall, fulltime RVers are some of the most laid back, open minded people you will ever meet. They make up a wonderful cross section of American society. At our rally last week we had blue collar working folks in older RVs, retirees, Baby Boomers in fancy new rigs, at least one millionaire, gays, straights, couples, solos, liberals, conservatives, born again Christians and atheists. But it didn’t matter. Nobody wore a label. We were all just friends hanging out and having fun. Miss Terry always says we have two kinds of family in our lives – the family we’re born into and the family we choose. With a few special exceptions, I try to keep at least one state line between myself and most of my blood relatives. It just seems to work out better that way. But we think nothing of driving a couple of hundred miles to get to a campground to meet up with some our extended RV family, fuel prices be damned. Of course, one other great thing about our RV family is that we all have wheels under our homes. So as much as we enjoy their company, we can leave before the warts start to show. J Thought For The Day –
There are thousands of reasons why you cannot do what you want to do.
All you need is one reason why you can. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Friday, September 26, 2008 My Brother laser
printer, the latest in a long line of cheap junk printers I’ve gone
through over the last few years, died while we were in Celina. So
yesterday we drove into Making the printer work with my desktop computer with Windows XP was simple, but of course, the “easy automatic installation” the box promised was a myth when it came to connecting the printer to Miss Terry’s laptop which has Windows Vista. It took hours of frustration, and a long distance call to Chris from Geeks on Tour www.geeksontour.com to get the darned thing to function. Actually, just as I started talking to Chris, it finally started working. Apparently the Geeks’ reputation is so good that when stubborn equipment hears me talking to them, it just surrenders and starts to work. J
I’m afraid I may have hurt someone’s feelings, but I just don’t know how I could have done otherwise. After reading
yesterday’s blog, one of our readers, who was at our rally in I got an immediate reply asking if we could do it today or over the weekend. Again, I wrote that we really don’t feel like company right now, and I hope they understand. Her reply was “I guess you only like your readers when they are giving you money, but not any other time! How selfish!” Folks, Terry and I love our readers! But we love one another even more, and right now we just need some “us” time. Time to sleep in, time to enjoy each other’s company, and time not to have to entertain someone else. I’m sorry, but if that makes us selfish, I guess we are. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Thursday, September 25, 2008 In yesterday’s
blog, I wrote that an agreement has been reached in the court battle
between the State of After three weeks
at the Mercer County Fairgrounds in We fired the bus
up and drove 112 miles to the Thousand Trails preserve near Once we were
settled in and hooked up, we drove eight miles into One of the things
I miss most from our old life (besides my cute blonde secretary), is my
hot tub. Back at our old After being on
the go so much the last few weeks, we’re worn out. We have to be in Lexington, Thought For The Day –
Why do you have to "put your two cents in"...but it's only a
"penny for your thoughts?" Where's that extra penny going? Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Wednesday, September 24, 2008
New We saw everything at the museum, from giant high wheel bicycles that would give me a nose bleed to climb on, to vintage Schwinn Sting Rays that I knew as a kid. The museum also has some celebrity bikes, including one used by famed racer Lance Armstrong, the bike actor Paul Reubens rode in the movie Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and a recumbent bike used in the television sitcom My Name is Earl. One very interesting bike was a 1941 Schwinn Paramount Racer that set a world speed record of 108.92 miles per hour!
The museum also
has one of its vintage high wheel bicycles From New Bremen,
we drove a short distance to Jackson
It was obvious that Airstream puts a lot of quality into their products, and all of the employees we saw seemed to be very happy at their jobs. Several antique
models were on display in the parking lot, and we As it turns out, Ron Speidel loves the Airstreams as much as I do, so we both had a great time on the factory tour. I wonder if we could get a good deal if we bought a pair of them? Thought For The Day –
A bookmaker is a pickpocket that uses your own hands. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Several blog readers have written to ask what will be happening with the Life on Wheels (LOW) program now that its founder, Gaylord Maxwell, has passed away. I really do not know at this point. To the best of my knowledge, Gaylord did not have a successor in place to take the helm. At one time, the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) www.rvsafety.org was in negotiations with Gaylord to assume control of Life on Wheels, but that did not work out. Hopefully RVSEF or someone else will be able to continue the program, because it is something the RVing community really needs, but I am not optimistic. I have also been asked how the possible demise of Life on Wheel will affect Terry and I. While we will miss the teaching, and the opportunity to help start new RVers down the road to success, we have become very burned out with crossing the country back and forth following the LOW schedule. We had planned to cut back this year and then did not do it because the sudden death of core instructor Dave Baleria, earlier this year, left LOW shorthanded on instructors. At the Harrisburg LOW in early September, I again told Gaylord that this would be our last year to do all of the conferences. For the last couple of years I have planned for the day when we would not have the income generated by Life on Wheels. When the Escapees RV Club decided to go to one Escapade rally a year, we began developing an eastern rally to both plug the hole the loss of Fall Escapade would put in our schedule, and to make up for the income that we would lose from that. Life is about change, and a wise businessperson looks to the future and hopefully can predict the changes that will impact them. Terry and I have been reading over the feedback forms from last week’s Gypsy Gathering rally, and overall it was a big success. Several vendors, including Smokey and Pam Ridgely from EZ Clean N Shine www.waterless-clean-n-shine.com sold out of product. Rick and Joyce Lang from RVSEF said they weighed more RVs at our rally than they did at the big FMCA rally a few weeks ago. Many of the rally attendees have told us that they want to do it again next year, and we have reserved the Mercer County Fairgrounds for September 28 through October 2, 2009 for our Second Eastern Gypsy Gathering. Terry and I will
leave here Wednesday and spend a few days at the Thousand Trails in From Lexington, our plans are set in Jello. We hope to spend some time at the But who knows? We may go there by way of Key West, where I heard a rumor of a houseboat we could spend a few days on. Thought For The Day –
A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more
than he can chew. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Monday, September 22, 2008 Great news for
RVers who use the state of When Ron told me a settlement had been reached, he said the RVers’ attorney had asked him not to reveal the details of the settlement until the formal announcement, but the big grin on his face said it all. Sadly, although nearly 300 RVers were affected by the state’s denial of their rights, only three protested and fought back, including Ron and Leone. But that just goes to show you what two or three ticked off Americans can accomplish when they put their minds to it!
So again she was up early, and spent two days in class. I even got dressed and walked her to school every day! Terry said the boot camp was great, and is excited to try out her new computer skills. Those folks really know their stuff, and if you want to learn how to get the most out of your computer, make plans now to attend one of their boot camps at an RV rally near you.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my motorcycle had stopped running. I was pretty sure that the problem was simply lack of use. I got the bike at Christmas, 2006, and have only put about 250 miles on it since then. In fact, the last time I put gas in it was a year ago.
