It’s getting close to that time of year again. The leaves are already beginning to turn in some places up north, and before we know it, the snowbirds will start migrating south for the winter.

If you follow the seasons, and will be away from your summer address for the winter, please don’t forget to send us a note or an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net giving us your winter address, so your Gypsy Journal subscription will get to you. Unless you pay for the first class postage upgrade to your subscription, the post office will not forward the paper. 

We spent yesterday printing more of our RV guides and making CDs to stock the inventory at our vendor booth at the Hershey RV Show, where we will be working eleven hours a day for the next few days.

We took a break for a while to visit with Russ and Patty Frady, longtime subscribers who stopped in for a quick visit. Russ took a bundle of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal to pass out at campgrounds in their travels. We appreciate them helping to spread the word.

Did I mention that there are a lot of geese here at the Hershey Thousand Trails campground? They’re everywhere, and while they are pretty, they are filthy, obnoxious critters. As I wrote before, this isn’t a place to walk around barefoot!

I didn’t have space in yesterday’s blog to tell you about our stop at Bird In Hand, another Amish town in Lancaster County. The Old Village Store sells an interesting collection of traditional Amish goods, tourist souvenirs, and antiques.

On the store’s crowded shelves, and upstairs in the antiques showroom, you can find flyswatters, Bag Balm, kitchen tools, Amish hats and shawls, recipe books, toys, and furniture that was old when your grandparents were kids.

You can even buy pumpkins and squash!

A couple of blog readers wrote to ask me what a “chocolate fountain” is, which I mentioned when I wrote about our dinner at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord. Well, it’s just what it sounds like, a fountain of warm melted chocolate cascading down from the top. People skewer strawberries, banana chunks and such, and dip them under the flowing chocolate for a delicious treat. Think of it as a vertical chocolate fondue, if you will.

We were originally scheduled to be a part of the Trade Days at the Hershey RV Show, which were Monday and Tuesday, but we skipped them to go sightseeing. I’m glad we did, because Al Hesselbart, from the RV Hall of Fame Museum, has been there, and he said it was dead. Al said that at one point yesterday afternoon, the vendors were playing frisbee football in the show aisles because they were bored and had not had any customers all day long. I like Al, but Miss Terry’s a lot prettier, and  I’d much rather spend time exploring the back roads with her than staring at him all day long!

Today the show opens to the public, and  I guess you could say that we’re cautiously optimistic. We have worked a lot of RV rallies, but this will be our first experience vending at an RV show, and we’re not sure how it will work out. We’re looking forward to seeing a lot of new people and introducing them to the Gypsy Journal, and hopefully some of them will like what they see well enough to subscribe. It’s going to be an interesting week.

When I took a break from the computer yesterday, Bad Nick  grabbed the keyboard and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Let Them Serve! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Click Here To Register For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally!

This part of northern Indiana is a stronghold of the Amish people, and wherever you travel around the communities of Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, and the surrounding area, you are likely to see Amish women  in their simple handmade dresses, their heads covered in white kapps, and men wearing black straw hats or stocking caps.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Amish people, including that they will not ride in automobiles, use electricity, or telephones. Drive anywhere around here and you will encounter horse drawn buggies and wagons on the roadways.

But, while they do not drive automobiles, the Amish will ride in them, and they frequently hire a non-Amish driver to take them to restaurants, stores, or other places too far to conveniently reach by buggy.

Drive any Amish back road in this region, and you will see small white structures in some yards that look like an enclosed telephone booth, and that is exactly what they are! Their religion does not permit a telephone in the house, and the “phone haus” is built for function, not comfort. There is no heat or cooling, and usually no chair. This is a place to do business, not sit and gab! If an Amish person advertises something for sale, they will include the telephone number and instructions to “call between 7 and 8 a.m.” or whatever time suits their schedule.

Yesterday, we drove out to Nappanee to visit with our friend Carylye Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Carlyle is a fantastic craftsman who built the desk units in our Winnebago motorhome last year, and he has a fast growing reputation with RVers for top quality custom wood furniture.

The tools in Carlyle’s shop are all powered by electricity, courtesy of a huge 40 KW diesel generator.  So as you can see, while the Amish do avoid many of the “modern” conveniences of our way of life, they have embraced some technology to give them the ability to conduct business.

We have also found it interesting to see Amish buggies lined up at the drive through window at McDonald’s, or to note such goodies as Pepsi and potato chips in their shopping carts at WalMart.

All day yesterday the wind blew hard, with gusts up to 40 miles per hour. If the wind lets up a little bit, we plan to leave Elkhart Campground today and start making our way eastward toward the Hershey (Pennsylvania) Thousand Trails preserve, where we will have a vendor booth at the Hershey RV Show next week.

It’s about 600 miles to our destination, and we’ll do it in two days. I have no idea where we’ll be tonight, but there is always an RV friendly WalMart, a truck stop, or someplace else to get off the road for the night.

Thought For The Day – Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after.

I can only spend so many days in a row stuck at my desk, and then I have to escape for at least a little while. I reached that point yesterday, so I took a break from working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, and Greg White and I drove out to Shipshewana to check out the goodies at the gun show.

I think we may have cause to be concerned, when we see the Amish stocking up on guns and ammo! At the Shipshewana gun show last year, I saw several Amish men looking over the hunting rifles and shotguns, but yesterday the exhibit hall was full of them. And I swear, one was buying a 9mm handgun!

Sometimes I forget that not everybody gets my sense of humor. While Greg was looking at something else, I found a nice toy on a display table, and was talking to the man who had it for sale, when Greg walked up. Being the typical wise guy that I am, I said to the fellow at the table, “Well, before I can buy anything, I have to ask my wife here if it’s okay.” The guy looked at his friend, back at me, and suddenly he wasn’t nearly as friendly as he had been just a few minutes earlier. “You’re not those kind of people, are you?” he asked.

Miss Terry and Greg’s wife, Jan, were off having a girl day, and when we left the gun show, we met them for a late lunch/early dinner at El Maguey, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Terry, Jan, and I had the shrimp enchiladas, and they were delicious. Greg had a chicken plate, and was just as pleased with his choice.

Back at Elkhart Campground, longtime Gypsy Journal subscriber George Bartley stopped by to say hello, and drop off his two year renewal check. Soon afterward, somebody else came by who is staying at the campground all month, and wanted to register to attend our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

Terry and Jan dropped off some stuff at the motorhome from their trip to the farmers’ market, then took off again for a WalMart run, Greg went off to do whatever it is he does, and I started back in on the paper. That didn’t last long, because somebody else stopped by to chat, and about the time I excused myself and said I really needed to get back to work, a series of telephone calls started coming in. I was finishing up the last of them when Terry and Jan got back home.

I worked the rest of the afternoon, and past midnight local time, except for a break to go to Dairy Queen with Terry, Greg, and Jan about 7 p.m. After our late lunch, nobody was very hungry, but there’s always room for dessert!

If I get an early start, and really, really work hard, I can get most of the new issue done today, making up for the time I spent goofing off yesterday. But it was worth it, I needed the break.

Thought For The Day – One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!