Yesterday was the calm before the storm in a couple of ways. After a harried week of putting the new issue of the paper together and getting it over to the printer in Flagstaff, we had a day to do absolutely nothing. And that’s just about all we did!

Miss Terry is still dealing with a combination of a cold and allergies, and her energy level is below normal. So we slept in, and then puttered around the rest of the morning, checking e-mail, cruising the internet, and watching the boob tube.

In the afternoon, we drove the twelve miles into Show Low from Juniper Ridge RV Resort to do some banking, and then stopped by my daughter’s house for a visit. Three year old Destiny and I played with the Wii, while she showed me all of her birthday presents, and brought out her pet guinea pig for me to admire. When seven year old Hailey got home from school, Grandma Terry helped her with her homework. And, of course, there was a lot of hugging and cuddling with little girls to be done.

When we left Tiffany’s, we stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner. The local franchise has a special going on, and we had their Pepperoni Lovers, which was delicious. Then it was back to the motorhome, where we had a new reservation waiting for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

I sent out the rally confirmation, as well as confirmation for our vendor booth space at the Pennsylvania RV & Camping Show in Hershey, in September.  This will be our first time to be vendors at this mega show, and we’re looking forward to it.

The rest of the evening was just as quiet. I wrote my RV blog post, and Bad Nick posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled I’m Gonna Be Rich, we watched some TV and caught up on some reading.

That was the calm, and today the storm begins. We have to drive back to Flagstaff, pick up the new issue of the paper and return to Show Low. The next few days will be a whirlwind of stuffing envelopes and getting the papers ready to mail out to our subscribers. 

I said in the first paragraph of this blog that it was the calm before the storm in a couple of ways. While the weather has been pretty nice the last few days, starting today we have a cold front coming through northern Arizona, with wind, rain, and even snow at higher elevations. It should be fun driving to Flagstaff and back.

Thought For The Day -  Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.

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Miss Terry is still feeling pretty bad, so I wasn’t sure if she was up to traveling yesterday. But when we woke up she said that maybe her problem is not a cold, but rather allergies, and she wanted to get out of the area to see if that made any difference.

So we left Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground about 9:30 a.m., drove north a few miles to U.S. Highway 36 and took it east to Hannibal. We crossed the Mississippi River and the road became Interstate 72 on the Illinois side of the river.

The weather had predicted scattered thunderstorms, and we had a few sprinkles as we were leaving Missouri, but they soon disappeared. Traffic was light and the bus was running good, so it was a great day for traveling.

We had talked about stopping in Springfield, Illinois to see the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site, but Terry was feeling so bad that about an hour into our trip she went back to the bedroom and laid down. She was still asleep when we reached Springfield and I didn’t want to wake her, so I just kept driving. Terry woke up about 160 miles down the highway, as we were passing by Rantoul, Illinois on Interstate 57.

We try to avoid driving anywhere near Chicago whenever we can, so at Gilman, Illinois we took U.S. Highway 24 east into Indiana and turned north again on U.S. Highway 41 and followed it until we came to U.S. 30, drove east again for ten miles, then got onto Interstate 65. It was a short jog north again to Interstate 80, and we followed it all the way to Elkhart.

Except for one short stop for a late lunch/early dinner at one of the service plazas on the Indiana Toll Road, we just kept on rolling, putting about 450 miles behind us. This is more than most RVers like to travel in a day, but sometimes we get out there on the open road and the miles just keep going by effortlessly.

It is always nice to pull into Elkhart Campground, which feels like home to us because we have been coming here so many years. We know all of the regular visitors here, and got lots of waves as we drove past. As soon as I stopped the bus in front of our regular site several fellows came by to say hello.

It always takes a while to get the bus set up when we arrive at a new location, and I told Terry to just let it go until she got to feeling better, but she likes things in order, so she insisted on getting organized while I hooked up our utilities.

After more than a week of very slow National Access service on our Verizon air card, it’s great to have four full bars of EVDO high speed internet again. We’ll be here for much of the summer, with some trips out to visit family members in Michigan, and maybe to a few RV rallies in the region. It’s good to be home again.

Thought For The Day – When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

The elk are on the move here in the White Mountains of Arizona. Yesterday while Miss Terry was stuffing envelopes with the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, I ran some errands and saw a herd of five or six elk in a field just off State Highway 260 in Lakeside. When I pulled back into Show Low Lake Campground, two more large cow elk were standing in the driveway. Elk are huge animals, and every year unfortunate motorists have collisions with at least one or two of them as they migrate from lower elevations to higher mountain meadows as the weather warms up.

The White Mountains, our former home, is a forest wonderland that contains the world’s largest stand of Ponderosa pine trees, and is dotted with lakes teeming with trout and other freshwater game fish. In fact, the state record walleye was caught right here at Show Low Lake, where we are camping. The lake routinely rewards anglers who know how to catch them with walleye over ten pounds. And you thought Arizona was all deserts and rattlesnakes!

It is always nice to come back to our old hometown, but poor Miss Terry pays a price for it. Her allergies have really kicked up, and she is miserable with itchy eyes and sneezing. A lot of people who never had allergies come to Arizona and find that they do indeed have them. From the deserts to the high country, the folks who sell Zyrtec and other allergy medications do a booming business this time of year.

After I returned to the bus yesterday afternoon, I spent some time working on my websites while Terry made a huge dent in the number of envelopes to be filled. Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour has designed a neat graphic link to my new Honor A Veteran website, and I added it to my Gypsy Journal, Motorcycle Travel Online, and Publishing 4 Profit websites, along with the Todays Hero Blog.

When that was done, I answered several e-mails from readers, and reluctantly had to turn away two vendors who wanted to come to our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, because we already have folks signed up with the same products. Both were disappointed, but understanding when I explained that our rallies are small and we want our vendors to have a good show, so we do not allow duplication of products among our vendors. We’ve already got a lot of registrations in for the rally, so be sure you get yours in too!

In the evening we took a break and went to my daughter Tiffany’s house, where son-in-law Jim grilled hamburgers and we had a good time playing with our two granddaughters. Those little ones sure do have a lot of energy! They can wear a fat old grandpa out in no time at all!

We’ll spend the rest of the weekend getting the new issue ready to mail out Monday. A cold front is bringing more wind to the area, and we’re hoping that it will pass on through before we have to drive back to the mail service in Flagstaff Monday morning.  

Once the mailing is finished, we’ll have some time to relax and play before we have to hit the road in mid-May, headed for the Escapees Escapade rally in Sedalia, Missouri.

Thought For The Day – Life not only begins at forty, it also begins to show.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally