Yesterday we felt like we were going in two directions at once. We had to drive into Orlando to pick up the pre-printed envelopes from the mail service, and even though it was only 27 miles, it took us well over an hour to get there.

We left the Thousand Trails campground about 11:15 and ran into a lot of traffic on State Route 192 through Kissimmee, which is no surprise, since that road is always busy. When we got onto Intestate 4, it was a parking lot, with long lines of cars in each eastbound lane sitting still.

For the next eight miles, it was stop and go traffic, with a lot more stopping than going. We were close to Disney World and Universal Studios, which are both very busy with holiday travelers, and several roads merge onto the highway there, creating a bottleneck. Which meant that all of the traffic coming onto the highway was trying to push their way in, passing on the shoulder, and doing whatever they could do to get one or two cars ahead of the next guy. And once they got there, they crept along just like the rest of us. It took us over a 45 minutes to go those eight miles, and when we finally reached our exit, there was road construction for several miles, making progress slow on the surface streets too!

We finally got to the mail service, picked up the envelopes, and then had to get right back on Interstate 4 to drive to the UPS freight dock in Tampa to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal. Fortunately, the interstate was only backed up in the eastbound lanes, so even though  traffic was still heavy, we made good time.

It was 77 miles to the UPS facility, and once we were out of the traffic around the Orlando area, we zipped right along. Traffic started to get busy again when we got to Tampa, but it wasn’t close to being as bad as in Orlando.

I have to say that I’m impressed with the UPS freight service. They picked up our load of newspapers from the printer in Allegan, Michigan at 12:36 Monday afternoon, and it arrived in Tampa at 6:35 a.m. Wednesday morning! I couldn’t have driven that far that quickly!

Of course, when we were picking up the load of papers, we discovered that UPS has a freight dock in Ocoee, just 17 miles from the mail service, and 22 miles from the Thousand Trails campground! When we were scheduling the shipment, I was told that the closest facility where we could pick it up was in Tampa. Hey, gasoline is cheap right? And what else do I have to do with my time but drive 140 miles round trip?

We hadn’t eaten all day, and by the time we got back from Tampa, we were famished. We met Dave and Jean Damon at a Chinese restaurant a few miles from the campground, and when I hit that buffet line, it wasn’t a pretty sight!

We had a nice dinner with our friends, and the more time we spend with Dave and Jean, the more we like them. In fact, we’ve gotten so close that I may even take our hard kayaks off the roof of the Explorer and let Dave work them over with some of his 303 products! Yeah, I’m that kind of friend.

Thought For The Day -Time flies when you don’t know what you’re doing.

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It was another chilly day here at the Orlando Thousand Trails campground, so we spent most of the day at home. The bad news is that being stuck inside too long really gives me cabin fever. But, the good news is that we’re getting a lot of things accomplished.

Yesterday I found a mail service in Orlando and made arrangements for them to handle sending out the new issue of the Gypsy Journal that is somewhere on a truck between Michigan and Florida, making it’s way south. We should have the papers in a couple of days, and then we’ll get them mailed out. Between the holiday printing schedule, which is always a hassle, bad weather, and problems with new production equipment at the printer’s, we’re running late. But as I wrote a few days ago, every December we run into something to delay us, no matter how hard we try to plan ahead.

Once that was taken care of, I uploaded the new digital issue of the paper, and sent e-mail notifications to all of our digital subscribers.

Meanwhile, Miss Terry has been busy sorting cabinets and drawers and piling stuff up on the counter. I asked her what she was up to and she said it was early spring cleaning, and anything that wasn’t useful was just taking up space and adding weight to the motorhome going to the dumpster. I was very quiet the rest of the day, just trying not to get noticed.

We have some changes coming for the new year. My pal Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour has been working on moving us to a new web server, and making some changes in our blog format.  We’ll be taking it live in the next few days, but here’s a sneak peak at the new blog format. Look it over and let me know what you think.

At first glance, it looks very similar to the present blog, but the comments will be easier to post and access, the new format automatically displays links to related blog posts, the links in the left column to the rest of our website are more contemporary, and best of all, it won’t be on the Yahoo servers, which have given us so much grief over the years. Chris still has some tweaking to do, but I think it’s a big improvement.

You may notice that there is a tab at the top to Miss Terry’s Kitchen. Don’t get too excited, Terry isn’t ready to commit to a cooking blog yet, but if we push her far enough out on that limb, she may have to. Or, she may just break that limb off and beat me with it!

In the afternoon, Denny and Cindy Henderson came by to pick us up, and we went to dinner at a nice restaurant called Oakwood Smokehouse and Grill in Clermont. Denny and I had the rib platter, Terry had chopped barbecued pork, and Cindy had a burger. Everything was delicious. At one time we were fans of Sonny’s Barbecue, which has locations all over the Southeast, but on our last few visits, we were disappointed in the food.  Given the chance, I’d opt for Oakwood Smokehouse any time.

Back at the campground, I unhooked our water hose so it would not freeze overnight, then came inside and got some writing done before it was time to go to bed.

Bad Nick did some writing too, and posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.

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Yes, it’s miserably cold here in central Florida. Yes, I am chilled to the bone. Yes, it sucks. But I shall not snivel. Yesterday evening we watched news coverage of the blizzard that is blanketing the east coast, and all of those folks stranded in airports, and others who were busy shoveling snow, or getting stuck. Compared to them, we have it good.

But just because I’m not going to snivel doesn’t mean I have to like it! If my fingers ever thaw out enough that I can type again, I plan to write a strongly worded editorial!

We knew the weather was going to be ugly yesterday, and we had no place to go and nothing to do, so we slept in, then stayed in bed snuggling for a long time, because neither of us was in a hurry to get out from under the covers. When we finally did get up, we wore our sweats all day long, and put on our warm Teepee Creepers sheepskin slippers. While Miss Terry has to have her morning kick start, I don’t drink coffee. But I sure didn’t turn down the cup of hot chocolate she made me for breakfast!

I spent the day catching up on a backlog of paperwork I had let pile up, and managed to make a big dent in it. Terry kept busy doing some laundry, puttering around the kitchen, and working on some other chores she needed to get out of the way.

It never got much above 50 degrees all day long, and the wind kept gusting up. Looking out the windows, we saw very little activity most of the day, except for a few people bundled up, walking their dogs. That’s another reason I don’t have a pet. I love dogs, but I’ll go play with theirs when it warms up, and leave the dog walking in the cold to them.

We love our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome, and it has so many nice features we didn’t have in our MCI bus conversion. The one place where it is lacking is in insulation. When we built the bus, we put several layers of different kinds of insulation in the floor, ceiling, and walls. We didn’t have a furnace in the bus, but with an Olympian catalytic heater, or a small electric heater, we  stayed warm and toasty even when outside temperatures got  down below freezing several times.

The Winnebago has two furnaces, a heat pump, and we use space heaters as needed, but it was still cold inside it yesterday. But I’m not sniveling!

Since the overnight temperatures were going to be in the mid-20s for the next few days, I went out in the late afternoon and disconnected our water hose to keep it from freezing.

Today and tomorrow look like more of the same thing. Terry has been saying that she needed a few days of down time to spend at home, and it looks like she’s getting her wish. but I’m not sniveling!

Thought For The Day – I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost.

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I wrote in Thursday’s blog post that while the Peace River NACO campground was okay, we really didn’t care for the town of Wauchula very much, and that if we could change our reservation and leave early and go back up to the Orlando Thousand Trails, we’d do it.

That same afternoon, I got a call from the folks at Camping Connection in Kissimmee telling us that both our new entry door latch and the parts for our Norcold refrigerator recall had come in, and they wanted to schedule a time to come in to get them installed. That was all the incentive I needed; I went up to the office, told them we needed to leave early, and they shortened our reservation. So yesterday morning we pulled out and drove the 75 miles  back to the Orlando Thousand Trails.

Traffic was light most of the way, but if you hear anything about a motorhome being involved in a high speed chase with the local police, here’s the story: We were on State Route 60, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so we could make a left turn onto the ramp to U.S. Highway 27 at Lake Wales. All of a sudden, a police car roared up behind us with his lights and siren on. He tried to climb up onto the island on the left to get past us, but his car couldn’t get over the high curb, and I was stuck waiting for traffic to get out of the way.

The way the road and ramp are configured there, with curving concrete islands and guardrails, there was no place for me to pull over or go to get out of his way, except right onto the ramp, so that’s what we did the minute there was a break in the traffic. I sped down the curved ramp and onto the highway, our kitchen drawers flying open and things rattling around inside the coach, with him right behind us. The minute I was past the guardrail and had room to get over, I did, and he flew past us headed north. Once the excitement wore off, I told Terry I bet anybody seeing that was wondering if that idiot in the motorhome towing the SUV really believed he could outrun the cops!

Once we arrived at the Thousand Trails and got settled into our site, Charles Deutschmann stopped in to say hello. Charles and his wife Nancy were at our last Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in March, and now they are parked in the RV site next to us. It’s a small world, especially in the RV community.

We took a ride around the campground, admiring the way folks decorated their rigs for the holidays. Some opted for simple things like Santa caps on their mirrors, or maybe a wreath or bow on the front end.

A few folks went a little further, and decorated a tree, or put out a lawn ornament or two.

But these folks take the prize. Talk about going all out for Christmas! I wonder if they carry all of that stuff in their motorhome year round, or store it someplace?

Our friends Dave and Jean Damon, who sell 303 products at RV rallies, are here at the campground, so we got together and had our Christmas dinner together at, where else? A Chinese buffet! The food was good and the company was even better. Here is a picture the waitress took of our well fed, happy group.

I’m glad we came up yesterday, because the weather is supposed to get nasty for the next few days, with wind and rain predicted for today. In fact, just before midnight when I wrote this, it was raining off and on, and the wind was really rattling our window awnings and slide toppers!

Today’s high is supposed to be 51 degrees, and overnight lows the next three nights are supposed to be in the 20s! I probably won’t be doing much, except sitting inside reading, watching TV, and oh yes, sniveling. Lots and lots of sniveling. Tell me again, why did I come to Florida for the winter?

Thought For The Day – Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.

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The RV world lost an icon yesterday, when Joe Peterson, co-founder of the Escapees RV Club, passed away. I have been privileged to meet Joe many times over the years at Escapades and other RV events, and he was always a cheerful, friendly, outgoing gentleman.

When Joe and his lovely wife Kay founded the Escapees, way back in 1978, they had no idea what they had started. Over the years they nurtured and guided their little organization until it grew into one of the largest, and in my opinion the very best, RV clubs around. The legacy Joe has left is something the rest of us will enjoy and benefit from for years to come.

This is a loss for all of us, but a double hit for the family; I’m told that Joe’s son-in-law, Bud Carr, also lost his father just a week or so ago. Please keep them in your prayers.  

We had visitors yesterday! Jim and Dee Walter, who are staying at an RV park a couple of miles up the road, stopped in to say hello. We had a good time talking about the RV lifestyle, sharing a joke or two, and comparing our favorite apps on our Droid smart phones.

After Jim and Dee left, Terry and I drove a mile or so south of the campground to Pioneer Park, a county park that includes a small museum, campground, and boat launch on the Peace River. Here are a couple of pictures, one upriver and one downriver. If we get a chance to paddle our kayaks while we’re here, I think we’ll use the launch at Pioneer Park, because the one at our campground is much steeper and looks like it would be harder to use.

We booked two weeks here at Peace River, and while the campground is okay, the town doesn’t have much to offer. Yesterday we had dinner at the Panda Chinese buffet, and it being a small town, we didn’t have high expectations. As it turned out, we were still disappointed! If we could change our stay and get back into the Orlando Thousand Trails, we’d leave and head back up that way. There’s a lot more to do and see in that area. We’d like to get some paddling in while we’re here, but the weather report for next week is looking pretty grim, so I don’t know if we’ll get to do that or not.   

I mentioned smart phone apps above,and if you have an iPhone or iPad, you might be interested in a brand new app that the nice folks at Technomadia just brought out, called Coverage?. This is a simple app that lets you see where you can expect to get 3G and roaming signals in the continental U.S. for AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. Yes, you can go online to the different carriers’ websites and get the same info, but Coverage? allows you to do so offline, wherever you happen to be.

These are the same folks who put out the excellent State Lines app, which no RVer should be without. Check out Coverages?, I think you’ll find it useful. They also publish an e-book titled Answers to the Common Excuses not to Travel Full-Time that I have heard good things about. I need to order a copy and check it out.

One final thought on technical things before I close. I have been having  e-mail problems for quite a while now. Sometimes e-mails never get to me,  other times they show up, but disappear from the server before I can read them, or ones I have saved for future reference go missing. 

While we were in Fort Lauderdale last week, Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour, switched me over to G-mail, but since our websites are still hosted on Yahoo for the time being, our e-mail first goes through the Yahoo servers, and that is where we seem to have the problem. So if you e-mailed me and I didn’t get back to you, please try again. Also, I lost some e-mails from folks who asked us to stop by while we were in their area, and I had no way to re-contact them. My apologies.

Bad Nick has been busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Armed Citizens Fighting Back. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Why be difficult, when with a little bit of effort you can be impossible?

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally