We had another busy day yesterday. I had a lot of work to get done, but I decided to cheat and go play for a while first. There was a gun show in Shipshewana, the Amish center 20 miles east of Elkhart, and I have wanted to get out that way and drop some bundles of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal at the campgrounds in that area, so I decided to combine business with pleasure.

Shipshewana, best known for its flea market, is an interesting place. In the past I have called it sort of an Amish theme town, in that you will see lots of Amish people in their horse drawn buggies and plain clothes, but also shops packed with tourists buying everything from overpriced quilts and crafts, to delicious cheeses. You can even (for a fee) take a ride in an authentic Amish buggy!

And Shipshewana is always a busy place! The main street through the business district is only a mile or so long, but it can take you a long time to cover that distance with all of the traffic. Cars, tour buses, RVs, buggies, Amish riding bicycles, and people on foot create an obstacle course that you have to be very careful to maneuver safely through.

After an hour or so of wandering through the gun show, and wishing I had kept all of the shooting irons I have sold over the years, I dropped Miss Terry off at E&S Sales, an Amish bulk food store, and then backtracked to drop off a couple of bundles of newspapers at the Shipshewana South Campground. There is also a Shipshewana North Campground a couple of miles north of town, which we had hit on the way in. The northern campground is never as full as the southern, which is within walking distance to everything in town, and both places are always clean and have friendly people in the office.

E&S was packed with shoppers, and when I caught up with Terry we spent a while browsing everything from a huge assortment of flour and other baking goods, to bulk candy and a dozen or more varieties of cheeses.

We had spent more time in Shipshewana than we had planned to, and when we left we stopped at a roadside produce stand, and when we left there, I told Terry I had to get right to work as soon as we got home. Yeah, right!

Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School had arrived at Elkhart Campground while we were gone, and as we pulled up we saw them and they came over to say hello and tell us all about their summer adventures RVing in Alaska. We just have to make that trip one of these days! Sometime during their visit, somebody mentioned dinner, and Terry and I realized that it was 5 p.m. and we had not had anything to eat all day long. So we piled into their car and went to Ryan’s Buffet for dinner and more good conversation. 

When we returned to the campground, Ruth Fleck and Linda Jensen were waiting at the bus. We had met them in Albuquerque at the Affinity Rally, and ran into them again at the FMCA rally in Bowling Green, Ohio a couple of weeks ago. We visited with them for a while, and Bill Joyce and Diane Melde wandered over to join in the party.

Finally, about 8 p.m., I excused myself and went inside to get some work done. Sometimes you just have to throw your plans out the window and go with the flow.

Thought For The Day – Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow.

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As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, I wasn’t sure if we could get out of Show Low Campground because the weekend storm had made the roads so soft. But with very high winds predicted for today, we decided to give it a try.

Dee, the new campground manager, and I walked over the soft patches, and he suggested that if I kept well to the left side, where it was a bit firmer, he thought I could make it.

So after Miss Terry did the final proofing of the new issue of the Gypsy Journal and I made the necessary corrections, I fired the bus up and unplugged the electric cable, while Terry quickly secured things inside. Then I gave our PressurePro system a quick scan to be sure our tires were properly inflated, and we made ready to pull out.

As I approached the soft section of roadway, I did as Dee suggested and kept well to the left, made a running start at it and sailed right through. At one spot I felt the right rear wheels trying to bog down, but I maintained steady pressure on the throttle and got through just fine. After a quick stop at the dump station to empty our waste tank, I filled our fresh water tank and pulled out of the campground.

My daughter Tiffany had come over to see us off, and she rode in the passenger seat for the short distance I had to go to a place where Terry could pull the van up behind us to hook it up. I don’t know what I did, maybe it was the huge windshield right in front of her, or sitting so high off the ground, but when I swung into the parking area at the lake to hook up, the poor kid turned green and about lost her cookies.

Speaking of Tiffany, my little girl turns 27 today, and I really wish we could have been there to help her celebrate. Happy birthday, Tiffany. No father in the world could love a daughter as much as I do you, or be more proud than I am of you. You’re a wonderful young woman, and every minute I spend with you is a treasure I hold deep in my heart.

We were on the road at 1:30 p.m. and had a good run north to Holbrook, where we got on Interstate 40 and scooted east past the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, where brilliantly colored sandstone formations delight the eye.

Just before we crossed into New Mexico, a beautiful 1947 Cadillac cruised past us. I wondered if it was somebody exploring old Route 66 in a classic car, and I recalled the trips Terry and I had taken over the Mother Road in our vintage Corvette years ago.

We had that rarest of all phenomena for RVers, a tailwind, that hopefully helped our fuel mileage just a tiny bit, as we passed Gallup and Grants, and several Indian casinos stretched out along Interstate 40. We stopped at the Dancing Eagle Casino for fuel, and recalled a night we spend boondocking in their parking lot a couple of years ago.

We’re not much into gambling, but in our travels, we have spent the night in several Indian casino parking lots across the country. We appreciate the free boondocking opportunity, if they have a truck stop the fuel is usually cheaper, and we’ve found that their buffets are a good place to have dinner after a long day on the road.

We made it into Albuquerque about 6:30 and pulled onto the State Fairgrounds, where our pals Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety, and Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum greeted us. As soon as we were parked and had the van unhooked, the four of us headed to the local Golden Corral for dinner. We’ll be helping Al and Mac out at their booths at The Rally for the next few days.

This is Affinity’s big annual soiree, and we’ve never attended one of their events. Affinity is to the RV world what Wal-Mart is to the retail world, less the benefit of free overnight parking. They seem to have their fingers in every pie in the industry, and we’re interested to see how the rally goes.

One final thing before I sign off. I got an e-mail from a lady whose husband is an RV technician in Nixa, Missouri, asking me if I thought RVers these days are keeping present RVs and maintaining them to conserve their money, or taking advantage of the current soft market to upgrade to a new (or newer) unit. I asked about this in a couple of my seminars at recent rallies, and the greatest majority, almost unanimously, said they are hanging onto what they have and investing in maintenance and upkeep. How about you? Post a comment below and let us know your thoughts on this.

Thought For The Day – Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

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Okay, what’s with all of this winter weather? We had a dusting of snow on Wednesday night, and I did some sniveling in spite of my best intentions to take it like a man.

But yesterday morning we woke up to about three inches of heavy, wet snow covering the campground here at Show Low Lake! It snowed hard off and on all day long.

I think the weather gods are testing me, and I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to fail. I’m about to throw a screaming, foot stomping tantrum, and it’s not going to be a pretty thing to see!

I have wheels under my house so I don’t have to see that nasty, cold stuff. And as much as I love my daughter Tiffany and my two granddaughters, warm weather better get here soon, or those wheels are going to start rolling, and they’ll be waving bye bye to me.

Actually, we have plans to leave Show Low Wednesday and go to Albuquerque to attend The Rally, Affinity’s big annual event. Then we plan to return here for a couple more weeks before we start toward Sedalia, Missouri for the Escapees Club Escapade rally.

Though we have some concerns about getting out of the campground. The roads are all dirt with gravel over them, and it has not been a problem so far. But right now the ground is so wet that when we drove over to Tiffany’s house yesterday afternoon, our Ford van wanted to sink in, and I could feel the rear tires starting to spin. Our bus weighs a lot more than the van, and the forecast is for more precipitation in the form of rain and snow showers between now and Wednesday. If we don’t get a break in the weather so it can dry up, we may be stuck for the duration.

Between now and Wednesday, I’ll be busy getting the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to send to the printer. This is our 10 Year Anniversary Issue, and I’m including some articles about our early days and how this dog and pony show of ours came to be.

Looking back, it amazes me that we have been fulltime RVers for an entire decade. It feels like we have just begun, and there is so much yet that we want to see and do. We cannot ever picture hanging up the keys as long as we can still climb behind the steering wheel and see to aim this old bus down the highway. It’s been a wonderful journey, and we’re just getting started!

Thought For The Day – Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

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