Sometimes I don’t have anything special to write about, because a lot of the time, living in an RV is just like living in a house or apartment. We do chores, we goof off, we visit friends, and before we know it, the day is gone. Yesterday was a good example.

My friend Dave Damon had asked if I could pick him up in Clermont yesterday about 12:30, after an appointment he had, and I said no problem. He actually called about 11 and said he had finished up early, so we drove the 15 miles or so to pick up Dave and his pretty wife Jean, and drove them back to the Thousand Trails campground.

The last couple of nights, I have been unhooking our water hose overnight because it was getting so cold, so back at the motorhome I hooked it back up and filled our fresh water tank, and left it hooked up so Terry could do some laundry.

I had been craving some of Miss Terry’s delicious crepes, and while I was doing that, she made up a batch for brunch. Yummy! I’ll never be a slender man.

In the afternoon, I spent some time trying to familiarize myself with a Kodak Zi8 digital video camera I recently bought for an upcoming project I’ve been working on. The Zi8 is a pretty nifty little camera. It’s about the same size as my Droid Incredible phone, and the quality of the videos, even taken inside the motorhome with just ambient light, is pretty impressive.

I knew from the reviews I had read that the camera’s built-in microphone is basically worthless for outside use, so when I ordered it, I also ordered an Audio-Technica lavalier microphone. But even with the mike, the sound volume was very low. My buddy Greg White has the same camera, so I called him in Texas and picked his brain. Greg said he’d look at his camera and try to figure it out, but about then, I found the camera’s volume adjustment, and solved the problem myself. When all else fails, read the directions.

Greg is a computer whiz, so while I had him on the phone, we talked about the fact that my Dell desktop seems to be getting slower all the time, in spite of running all of the different cleanup programs and such. The computer is about three years old, and that seems to be about the lifespan for one for me, since I use it so much, and bounce them around all over the country. We decided that when we hook back up before our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, Greg will try to work his magic on it, and if that doesn’t do it, it’s time to go shopping.

After I got off the phone with Greg we made a run to WalMart, which was busy, but not as busy as we had expected, what with folks returning Christmas gifts and shopping for after-Christmas bargains.

It was a good day for telephone conversations, so once I got my fill of WalMart (which didn’t take long), I left Terry to the shopping and went outside and talked to my buddy Orv Hazelton, who is at the Escapees Jojoba Hills co-op in southern California. Orv said it was supposed to get very cold there overnight. That made me feel a little bit better. If I have to be cold, everybody should be cold!

When we got back to the motorhome, our neighbor, Charles Deutschmann, invited us over for a bowl of ice cream and some conversation during the evening. Never one to turn down free food, especially ice cream, I quickly said we’d be there.

We had a nice time visiting with Charles and his wife Nancy in their beautiful Monaco motorhome. It’s a mid-entry diesel pusher, which you don’t see many of, and the layout was very nice. The ice cream was delicious, the conversation flowed well, and before we knew it the time had flown by and it was after 10 p.m. We felt bad for taking up Charles and Nancy’s entire evening, so we took our leave and came home.

We watched TV for a while, and by the time I caught up on a few e-mails and wrote this blog post, it was getting late and time to think about bed. Where did the day go?

Thought For The Day – I’m not cynical. I’m just experienced.

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For years people have been telling us about this guy named Solomon, and about the castle he built for himself, way out in the citrus groves of central Florida. It was one of those places I figured we’d get to “someday” when we had nothing better to do. Well, someday came, and I’m sure glad it did!

Solomon’s Castle is the home, studio, and brainchild of artist/sculptor Howard Solomon. Howard built the place by hand, using scrounged building materials and junk to create an eclectic attraction that is well worth the time it takes to get there.

The outside of the castle is silver, and closer inspection reveals that Howard covered the exterior with used newspaper printing plates.  There is an amazing amount of detail that is easy to miss at first glance, such as the stained glass windows in the towers.

And what’s a castle without knights to protect the gates?

We took a tour of Solomon’s Castle, and our guide was a fun lady who pointed out little things that display the artist’s quirky sense of humor. What the rest of us see as junk is raw material just waiting to be transformed into the visions floating around in Howard’s head.  Howard uses everything from old car parts and cast off appliances, to beer cans and scrap lumber in the creative process.

Here are his Piston People, made out of old car pistons. Below them is a toy Ford tractor made out of a discarded gas can and a frying pan.

This painting is actually a mosaic made from bits of wood. Below that, old pipes, metal rods, and tin cans were transformed into this band of musicians.

Evil Kornevil is a motorcycle made out of an old corn picker. What a gift to see so much beauty in everyday junk!

I’ve seen a lot of guns in my time, but nothing like these contraptions!

How would you like to meet up with this scary fellow in a dark alley?

Hmmm… Howard didn’t impress me as a Democrat!

Here’s Howard’s tribute to artist Norman Rockwell.

The tour includes Howard and his wife Peggy’s living quarters on the second floor of the castle, where a self-portrait of the artist hangs on the wall.

These beautiful stained glass windows were in a small six sided room Howard built especially to accommodate a chandelier a friend gave him as a gift.

Besides the castle, Howard also built the Boat in a Moat, a replica of a Spanish galleon, which is a restaurant, with an adjacent gift shop for those who work up an appetite playing tourist.

He even has his very own reproduction of the Alamo, in case you can’t get to Texas to see the original one.

After the tour, we were honored to meet Howard, and he gave Terry and I a private tour of his workshop. Miss Terry loves tools, and Howard sure had a bunch of them!

We got to see some of Howard’s unfinished projects in the workshop.

I can’t remember ever meeting anybody with a combination of so much talent, such a great sense of humor, and such a down to earth friendly personality. Howard is a gentle soul who makes you feel like a friend the first time you meet him.

He has a quick comeback for every question, such as when somebody asked him where he gets his inspiration, and he replied “Drugs and alcohol.”

If you haven’t made a trip to Solomon’s Castle yet, you owe it to yourself to put it in your travel itinerary. I guarantee you’ll get a few chuckles out of the experience, and if you’re like me, you’ll also be amazed at what a person can create when they let their imagination run wild.

Solomon’s Castle is located east of Bradenton, Florida, off State Route 64. For more information on the castle, hours of operation, and directions, visit the Solomon’s Castle website.

Terry and I want to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas, and all the best in the coming New Year. Living in a motorhome,  we don’t have a Christmas tree, and if we did, there wouldn’t be any presents to put under it, because we have all we need. We have each other, we have a family that we love, and we have friends like all of you. What more could anyone ever want or need? Each of you is a bright and shining star on the Christmas tree of our souls.

Thought For The Day -  Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

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The old saying “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” dates back to the story of the Trojan Horse, when the Greeks besieged the city of Troy during the Trojan War. According to legend, after a long siege, the Greeks built a huge wooden horse, and concealed a small force of their best soldiers inside. Then they boarded their ships and sailed away.

The besieged Trojans thought that they had outlasted their enemies, and opened the gates to the city and pulled the horse inside as a victory trophy. That night, after the Trojans all went to sleep, the Greeks hidden inside the horse force crept out and opened the city gates to the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back, under cover of night. The Greek army entered and seized the city of Troy, ending the war.

The purpose of this history lesson is to tell you that while you might want to avoid Greeks bearing gifts, Geeks bearing gifts are something else altogether!

Yesterday evening Jim and Chris Guld, from Geeks on Tour, showed up at our door with grilled lobsters that Jim had caught while scuba diving just off the beach, here in Fort Lauderdale. Those things were huge!

Jim and Chris supplied the main entree, and Miss Terry filled out the menu with wild rice pilaf, stir fried mixed vegetables, and fresh sliced Heirloom tomatoes. Everything was delicious, and I guarantee you nobody went hungry!

After dinner we sat around visiting for a couple of hours, and Chris showed me a trick or two with G-mail, Windows Live Writer, and Microsoft Streets & Trips. And, of course, we swapped a lie or two, and solved a good number of the world’s problems in the process.

It’s been wonderful having this one on one (or actually two on two) time with Jim and Chris, away from all of the hustle and bustle of an RV rally. Thanks for all your time, help, and especially your friendship, Jim and Chris! It’s been a lot of fun!

Since the weather is supposed to cool back down next week, we have scrubbed our original plans to go to the Keys, and instead, today we’re leaving Fort Lauderdale and are traveling to the Peace River NACO preserve in Wauchula, Florida.

We’ll hang out there until we get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal back from the printer and mailed off, and hopefully we’ll get in some kayaking on the Peace River, if the weather cooperates during our stay.

We’ve only got a few weeks left in Florida before we have to start west to get ready for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma March 7-11. During that time, we want to get back to Pinellas Park for a family gathering, and we’d love to spend a few days around Crystal River, and maybe at Cedar Key, if we can.

Bad Nick has been busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Blame Your Parents, Not Us. check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you have changed.

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Today is our last day in Fort Lauderdale, and it sure has been a fast week! Between bad weather and getting the new issue of the Gypsy Journal wrapped up, we haven’t gotten to see much during our stay.

But last night Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour took us for a quick tour of some of the city’s highlights when we went out to dinner, and it is obvious that they have a lot of affection for the place. Chris went to high school here, and Jim lived here from 1985 until they went on the road a few years ago. Since Chris’ mom and Jim’s dad and son both live here, they spend a lot of time here at Paradise Island RV Resort.

We drove along the waterfront, where we saw the lights of huge ships making their way down the coast, and stopped to walk on the beach for a few minutes. Since it was dark, we didn’t get to see a lot, but anytime I’m on a beach, I’m a happy camper! We had a very nice dinner at an outside table at a restaurant called Coconuts. On our way in, we stopped to check out this huge pot of paella, a concoction that included saffron rice, lobster, crab, scallops, shrimp, onions, peppers, and assorted vegetables. It looked delicious, but at $26 a serving, we all decided we weren’t quite that hungry! Jim and I had blackened mahi sandwiches, while the ladies had fish tacos, and we finished off with delicious key lime pie. Yummy! While we ate, we watched large boats cruising up the Inland Waterway, and smaller boats coming and going as people stopped at the restaurant’s dock. One of the waitresses took this picture of the four of us at our table. Don’t we look well fed and happy? The restaurant is located right next door to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, which honors the achievements of famous swimmers, divers, water polo players, synchronized swimmers, and people involved in life saving activities. Did you know that the late radio and television personality Art Linkletter was  a world-class swimmer, or that if it weren’t for a bad bout of poison oak, he would have participated in the 1932 Olympic Trials. A college backstroke champion, Linkletter might well have earned a spot on the US Olympic swimming team. I wonder what direction the famed humorist’s life might have taken, if it weren’t for a bad rash?

We had a good time visiting with Jim and Chris at dinner. Besides being the world’s best mobile computer geeks, they are also accomplished kayakers and scuba divers. Miss Terry has always wanted to learn how to dive, which I had hoped she could do this winter. I think hearing all of Jim and Chris’s stories of their underwater adventures really whetted her appetite to try it!

Even though we didn’t get to play tourist very much, we did get some things accomplished in our time here, or rather, I should say, Chris got some things accomplished for me. Over time we will be moving all of our websites off the Yahoo servers, and she has a lot of the groundwork done for that. She also helped me with an ongoing problem I’ve been having with e-mail messages disappearing after I open them, or not getting to me at all, another problem that seems to have its origins with Yahoo. Thanks Chris, I really appreciate all of your help.

Thought For The Day – Why is the man you hire to invest all of your money called a broker?

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Can you believe  that three months from today, our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally will begin? That may seem like a long time to you, but believe me, from our perspective, it’s coming up fast!

There is a tremendous amount of work involved in planning and pulling one of these events off. With over 225 RVs attending, and a ton of walk-in visitors who are staying at local RV parks, it’s a real juggling act to have enough different seminars to meet everybody’s needs. Not to mention the logistics of providing morning coffee and donuts for everybody, making sure the different seminar rooms have the equipment each speaker needs, and that we don’t have two seminars in the same time slot that compete too heavily with each other. And did I mention the evening entertainment, or feeding several hundred hungry people pizza in a matter of minutes at our pizza party? All of of that is after we get all of those RVs in and parked!

I’ve been giving our seminar lineup a lot of thought. One part of me says that there are already a lot of events with seminars on the basic RV stuff like how to hook up campground utilities, basic RV systems, RV tires, etc. So maybe we should concentrate more on seminar topics that folks can’t get everywhere else, like the seminars we had on Kayaking For Beginners and Bicycling For RVers at our Eastern Rally in Elkhart this summer. But then again, if you’re a brand new RVer coming to your first rally, you need those basic seminars.

I’d like to see more seminars on RV destinations, places to go, and things to do when you get there. If anybody who is going to be at the rally has an idea for a seminar that they’d like to put together along those lines, or on any topic, for that matter, or maybe a craft class, send me an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net and tell me about it.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do about T-shirts for the Arizona rally. Everybody says that they want rally shirts, but we have to order at least 100 to get the pricing that we can afford. Then, we usually end up with 40 or more shirts left over, which means we lose money anyway. Somebody suggested that we only take pre-orders that are paid in advance, but then people at the rally say “I wanted one too!” So I’m just not sure if we’ll have shirts in Yuma or not. 

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Several people said that we could just donate the leftover shirts to charity, and that sounds good, but it’s still money that we spent and received no return on, and as a business, the idea is to make a profit. 

Miss Terry found a use for some of the T-shirts that we had left over from the rallies. The other day she made a rug from several leftover shirts. Looks cool, doesn’t it? The bits of yellow, black, and white you see in the rug are the printed logos from the T-shirts.

Speaking of my beautiful bride, two people have expressed condolences to us in the last few days over the loss of Terry’s mom. I don’t know where that rumor got started, and while we appreciate your concern, Terry’s mom, Bess Weber, is alive and well, and just as feisty as ever. My parents have been gone for many, many years, but Terry’s parents, Pete and Bess are still healthy, active, and very involved in life, their church, and their family’s activities. I know a lot of people half their age that are not in as good shape.

We only have a week to go on our Buy One, Get One Free Holiday Special Offer. A lot of folks have taken advantage of the savings, and there’s still time for you to renew or extend your subscription, and get a free subscription for somebody on your Christmas shopping list too! Just click the link below, while there‘s still time

Whatever you’re doing today, I hope you take a moment to remember our fellow countrymen who were lost 69 years ago today during the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. That terrible Sunday morning changed the world forever, just as the terrorists attacks of 9/11 did. The only difference is that back then, our nation had the cajones to kick ass and take names, as we used to say in the military.

Hey, I’m starting to sound like Bad Nick, so I’ll stop for now, but check out his latest Bad Nick Blog, titled Silly Sarah, and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – No matter how bad you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.

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