A machine has to be used regularly, or it starts to deteriorate. And going off riding alone while I leave her behind is just no fun. So I want the bike to go to a new home where it will get the kind of use it was designed for. If you know anybody in the market for a gorgeous 2003 Yamaha V Star 1100 with every option available, I can make them a good deal. Thought For The
Day – Eventually you will reach
a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Sunday, September 21, 2008
We were with
Gaylord just a few days ago at the Life on Wheels conference in After Life on Wheels, he and his wife
Margie attended the Hershey RV show, and then visited their daughter in Gaylord had a vision for Life on Wheels that touched thousands of RVers, and made their lives better. He was a wealth of information on the RV lifestyle, and his circle of friends included all of the big names in the RV industry, both past and present. He and I did not always see eye to eye on things, and we butted heads more than once, but he gave me my first big break as a public speaker and teacher, for which I will be forever grateful. I used to tease Gaylord, because when we first attended Life on Wheels as students back in 1999, I gave him a copy of the very first issue of the Gypsy Journal. He wasn’t very impressed and sort of blew me off. A few years later I was teaching for him in the program, and after each conference, when he handed me my check, I’d remind him of that day long ago, and he’d shake his head ruefully and say “Rub it in, Nick, just rub it in.” But I know he was proud of the growth I had achieved, and I was proud to be a part of the greatest educational program for RVers ever. At the closing ceremony of every Life on Wheels conference, Gaylord would tell the assembled students “I believe each of us should have a reason to get up in the morning besides just having breakfast. I believe we all have a duty to leave this world just a little bit better than we found it.” That’s why, at an age when most men are sitting in their rocking chairs waiting to die, Gaylord was still out there in the trenches every day, drumming up corporate sponsors for Life on Wheels, badgering his cronies in the industry to cough up a few more bucks to help keep the program afloat, and looking for new instructors to add to the lineup. Life on Wheels was his reason to get up in the morning. And he did one hell of a job with it. Rest in peace Gaylord, your work here is finished. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Saturday, September 20, 2008 One of the most critical, yet most overlooked, factors in RV safety is operating your motorhome, fifth wheel trailer, or travel trailer within its proper weight rating. An overweight RV is an accident waiting to happen. Just a few of the bad things that can happen if you ignore your rig’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) are increased tire wear, tire or axle failure, reduced stopping ability, excessive wear on your suspension components, and overworking your drive train. Your engine and transmission are working harder than they are designed for when they are moving excessive weight down the highway, and you will pay for it in increased wear and tear, reduced fuel mileage, and higher maintenance costs. And all of these problems could be the least of your worries if you happen to have an accident, and some shyster lawyer for the other party can convince a jury that the wreck could have been avoided if you were in a properly loaded vehicle that should have been able to stop in time to avoid a crash. Yet, industry studies show that at least 57% of our RVs are overweight. A large part of the blame must lie with the RV industry itself. A depressing number of RVs are already pushing their weight limits when they leave the factory. By the time you fill them with fuel, put some water in the holding tank, and allow a couple of adults to climb inside with a few days’ worth of clothing and necessities, they are teetering at the absolute upper edge of their weight rating. This is why I am such a believer in the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) program. RVSEF www.rvsafety.org sends crews to RV rallies across the country to present seminars on weight and tire safety, and to weigh RVs. Once the rig is weighed, the owners are given a quick summary to help them remedy immediate problems, such as shifting items from one side of the RV to the other to achieve better balance. Then a complete weighing report is mailed that includes detailed information on the RV’s present weight and what can be done to prevent potential problems before they occur. This is information that can help you avoid costly repairs, at the very least, and could possibly save your life!
If you have not had your RV weighed by professionals who specialize in recreational vehicles, you really should. It’s one of the best investments you can make in your own safety, and one that will pay off big time for years to come. Thought For The Day –
Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Friday, September 19, 2008 Yesterday evening we held our closing ceremonies for the rally, and Terry and I were overwhelmed by the response from the audience when I finished speaking. Over 250 people gave us a long standing ovation that brought tears to both of our eyes. It’s been an absolutely fantastic week, and we could not have pulled it off without the many friends who jumped in and volunteered for whatever needed doing. All week long people have been coming up to Terry and me, telling us what a great rally we put on. But the truth is that without all of our volunteers, we couldn’t begin to get everything done that needs doing. They make us look good. Steve Schulte,
manager of the Mercer County Fairgrounds, had told me earlier what a
good group of people we had brought to town and said “You guys are my
heroes!” He agreed to speak to the audience at our closing ceremonies,
and thanked everybody for coming, on behalf of the fairgrounds board and
the City of A lot of the growth of the Gypsy Journal has been accomplished because so many people take bundles of papers with them to pass out at RV parks and to people they meet in their travels. It creates a ripple effect, much like dropping a pebble into a pool of water, and we start getting subscriptions in from areas where we have not been able to visit yet. After the closing ceremonies, folks lined up at our van to pick up bundles of papers to distribute to every direction on the compass, and by the time they were finished, I had lightened our load by over 20 bundles. Once everybody had wandered off to visit, play cards, or get to bed early for an early departure today, Terry and I ran into town for a quick sandwich, then came back to the fairgrounds and stopped in at a couple of campfires to visit for a few minutes before we headed back to the bus to call it a night. With the rally over, we’ll be here a few more days taking care of some paperwork, getting ourselves organized, and hopefully sleeping late a few mornings. Poor Miss Terry has been up every morning at 5:30 a.m., and I’ve managed to get into an upright position by 7 or 7:30, which is hours before I normally greet the world and start a new day. I don’t much care for worms, so being an early bird is not on my agenda. Good news from Maybe not so good news for those of us who have MCI bus conversions. I learned yesterday that Motor Coach Industries (MCI) has filed for a pre-negotiated bankruptcy, in which the company, their creditors and their investors have a reorganization of their debts. There should be little effect on their ongoing operations, if things go according to the plan and the bankruptcy court approves things. Hopefully so, because MCI makes a darned good coach, whether they are used in commercial bus service, or as a shell for a motorhome bus conversion. Thought For The Day –
Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember
more than I have seen. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Thursday, September 18, 2008 I know that there
are probably some people somewhere in the world who have been having a
better time than the folks here at our Gypsy Gathering RV rally in Celina, I can’t count the number of people who have complimented Terry and I for how well the rally is going and for how much they are enjoying it. But while we may be the ones getting the accolades, I can assure you that we both know very well that our success is due to the volunteers who have put so much time and effort into making our jobs look easy. Without them, this just could not happen. Yesterday evening we had our pizza party, a tradition with our rallies, and I really have to give credit to Dominos Pizza here in Celina. They delivered over 100 pizzas to us here at the fairgrounds, and each one arrived on time and piping hot. Again, so many people came forward to help get everybody served that it was amazing how fast the line moved.
I passed the hat during their performance and we collected $365 to reward them for their show. And it was worth every penny! Their act includes some corny old jokes that we all love hearing again, a little bit of shtick, some audience participation, and did I mention the great music? They did everything from show tunes to country, rock, and blues, and we loved every minute of it. Check out their website at www.omtmusic.com to see where you can catch this fulltime RVer couple playing somewhere down the road. Here are a couple of photos of the concert that Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour www.geeksontour.com took for me. Yesterday morning someone from the Daily Standard newspaper came by to take some photos of the rally, and when the paper hit the streets in the afternoon, they had a front page story about our rally, including two full color photographs! One picture showed Rick Lang from the Recreational Vehicle Safety education Foundation www.rvsafety.com showing Miss Terry the proper way to check tire pressure with a digital gauge. One of our rally attendees asked me if Terry was excited to have her picture in the newspaper, and I said probably, but it wasn’t the first time, since her picture has been in the Gypsy Journal a hundred times or so. The lady said, “Oh yeah, I know that, but I meant in a real newspaper!” I guess I’ll just take my fish wrapper and go home now. J Today is the last full day of the rally, and I’ll be doing two of my seminars, The Frugal RVer and Boondocking Tips and Techniques. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’ll have even more today. If you’re not here, you’re missing one heck of a party! Thought For The Day – When life gets you down - just put on your big girl panties and deal with it. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Wednesday, September 17, 2008 What would we do without our volunteers? I’ll tell you what, we have some of the hardest working, most dedicated people in the world here at the rally busting their butts to help make the event a success. Everywhere I look someone is manning a table selling T-shirts, passing out coffee and donuts, helping park late arrivals (yes, we had more RVs coming in today), giving a seminar, and doing any of the 1001 chores that need doing. There is no way that Terry and I could ever pull this off by ourselves, and we appreciate each and every one of our volunteers very, very much. Things went very smoothly yesterday except for the sound in the room where I did my Highway History and Back Road Mystery seminar. The acoustics in the building are terrible, and the speakers created an echo that made it difficult, if not impossible for some folks to hear. Apparently we
have had an impact on the community of The entire community has welcomed us with open arms. In fact, one of the city councilmen made a point of stopping by to welcome us and gave us a card with his home and cell phone numbers, and said to call him anytime day or night if we need anything.. We did have one uncomfortable situation develop. Sometime in the afternoon I noticed a young lady standing in the back of one of the rooms during a seminar, with her arms crossed over her chest. I assumed that she was a rally attendee, but someone I had not met yet. When I saw her again three hours later, she was in the exact same position. After the evening door prizes were over and Al Hesselbart finished his 100 Years of RVs program in the same room, the woman still had not moved. I approached her and said hello, and got no response. I then touched her arm, and she was still unresponsive. It was after 9 p.m. and growing chilly, and we were concerned for her welfare. Terry noticed that she was shivering, so she got a wool wrap out of our van and put it around the woman while I called the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office. Two deputies soon arrived, and then called an ambulance. Apparently the unfortunate woman has some mental problems and had either not taken her medication, or possibly overdosed on it, and then wandered away from her home several miles away. She was transported to a hospital for observation. I have to give a
big thumbs up to Carriage, manufacturers of a line of fifth wheel and
travel trailers. In a story on the RV
Industry News website, it was reported that an Australian family
touring the Notice that it was not Forest River who came to the rescue, even though it was from their facility that the family’s trailer was stolen, but rather a competitor who didn’t care what they were traveling in, only that they be taken care of. Hmmm…. Makes me wonder whom I’d buy an RV from the next time I went shopping. Check out the entire story at http://www.rvinews.com/News/tabid/16941/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1860/Default.aspx Thought For The Day –
Life may begin at 30, but it doesn't get real interesting until about 90
mph! Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Myself, Miss Terry, our parking crew, and our registration crew are all dog tired, but we managed to get all of our rally attendees parked, hooked up, and registered yesterday. As of Monday evening we have 126 RVs at the rally. We had several last minute cancellations due to weather, one couple was involved in a nasty non-weather related accident on their way to Celina, and at least two different couples have e-mailed or called to say they have been delayed, but hope to arrive early today.
But we all managed to survive the bad weather just fine, and at yesterday’s welcoming event everybody I saw and spoke to was happy and seemed to be having a good time. I love playing master of ceremonies, because I get to get up on stage and goof off, while everybody else does all of the work. After the welcoming, all of the vendors and instructors introduced themselves and told a little about their products and backgrounds. Then we had a craft and hobby show and tell in one building, hosted by Bonnie Bearrows, while in another I moderated an RV panel discussion with such experts and longtime RVers as Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety; Rick Schafer, a graduate of the Camping World RV tech school; my buddy Howard Best, who worked for UPS for years in vehicle maintenance and safety education; Rick Lang from Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation; Orv Hazelton, who drove buses for Trailways and Gray Line Tours, then trucks for WalMart, and moved up to driver safety training for WalMart, as well as being certified as an instructor by the National Safety Council; Phil Botnick, who has more experience as an RV tech than anybody I know; and Ron Speidel, who spent his career in law enforcement, and now volunteers for Missouri State Parks, as well as teaching seminars on RV topics at a community college and for Camping World. Between all of them, we had several lifetimes of experience in RVing, driving big rigs, safety, and technical know how for the audience to draw from. The 90 minute session was a question and answer format, and the guys on the panel fielded questions on everything from proper tire inflation and maintenance, to escaping RV fires, mountain driving, carrying firearms aboard an RV, driving with propane on or off, RV refrigerators, the proper emergency contact information to have with you in case of an accident, and much more. They did a great job, and I think the audience really appreciated their input. I know I learned a thing or two! After the evening door prize drawings, we still had more chores to do. Several of our volunteers finished setting up the room for our morning coffee and donuts, and a book exchange, while Miss Terry and I sorted door prizes for our tonight’s drawing. Then it was back to the bus, where Terry waded her way through the day’s paperwork while I wrote the blog and answered some e-mails. By the time we had our showers and finally crawled under the covers, that bed sure looked good! One final note before I close here; Mark Nemeth from the Escapees RV Club wrote that the main office and mail center in Livingston, Texas came through Hurricane Ike in one piece, and that nobody at the RV park or any company employees were injured. However, several staff members lost their homes and others suffered severe damage, and the entire area is without power and telephone service. The Escapees hope to be able to reopen their main office and mail service by tomorrow morning, on a limited basis, with generators supplying power. Since much of the area is without power, that means that getting fuel to run those generators can be a challenge as well. It will be a long time before life is back to normal in the region. Thought For The Day –
Don't drink and drive. You might hit a bump and spill something. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Monday, September 15, 2008
At one point, several pieces of sheet metal came off a building here at the Mercer County Fairgrounds and flew through the air headed for a parked RV. Fortunately they landed before they could do any damage. Someone spotted a large crack running vertically up the side of a huge old tree, under which was parked the beautiful Safari motorhome of Rick and Joyce Lang, who are here at the rally to present weight and tire safety seminars and to weigh RVs. The Langs had run into town to do some errands, and I called Rick on his cell phone and told him we felt he should come back and move the RV, just in case. We moved another vendor because large branches were falling on his motorhome. The strong wind also destroyed the display tent Smokey and Pam Ridgely use to display their Dri Wash N’ Guard products. Apparently nobody
read my blog from Saturday, in which I said that when the weather turns
dangerous, we get off the road, because through the storm one RV after
another pulled into the fairgrounds, their The storm finally
blew out about 7:30 p.m., though we still had some rain and it was
breezy. I couldn’t believe it when I got an e-mail from someone saying
they were leaving home in a few minutes and hoped to arrive by midnight,
and wondered if we would have anybody on duty to help get them parked
and hooked up. I wrote back and told them to stay put until daylight.
It’s just crazy to drive in the dark in bad weather. Besides, as hard
working and dedicated as our volunteer crew is, even they
demand two to three hours sleep a night! The storm will be gone, and
we’ll have plenty of While we’re on the topic of safety, my buddy Orv Hazelton sent me a link to a great video on what to do when you have a tire blowout on an RV. Some of you may
recall that Terry and I blew a tire on our bus at 65 miles per hour on
Interstate 10 in Finally, my friend Sharon Del Rosario sent me a message Donna Clifton posted on the SOLOs bulletin board: Rainbows End really got hit hard by Hurricane Ike. Many, many trees are down. Several houses with trees fallen on them. No electric, no phones and no gas in Polk County. This means no gas for generators. Our fellow SKPs need our prayers. Thought For The Day – Don’t throw away that old bucket until you know that the new one holds water. Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Sunday, September 14, 2008 In spite of some rain and wind yesterday, our hardworking crew of volunteers got a bunch of RVs parked. We’re finding with our rallies that we always seem to get a lot of folks who show up a day or two before the Early Bird parking day. This is no problem if we have the facilities available, but sometimes the fairgrounds has other activities going on and that doesn’t work out very well. In this instance, we had the place pretty much to ourselves, so it was no big problem. Today is the official Early Bird arrival date, and we have over 60 Early Birds signed up. I don’t know how many of them actually arrived today ahead of schedule. But I know our guys are up to the challenge, even though the weather is supposed to be really nasty as the effects of Hurricane Ike make their way further inland.
Folks, if you want to learn how to get the most from your computer, check out the Geeks website at www.geeksontour.com. If you can’t attend their classes at an upcoming RV rally, sign up for their online membership or order some of their tutorials on CD. I know you’ll be pleased with them. Another great businessperson here at the rally is Phil Botnick from Phil and Ann’s RV Service. Back in February our Onan generator stopped working at our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, and Phil and Ann hung around a couple of days after the rally until we could get a new fuel pump for it, and then Phil installed it. Last night I got an e-mail from a rally attendee, reporting that while Phil was working on their RV, their cat escaped and crawled through a fence into a locked area. No amount of coaxing would get the felonious feline to come back out, so Phil climbed over the barbed wire topped chain link fence to retrieve the wayward kitty. Now, Phil hasn’t been a teenager in more than a few decades, but that didn’t stop him for a minute when someone needed his help. Don’t you want to do business with a person like that? I sure do! Thought For The Day – My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Saturday, September 13, 2008 I was watching a
few minutes of the continuing news coverage of Hurricane Ike yesterday,
and the reporter was interviewing a couple in front of their fifth wheel
trailer. They said they were fulltime RVers, and had decided to “wait
it out and see what happens, instead of battling all of the heavy
traffic fleeing the Now, just how dumb can you be? “Wait and see what happens?” A hurricane is coming! Whatever happens is not going to be good! You have wheels under your house. Use them! If I had been down in that region I wouldn’t have had to worry about battling traffic, because I’d have been gone long before the first raindrop fell! In our many years of fulltime RVing, we have found ourselves in some nasty thunderstorms, and in the path of several hurricanes, though we have been fortunate and dodged the bullet every time. Tornadoes come up pretty quickly, and if you are traveling in Tornado Alley, about all you can do is monitor your weather radio and be aware of the closest shelter in your RV park. But a hurricane gives you plenty of warning that it’s coming! You can get out of there long before it makes landfall. Why hang around to “see what happens?” Are these the same people who put their hands on wet paint to see if the sign is real? People are funny animals, aren’t we? We stop to gawk at traffic accidents, and we’re glad it wasn’t us. Meanwhile we almost get rear ended and have an accident of our own. If we’re on the road and a storm comes up, we continue to drive in nasty weather, because we’re only another two hours away from our destination, where we’ll be safe and warm. Meanwhile we run the risk of getting into a wreck. Why? I much prefer to stop where I am and wait it out. I can always find a safe place in a truck stop, rest area, shopping center, or church parking lot to hunker down until the storm passes and we can travel again. My buddy Orv
Hazelton teaches a great class called Safe
RVing, The Choice Is Yours that focuses on how our attitudes affect
our driving and safety experiences. Using "what if" scenarios
to anticipate better preparedness in RV travel, Orv helps RVers
understand that the proper mindset can do more to keep us alive than air
bags, seat belts, or anything else a manufacturer can build into a
recreational vehicle. I’m no mind reader, but I’m pretty sure Orv
would be telling those folks in Thought For The Day –
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy. For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally Friday, September 12, 2008 Our Eastern Gypsy
Gathering rally doesn’t begin until Monday, but RVs are already
beginning to arrive at the Mercer County Fairgrounds here in Dan and Dee
Hawkey, who live nearby in the small town of Yesterday Terry and I caught up on some paperwork, packaged and mailed out several orders that came in while we were away at Life on Wheels, and spent some time checking things out at the fairgrounds and being brought up to speed on what has been happening while we were in Pennsylvania. Terry and Connie Simpson and Ron and Brenda Speidel, our advance team, have been busy laying out the rally parking plan, collecting door prizes, spreading the word in the local community about the rally, and exploring the offerings at the local restaurants. It is amazing how much damage they have been willing to do to their waistlines, just to be sure they can advise our rally attendees on Celina’s dining opportunities! Terry and I have been forced to make a difficult decision concerning our rallies. We have a policy of only allowing one vendor for each type of product or service. We did this because we have been to too many rallies where there are three, four, or even more vendors selling the same products. The pie can only be sliced so thin before none of them make any money. Our policy actually costs us money, because if we let anyone in who was willing to pay a vendor fee, we’d make more, even if the vendors didn’t. But from our very first rally, we have worked hard to build long term loyalty among our vendors so they will return every year and can be confident of a successful rally. However, at our
last rally and again here in So starting with our upcoming Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally next February, our new policy will be that vendors who cancel more than 30 days before the rally date will receive a 50% discount, and those who cancel less than 30 days before the rally will not be entitled to a refund. This is unfortunate, but we are a business, and need to protect our investment in our rally program. Speaking of the Thought For The
Day – Do not worry about whether
or not the sun will shine. Be prepared to enjoy it. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Thursday, September 11, 2008 Before you read another word, I want you to do something for me. Take a moment or two to reflect on our American citizens who were taken from us in the senseless terrorist attacks seven years ago today. Remember all of those bumper stickers that said "I will never forget." I hope you never do. Our world is not always a nice place. We must always remember those lives that were snatched away from us, and we must continue to dedicate ourselves to standing up to the bullies, the thugs, the tyrants, and the murderous zealots of the world. We must never let them forget that we refuse to be victims who are willing to roll over and play dead. That there will be consequences if they try to harm our people.
Well, we have more bad news from the RV industry, which is really on the ropes right now. Teton, manufacturer of high end fifth wheel trailers, has closed its doors without notice, leaving owners of their RVs holding the bag. At least one couple I know of took delivery on a new Teton in late August and has been trying to contact the factory for service on some issues that need attention and they are less than happy, to say the least. This news comes on the heels of word that Country Coach has laid off over 100 workers in the last week or two. Who’s next? Where will it end? Of course, this
all has a trickle down effect, and the impact is being felt with
companies that supply the RV manufacturers. Flexsteel Industries, the RV
furniture supplier in Anyone who has read the Gypsy Journal or the blog for very long probably knows that I am not a morning person. I never have been. Our normal routine is to take care of normal business details during the day, and I usually start my serious writing about 9 p.m. I work until about 1 a.m., and get to bed between 1:30 and 2 a.m. So I sleep in, seldom rolling out of bed before 9 a.m. So you know it
was quite a chore for Miss Terry to drag me out of the sack by 6 or 6:30
a.m. the last few days so we could arrive at the We normally stay
for the closing ceremonies at Life on Wheels, and hang around visiting
with the students and other instructors. But this time we needed to get
back to the Mercer County Fairgrounds in We arrived back in Celina about 9 p.m., walked over to say hello to some of the folks who have arrived early for the rally, and then returned to the bus. By the time Terry unpacked a few things we’d need overnight and I wrote the blog and answered a few pressing e-mails, we were both more than ready for bed. We’d love to sleep in, but we have a lot to do before the rally starts Monday, so that long deserved treat will have to wait a while. But it’s good to be back home. Thought For The Day –
When you cheat on a diet, you carry the evidence.
Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Wednesday, September 10, 2008 I’m tired.
Yesterday I taught four more 90 minute classes for Life on Wheels (LOW),
and as always seems to happen when we’re on our teaching gigs, I have
not been sleeping well. But today I only have two classes left to teach,
and then we’ll be headed back to We have 150 students at this Life on Wheels conference, and there are four or five classes to choose from each class period. So Terry and I were thrilled that we had over 50 students in a couple of our classes yesterday, and 59 in one. In fact, the small classroom we have been assigned was so packed (we were told to expect about 30 students per class) that we had to bring in more chairs from other rooms, and had people standing up in the back of the room because there was no room to squeeze in even one more chair! The feedback from the students has all been very positive, which we very much appreciate. As much as I am so very tired with the LOW schedule, and as much as we need a break to do some of the things we have been putting off for years now, it is very, very rewarding to know that we are having a positive impact on the students’ lives and helping to prepare them to be happy, confident RVers. Yesterday
afternoon, after the last class of the day, we rode across the From there we went to a nice restaurant called Mr. G’s for dinner. We started out with a nice table on the deck overlooking the river, but about the time our meal was ready to be served, it started to rain, so we retreated inside. The food was delicious, the portions huge, and the prices were very reasonable. This is one place we’ll return to again when we’re in the area. Good food and good times with good friends. Life doesn’t get much better than that, does it? We have been
staying at the Red Roof Inn here in Thought For The Day –
Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Tuesday, September 9, 2008 Yesterday I taught four 90 minute classes at Life on Wheels, and we’ll do four more today. I think this has been one of the most energetic and excited student groups we have ever had at a Life on Wheels conference. They ask plenty of questions, have some very good comments to share, and during the ½ hour breaks between classes they stay around to talk and ask our advice on several different aspects of the RV lifestyle. I wish we had
more time to spend here in the Harrisburg
area. We spent a couple of weeks here a few years ago and really enjoyed
all there is to see and do here. Another
interesting museum can be found in Columbia, where we spent hours at the National Watch and A short drive east of Harrisburg, in Lancaster County, neat Amish farms dot the landscape, and cars and RVs share the roadway with Amish horse drawn buggies. Another short drive south will bring you to York, where you can tour the Harley Davidson factory www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/content/pages/factory_tours/york.jsp?locale=en_US. Outdoor
enthusiasts can find much to appreciate in the broad Kids of all ages will love Hershey, a place where you can learn all about your favorite chocolate candy, ride a couple of thrilling roller coasters, and where even the air smells like chocolate. For more information on Hershey, here is a link to a story I wrote about our visit a while back: http://gypsyjournal.net/chocolate_town.htm. And can you
believe that this only scratches the surface of all there is to see and
do around here? We loved our first visit to the Thought For The Day –
We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Monday, September 8, 2008 My thanks to the many blog readers who wrote and called to express their concern about my eye problem, and to urge me to get immediate medical attention. I took your
advice yesterday morning and called the V.A. hospital in I spent the next two or three hours having my eye poked and prodded while an ophthalmologist did a very thorough exam. By the time he was finished, my eye felt like I had gone ten rounds with Mohammad Ali or George Foreman. The doctor’s diagnosis is that the vitreous fluid inside the eye is shrinking and pulling away from the retina. This is causing a shadow effect, which shows up in my vision as the major floater along with its hundreds of little brothers that I am seeing. He said the problem could eventually ease up and the floater might shrink until it is not a major intrusion in my vision, or it could eventually result in a torn or detached retina, which is what so many of you blog readers feared could be the problem. But he said at this point in time, it’s a waiting game. If the problem
gets worse over the next couple of days, or if other symptoms become
apparent, I’m supposed to return immediately. Otherwise he advised me
to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist at the V.A. hospital in We left the
hospital and headed to We missed the instructors’ meeting but showed up in time for the second half of the student welcoming and an ice cream social that followed. Several of our fellow instructors welcomed us with big hugs and wanted reassurances that I was going to be okay. The doctor says that unless I see any new symptoms or start to experience pain, I’m good to go so we’ll be teaching the next two and a half days here at Life on Wheels, as originally planned. Again, thanks to everybody who called and sent e-mails. Terry and I appreciate all of you so very much. Thought For The Day –
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a
garage makes you a mechanic. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Sunday, September 7, 2008 We covered a lot
of miles yesterday. We left Celina, Ohio
about 11 a.m. and drove east on U.S. Highway 33 to the Columbus area,
where we hooked up with Interstate 270 to skirt around the top of the
city, where traffic was very busy, and then took Interstate 70 east
across Ohio, the small sliver of West Virginia at Wheeling, and on into
Pennsylvania, where the route became the Pennsylvania Turnpike and
eventually spit us out in Carlisle. From there, it was a short run into Miss Terry loves
to drive, so I played passenger for the trip and admired the
countryside. The weather reports had predicted heavy rain and when I
talked to our fellow Life on Wheels instructor Orv Hazelton, who was
already in I think the Pennsylvania Turnpike may have improved slightly since our last trip across it several years ago. It didn’t seem quite as rough as I remembered it from before. There are some low mountains along this route, but instead of crawling over them, in two or three places the highway builders bored tunnels straight through to the other side, and that sure makes for faster traveling. I can tell that I’ve become infected with Miss Terry’s case of kayak fever. Instead of cringing every time we crossed a bridge, I was checking out the river or stream below to see how it would be to paddle on it. J That’s about it for today. I’m pretty worn out from the trip, even if I just sat and watched the scenery go past, and I’ve got some weird thing going on with one of my eyes that is making it hard to read or type right now. If you’ve reached that stage in life where you have experienced “floaters” in your eyes, imagine one that seems to be the size of a dime and stays almost dead center in the eye. It started a couple of days ago and has become more noticeable since then. Besides the big goober, I am seeing hundreds of tiny dots in that eye at the same time, that look exactly like a period on the computer screen. I’ll give the folks at the V.A. eye clinic a call Monday and see if they can fit me in when we’re in Lexington in a couple of weeks to get it checked out. We’ll be here
in Thought For The Day –
Computers allow us to make very fast, very accurate mistakes. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Saturday, September 6, 2008 Miss Terry and I spent some time yesterday checking out the Fall Harvest Festival here at the Mercer County Fairgrounds. There are several vendors, but most are selling garage sale junk. Not even garage sale stuff, but the junk that’s left over after a garage sale that nobody wanted and should be hauled to the dump. And believe me, if you can’t sell it at a garage sale, it’s really worthless!
The festival also
includes a quilt show and Miss Terry took a I mentioned Terry
Simpson above, and yesterday he and his pretty wife Connie arrived at
the fairgrounds in their gorgeous bus conversion to help Ron and Brenda
Speidel hold down the Two new friends we have just met are Andrea Kaye and Peter Wray, a nice couple who fulltime in a beautiful Excel fifth wheel that our pals Ron and Brenda helped them remodel and upgrade. Andrea and Peter are a fun couple, and you can’t spend very long around them without doing some serious laughing. Peter is British, and Ron loves interpreting the King’s English to us whenever Peter speaks. For his part, Peter thinks we Americans have a few quirks too, and that was reinforced yesterday when we pointed out a drive-thru liquor store here in Celina! So I guess the message here is, don’t drink and drive, unless it’s to the drive-thru for more booze! Miss Terry and I
will leave this motley crew to their own devices today and head for Thought For The
Day – If you cross a four leaf
clover with poison ivy, will you get a rash of bad luck? Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Friday, September 5, 2008 The Mercer County
Fairgrounds here in It is one more reminder that we need to stick by our decision to cut back on our teaching commitments for next year. The money helps the budget a bit, but in return we give up way too much freedom to enjoy our lives in the process. If it were all about money, we’d still be back in the workaholic lifestyle we lived for so many years before we hit the road. I still believe the Life on Wheels program is great for new RVers, but we’re not having fun any more. It’s become just a job. While we are away
in Folks, if you’re coming to our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally and you have a laptop computer, I really urge you to contact my pals Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour about their Computer Boot Camp. Some people might think a “Boot Camp” will be too beginning level for them, but I would refer them to a blog post from one couple who took the Boot Camp. They talk about how Pat, the wife, was the one who needed the class, and hubby Jim was just keeping her company. But Jim learned more than he ever thought possible! He found himself saying over and over “I didn’t know that.” Check out their blog post at http://lilalfiestravels.blogspot.com/2008/06/school-days.html. Too many computer folks talk in “geek speak” and lose me after the first sentence, but not Jim and Chris. Last winter we gave Miss Terry’s mom one of Chris and Jim’s DVDs, and she said she learned more by watching it for five minutes than people had been able to teach her for years. The bottom line is, no matter how long you have had a computer, if you’ve never had a computer class, the Geek’s Boot Camp is for you! Check it out at http://www.geeksontour.com/bootcamp/index.cfm. Thought For The Day –
What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any
doubt – it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn’t want to
go anywhere else. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Thursday, September 4, 2008 RV air
conditioners are not the most efficient cooling devices in the world,
but we sure have been giving ours a workout. The heat wave that has been
baking We were out taking care of some last minute details for the Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and every time we stepped out of the air conditioned van it was like walking into a furnace. We are supposed to have a cold front coming through in the next day or two, and we’re really looking forward to it. This week the Mercer County Fairgrounds is holding a Fall Harvest Festival, with displays of antique tractors and engines, a truck and tractor pull, a quilt show, and an antique car race. We were told that the youngest driver in the race will be 71 years old. I’m definitely going to be sure to watch that! I had no idea that there were so many RVers into kayaking until I wrote about our kayak test paddling a few days ago! I have received at least twenty e-mails from blog readers who travel with their kayaks and enjoy paddling on rivers, lakes, bays, and even the ocean!
Some of the
favorite kayaking waters readers have written to suggest include the sea
caves of Santa Cruz Island, the harbors of Dana Point, California, the
Colorado River below the Hoover Dam, and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, all favorites of Robert Streett. Patricia
Byron wrote to tell me that her favorite kayaking waters are the lakes
around her home in Our pals Ron and
Brenda Speidel stopped back at Fluid Fun www.fluidfun.com
in Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Wednesday, September 3, 2008 Over the years, Elkhart Campground has become a second home to us, so it was with a bit of sadness that we said our goodbyes yesterday to owners Bob and Gita Patel, along with the regulars who stay there every summer. But it was time to move on, so we pulled out yesterday morning just after 10 a.m. and rolled east on the Indiana Toll Road, stopping for lunch and fuel (at $4.25 a gallon for diesel), before we turned south on Interstate 69 and followed it to Fort Wayne. From Fort Wayne we took U.S. Highway 30 east into Van Wert, Ohio, where we turned south on U.S. 127 for the short run to Celina. It was 94 degrees when we arrived at the Mercer County Fairgrounds in mid-afternoon. By the time we had parked the bus and hooked up our utilities, then unloaded everything from the van into a storage room, and had my motorcycle and our bicycles out, the heat was really kicking my rear end. I got heat stroke years ago, and ever since, I have not been able to tolerate high temperatures very well. Miss Terry poured a quart of Propel down me and got me cooled down. Celina is a
friendly little community surrounded by rich farm fields, and it sits on
the northwestern edge of The 17,500 acre
lake, originally built as a feeder reservoir for the The lake is
popular with fishermen and is stocked with channel catfish, bass,
crappie, perch, blue gill, sunfish, and northern pike. Celina and Grand
By the time we
finished dinner and stopped at the We’ll be here
in Celina for a few days getting some preliminary things done for our
Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, then Saturday we’ll head for Harrisburg, Thought For The Day – Never be afraid to slow down. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Tuesday, September 2, 2008 We sure had fun yesterday. Miss Terry and I, along with our pals Ron and Brenda Speidel drove over to Bristol, Indiana, about 10 miles from Elkhart Campground, to look at kayaks at a company called Fluid Fun www.fluidfun.com, a family operated business that has been selling kayaks and canoes since 1969. Company employees Steve Peterson and James Doty spent several hours with us, explaining the different types of kayaks available, and the benefits and limitations of each. Even though I told Steve early on that we were just kicking tires at this point, he insisted that the only way to know if a kayak “fits” is to try it out in the water. So we lugged several different types down to the bank of the St. Joseph River, which is right behind Fluid Fun, and Steve gave us a quick lesson in how to paddle a kayak, and how to safely (even if not always gracefully) get into one from a dock. James put his kayak into the river, and we took turns trying out different models while he paddled along beside or behind us to provide advice and direction. The river there is only about four feet deep this time of year, and moves pretty slowly, so it was the perfect place for novice paddlers like Terry, Brenda, and I to get our feet wet, so to speak.
Brenda was a little apprehensive, since she isn’t all that comfortable on the water, and her nervousness showed while she was paddling the first kayak. But Steve brought down a different model, and that one fit her better. It was obvious that she was much more comfortable by the time James herded her back to the dock, and her first words were “I can do this!” Then
it was Miss Terry’s turn, and I’ll tell you what, the pretty When it was my turn, I sure wasn’t the picture of grace and poise as I crawled into the kayak, but I managed not to roll it before I could get away from the dock, and that was at least one small triumph. Steve had told us in our quickie lesson that if we got into a situation where the kayak was beginning to bounce around too much, to just stop moving and sit still and that it would almost always right itself. The man knows his stuff, because I was leaning too much to one side, then I overcorrected, and before I knew it I was rocking all over the place. But I did what Steve had told us, and sure enough, that kayak settled right down! The first kayak I tried didn’t really fit me well, so Steve brought down a second model, a 14½ foot Native Watercraft Marvel, and I paddled it much better and it just felt more comfortable to me. After our time playing with the kayaks, I think all four of us were hooked, and Ron was suggesting that if I sold my motorcycle, I could buy a couple of nice boats and still have room inside the van! We’ll have to see what happens. So do we have any kayaking RVers among the blog readers? Write and tell me some of your favorite paddling rivers, and what kind of kayak you have. We’re leaving
Elkhart Campground today and driving to the Mercer County Fairgrounds in
Thought For The Day –
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Monday, September 1, 2008 Sometimes I wonder how some folks manage to get through their lives in one piece, because there is no question that they are one taco short of a combination plate. I mentioned the other day that Miss Terry found a new kitchen table for our bus conversion, and we put the older one outside the bus with a $25 for sale sign on it. A comparable table at one of the local surplus stores would cost you over $100, so it’s a pretty good deal for someone looking for a table.
Most of the people here for the holiday weekend have been great neighbors, but there are always a few who let their kids run wild, allow their dogs to disturb the neighbors, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Bob and Gita Patel, owners of Elkhart Campground, are very gracious hosts who will go the extra mile for their guests every time. But they also will not tolerate the few who don’t practice good campground etiquette and break the rules. More than once I have seen them patiently explain to someone why their actions are out of line, and most folks are quick to comply. However, I have seen a couple of rude types ejected from the campground when they insist on being jerks. I appreciate that in a campground owner. RV columnists Joe and Vicki Kieva have a very good column on campground etiquette in their blog at http://www.rvknowhow.blogspot.com/. I think a lot of people just do not know or understand proper campground behavior, though a lot of it is common sense. Of course, common sense is a pretty rare commodity sometimes. Yesterday we unpacked our van, loaded my motorcycle in with the help of Ron Speidel, and then reloaded everything inside. Between extra bundles of the new issue of the Gypsy Journal to distribute in our travels, our bicycles, three huge boxes of Gypsy Journal T-shirts and Rally T-shirts, a bunch of door prizes for our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and other rally supplies, that old van is stuffed! I’m sure glad we bought the ¾ ton extended length model. Several people who have registered for the rally have requested that they be parked with friends. We will do our best to accommodate you, but it would really help us accomplish that if you can arrange to arrive together. It won’t be long now folks, just two weeks before the rally starts. There’s still plenty of time to register for the rally, or you can just show up and we’ll fit you in. But if you can, at least send me an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net to let me know you’re coming. That will help us plan our parking. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and I hope we see you there. Thought For The Day –
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally For A Great Selection Of RV Books And Accessories, Visit Our Online Marketplace Click Here For Our August 2008 Blog Click Here For Our July 2008 Blog Click Here For Our June 2008 Blog Click Here For Our May 2008 Blog Click Here For Our April 2008 Blog Click Here For Our March 2008 Blog Click Here For Our February 2008 Blog Click Here For Our January 2008 Blog
|
Free Camping! Save Big $$$ With Our Special 7 in 1 RVers' e-book! Includes our bestselling guides to Free Campgrounds & Overnight Parking Places, Guide to Fairgrounds Camping, Casino Camping Guide, Guide To Public RV Dump Stations, RV Parks With WiFi, RV Good Guys and more! Click here for details DON'T BUY A LEMON! Before you buy any used RV, learn how to spot problems and save yourself headaches and heartaches Click Here for more information. Don't Miss An Issue. Click Here To Subscribe To The Gypsy Journal
|
Well, the
traveling was fine, but getting into the campground at the
Army did feed us horse meat back in the early 1970s, come
to think of it.) I just don’t see horses as pets. I don’t ride
anything I can’t put gas in, and if I don’t have room in my bus for
a dog, where the heck would I put a horse? The darned thing could
cripple me curling up at the foot of the bed!
We
enjoyed browsing the many vendor booths, where everything from hand
woven baskets to wooden kids’ toys and clothing were on display. And
what Applefest worth its weight in Granny Smiths wouldn’t have a few
vendors selling apples?
I
always admire anyone who can create anything, be it animals out of
balloons
or caricatures, and we saw artists demonstrating both at the festival. I
tried drawing a caricature one time, but I have to practice more. A
stick figure just doesn’t capture anyone’s personality like this
artist could do. To be honest, I could not draw a straight line with a
ruler, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
While we were in
Cincinnati, we stopped by the Family Motor
Coach Association (FMCA) 
Hey, we may have
found my truck conversion! Readers Jerry and Suzy LeRoy spotted this
unique rig at a campground in Hatch, Utah. What do you think? Doesn’t that just say “Nick” to you?
Well,
my career as a biker is over. In Monday’s blog I wrote that I had
decided to sell my Yamaha V Star 1100 motorcycle, and I received e-mails
from 9 different blog readers expressing interest in the bike. Yesterday
a nice fellow came to the fairgrounds, took the bike for a test ride,
and took it home with him. I’ll admit I was a bit sad to see it going
away, but it was time. I‘d much rather have someone who has the time
and skills ride the bike on a regular basis than to continue hauling it
around the country and seldom using it.
We
had a great time yesterday visiting a couple of neat places with our
pals Ron and Brenda Speidel. Our first stop was in New Bremen, Ohio.
