Thank you to everybody who e-mailed get well wishes to us. We’ve come through the worst of it, and I think we’re going to live after all.

Yesterday afternoon we drove into town and dropped off bundles of sample copies of the Gypsy Journal at several RV parks. We stopped at four or five different RV parks, and it didn’t look like any of them were much more than half full. Is it going to be a slow season in Florida, or did everybody wait until after Turkey Day to hit the road?

After we finished with the RV parks, we stopped at WalMart to get some more meds, and a few things Terry needed to restock our larder. I try very hard to avoid going into any store between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but sometimes things get desperate, and a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. I was out of Pop Tarts and Jello pudding cups.

I was surprised that the store was no more crowded than it normally is. I guess all of the Black Friday shoppers were home sleeping off their ordeal of the day before. Or maybe they’re doing more of their shopping online.

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I’m curious. How many of you blog readers shop online for Christmas gifts, or for things you need yourself? We don’t do it a lot, but last night Terry ordered a pair of those comfy Tee Pee Creepers slippers for somebody, and I’m about to order a Kodak Vi8 camcorder from Amazon for a new project I’m working on. I’m also going to contact Tim and Crystal Ryerson from Inflatable Boats 4 Less and have them send me out an electric pump for my Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 inflatable kayak.

For fulltimers who move around a lot, being in one location long enough to receive packages can be a problem. RV parks differ in their policies about accepting mail and packages. Some will allow you to have anything sent to you, in care of the office address, others will only allow FedEx or UPS packages, and some will not allow anything at all. I much prefer a campground where I can have both packages and my regular mail sent to me, instead of having to trudge down to the post office and stand in a long line to get my mail by General Delivery.  And since the post office won’t accept FedEx or UPS general delivery packages, it can be a hassle when ordering online.

Today we are leaving the Escapees Sumter Oaks campground and are headed back to the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve so we’ll be ready to get the base plate installed in our Ford Explorer next week. We’re taking a different route back than the one we came in on a week ago, one that my friend George Sharrer tells me will shave about 15 miles off the trip. Once again, Terry will follow me in the Explorer. I’ll sure be glad when we have it set up for towing, I miss her when we travel this way. I don’t think I could enjoy being a solo RVer.

I booked us into the Thousand Trails for fourteen days, though I’m not sure we’ll actually stay that long. If we get everything wrapped up, I really want to get down to the Keys and play for a while.

Thought For The Day – Those that judge us don’t matter. Those that matter don’t judge us.

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Labor Day weekend. The last big hurrah of the summer traveling and camping season for most people.

It’s going to be a busy weekend here at Elkhart Campground. Already RVs of every size and description are pulling in, and campground owner Bobby Patel tells me they have a lot of camping sites reserved for the entire weekend.

For fulltime RVers like ourselves, most holiday weekends don’t matter much, except for the fact that we have to plan ahead and get a place to park before every campground and RV park fills up with weekend campers. Most fulltimers we know try to get into a park by Wednesday or Thursday before the holiday weekend, and sit tight until about Tuesday of the next week, staying off the highway until things settle down and everybody gets back home.

Besides all of the weekend campers, we have quite a few folks we know here at the campground. Ron and Brenda Speidel have been parked next to us for a couple of weeks now, helping us get moved and settled into our new motorhome. What would we do without these two? Dale and Terry pace have been here for several weeks now, and we have visited with them several times.

Howie and Norah Glover arrived a few days ago, and yesterday Ken and Billie Barker arrived from their home in Missouri, and yesterday Dave and Linda Sand arrived, though we have not had a chance to talk to them yet. Linda is very good about sending me many of the little Thought For The Day sayings I use at the bottom of this blog.

With most of the move completed from the bus, I have turned my attention to creating a website for Carlyle Lehman, the owner of Focal Wood Products in nearby Nappanee, Indiana. Carlyle, an accomplished Amish craftsman, is famous in RV circles for his excellent custom furniture, and he is building a custom desk for me and a desk/workstation for Miss Terry, along with a bookcase, for the Winnebago. If you have had Carlyle build anything for your RV, I would really appreciate any digital photos you might be willing to share for use in Carlyle’s website.

Because I don’t have enough irons in the fire, between publishing the Gypsy Journal, four websites, writing for the RV.Net Blog, and now three blogs of my own, I also get to brag about a new book that I co-authored with Christy Pinheiro titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit!

The book was published this week and is available on Amazon.com. Here is a link to the book’s website, for anyone interested in checking it out. If there is a book inside of you, get yourself a copy of our new book, and check out my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit. I’ve supported myself by crunching words for most of my adult life, and it’s a lot more fun than working for a living.

But Bad Nick has been busy too. He just put up a new blog post titled Stick A Label On It. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

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