Once a major stop on the 
America.
Housed in a beautiful old building, the museum has a marvelous
collection of antique and special interest bicycles on display, dating
back to the wooden 1816 Draisenne and continuing to modern day carbon
framed racing bikes that you can lift with one finger. The museum’s
displays include the Schwinn Bicycle Collection, which was moved to New
Bremen from 
While
visitors are asked not to touch most of the valuable bicycles on
display, the museum’s tour guide did invite Miss Terry and Brenda to
climb into a unique pedal car that I really thought would be great to
ride in around my favorite campground. Don’t they look like two hot
chicks out cruising for fun?
mounted where visitors can climb on and see what it feels like. My buddy
Ron really got into it! Hey dude, slow down before you get a traffic
ticket!
I
have loved the classic looks of the silver Airstream travel trailers ever since
I was a kid, and it was a lot of fun to see how they were made. I could
live in style in one of those babies!
even saw company founder Wally Byam’s gold Airstream trailer in a
storage lot! While Airstream travel trailers have never lost their
classic looks, they have kept up with modern technology and trends.
Airstream now makes trailers with slide out rooms, and they even have a
toy hauler model!
After
the majority of the folks who attended our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally
left the Mercer County Fairgrounds, several of us hung around over the
weekend to rest, recharge our mental batteries, and just relax. Poor
Miss Terry has been getting up before dawn every day for a couple of
weeks now, and wanted nothing more than to just sleep in. But the
response had been so good to Jim and Chris Guld’s Geeks on Tour 
they stick around after the rally and hold
a post-rally boot camp. They
did, and got a bunch of new students, including Miss Terry, signed up
for two days of instruction in computer skills.
Computers
weren’t the only thing Miss Terry was learning about this
weekend. Our pals Rick Schafer and Marcia Gantz have two very nice Honda
scooters, and were gracious enough to offer Terry a test drive. She took
a spin around the fairgrounds on Marcia’s 250cc Reflex, and I think the
smile on her face says it all. When she climbed off, the first thing she
said to me was “Now I understand why you like motorcycles.”
Phil
Botnick from Phil & Ann’s RV can fix just about anything ever
made, so I asked him if he had ever worked on motorcycles. He said no,
and he wasn’t interested in learning how to at this stage of the game.
But Saturday afternoon good old Phil pulled up in his service truck and said “I
can’t promise anything, but I’ll take a quick look at it.” Well,
that quick look lasted a couple of hours, and by the time he was done
Phil had removed the seats and gas tank to get at the spark plugs,
replaced them with new ones, made an adjustment or two, drained the
stale gas and replaced it with fresh, and that big old V Star fired
right up and purred like a kitten! Thanks for your help, Phil, you’re
a gem.
While
Terry was in class Sunday I took the bike out for a long ride along the
back country roads around Celina, and by the time I had returned to the
fairgrounds, I knew it was time to sell it. As much as I love riding,
Terry just isn’t comfortable on the bike, and I don’t ride it enough
to keep my skills up, or the bike in good operating condition.
The
RV world has lost an icon. Gaylord Maxwell, longtime RV columnist and
founder of the Life on Wheels program, died yesterday afternoon in 
Yesterday, before
leaving the fairgrounds, a long line of RVs were quickly and
efficiently
weighed by Rick and Joyce Lang from RVSEF. This hard working couple
really have the process down to a science, as these photos show. Rick
directs the RV into the proper position, then places portable scales
under each wheel. These are the same scales used by state Department of
Transportation officers to weigh commercial trucks.
With the vehicle
weights recorded on the preliminary report, Rick and Joyce explain the
results to the RV owners and give them advice on how they can reduce or
adjust their load for the best combination of ride and safety.
After
we had all stuffed ourselves with food, husband and wife
duo Larry and Melissa Beahm from One More Time took to the stage and
performed an hour of foot stomping, hand clapping music that had
everybody in the crowd laughing and having a good time.
After
Sunday’s terrible weather, yesterday dawned overcast but calm, and I
think everybody was very happy for that. RVers are great people overall,
and I really do believe that our Gypsy
Journal is the best of the best. All over the
fairgrounds yesterday I saw folks picking up downed tree branches to
clear the area, and others helping one another wash the dust and grime
off their rigs that had been plastered to their sides during the storm.
We may not be in 
drivers telling us of
harrowing experiences with wind and rain on the way in. Why in the world
did they feel they had to risk their lives to get here in that kind of
weather? Sure, I’m kind of a funny guy to visit with, and no matter
what any of my ex or present mothers-in-law swear, I’m actually pretty
brilliant to listen to. Just ask me and I’ll tell you. 
time to get everybody parked and settled in
tomorrow before the rally gets underway. Remember folks, safety first.
You can’t enjoy the rally if you wreck your RV getting here.
I have found the
perfect tow car to drag around behind our bus! We spotted the Oscar
Mayer Wienermobile parked near our motel in 
Of
more interest were the neat display of tractors, mostly antique John
Deeres, with a few offerings by Massey Ferguson, Oliver, International
Harvester, and even a Ford or two. It occurred to me that I’ve driven
everything from race cars to semi trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles,
airplanes, and even a bulldozer once. But I’ve never played with a
tractor. My pal Terry Simpson has a tractor at his place in 
Now,
if you’ve been reading the blog or the Gypsy
Journal for very long, you know that I’ve been lusting over a semi
tractor to make into a truck conversion. How about one of these babies?
The white truck is a 1959 GMC, the yellow one a 1960s Chevrolet, and
there was also a 1937 Kenworth! All of them are perfectly restored and
look beautiful. Now wouldn’t that be cool?
couple of photos of the quilts on display. They’d sure be comfy to
curl up under on a cold winter night but I like my solution to staying
warm better. We get out of Dodge and don’t stop driving until we see
either cactus or palm trees.
Lynn
Beard even sent me this photo of hubby Tom in his inflatable kayak at 
Once I had cooled
down, Terry and I ran out to get a bite of dinner, and noticed that the
Eagles lodge is located right on the shore of the lake, and has a marina
right behind it. We stopped to admire the sunset, and soon heard the
drone of three ultralight aircraft flying overhead. I grabbed a camera
and managed to get a couple of photos as one passed over the marina.
Ron has spent
some time on the water and his style proved that, as he effortlessly
paddled downriver and back to the dock in a couple of nice boats.
lady of
mine did herself proud, taking to the water like, well, a duck to water!
She paddled that 12 foot Current Designs Kestrel like she had been doing
it all her life. We’ve been together about eleven years now, and I
can’t remember ever seeing a smile that wide on her face.
My fully dressed
Yamaha V Star motorcycle happens to be parked in front of the bus also.
Yesterday, not one, but two different couples stopped to buy the $25
motorcycle! One guy was really disappointed when I told him it was not for
sale. The sign was on the table, not the bike, but they both assumed I
was selling a $5,000 motorcycle for $25. Huh? What’s next, someone
asking if I’ll take $20 for the bus sitting there?