Terry and I are still feeling crappy. I suspect that what we thought was a cold may be the flu. Whatever it is, it sucks.  We had better get well soon, because we’re about out of meds, and we both have cabin fever.

I’d like to say that I’m taking advantage of the downtime to get a lot of work done, but the truth is that my head has just been too foggy to get much accomplished. I tried writing a couple of stories over the last two days, but when I went back to read them, even I could not make any sense of what I was trying to say.

I also spent some time working on the schedule for our upcoming Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma in March. Unfortunately, a couple of our regular seminar presenters won’t be there, due to scheduling conflicts. Mac McCoy has to be in Perry, Georgia for the FMCA convention the next week, and that doesn’t allow him any traveling time, so I’m afraid we won’t have his Fire Safety seminar. This will be the first time Mac has missed one of our rallies, but we understand the logistics that will keep him away.

I’m always looking for new seminar topics, so if you have an idea for a seminar you’d like to see, or if you have one you would like to present, send me an e-mail and tell me about it.

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For years I have done a seminar on working the road, based upon my book Work Your Way Across The USA.  But now I’m trying to put together a seminar on small businesses that RVers can operate as they travel. There are a lot of things out there that can be done from an RV, from flea market vending, to internet based businesses, RV repair, and more. If you operate a business from the road, and would care to share an idea or two, please e-mail me at editor@gypsyjournal.net.

While we’re on the subject of RV related businesses, a while back a fellow named Gary Smith, who operates an RV awning repair business in Oregon, contacted me and asked me to review a new fourteen set DVD course that teaches people how to start their own RV awning repair business. I must say that I was very impressed with Gary’s program, and if I were a handy person looking for a small RV related business to start, this is one I’d really consider.

The DVDs explain the basics of the business, including how to get started,  proven advertising techniques that have served Gary for over 20 years, and in depth explanations on how to do everything from replacing window awnings, to RV awning hardware repair, replacing awning fabric, screen rooms, and more. After watching Gary’s careful explanations and demonstrations, I think even I could swap out an awning if I had to!

Gary says that besides the DVD course, buyers can contact him anytime they run into a problem with an awning repair or installation for his expert advice on how to get the job done.

How impressed was I with Gary’s program? Enough that when we get back to Arizona, I’m going to talk to my son-in-law about the possibility of him setting up his own awning repair business!

To learn more about Gary’s RV Awning Repair Course, click the link and check it out. If you decide this might be a good business idea for you, call Gary at (541) 247-0185 and tell him I sent you, and he’ll give you a discount off the regular price of the course. Give it a look, this might be a good match for you!

While I was moaning and groaning yesterday, Bad Nick took the time to post a new Bad Nick Blog titled And Now, Your Honor. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Friends are the sailors who guide your rickety boat safely across the dangerous waters of life.

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It’s Black Friday, let the madness begin! For the next month, I will do everything in my power to avoid any WalMart, Sam’s Club, Best Buy, or any of the other big box stores. I just can’t handle the crowds and all of the “happy” holiday shoppers pushing, shoving, and scrabbling to save a buck on something, or to find that perfect Christmas gift for somebody on their shopping list. Bah humbug!

I’m not against Christmas, but we have gotten so far away from the reason for the holiday that these days, it is all about the almighty dollar. It wears me out very fast.

Miss Terry says she’s feeling somewhat better today, and I think I’m on the upswing too. I spent most of yesterday doing the same thing I did the day before, sleeping a lot and sniveling even more.

Our friends Joe and Marcia Jones came by to say hello, and we visited for a little bit before they went over to the activity center for the big Thanksgiving dinner. We stayed home, because neither of us felt like being in a crowd of people, and because we didn’t want to make everybody else sick too.

We watched some movies on the Hallmark channel, and Terry made us a delicious anchovy aioli pasta dinner, with homemade Italian bread. Who says you have to have turkey on Thanksgiving anyway? Do I look like a pilgrim to you?

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In the evening, my daughter called from Show Low, Arizona, and while I was talking to her, Terry’s mom called from Apache Junction. We miss our families during the holidays, but I have to be honest and admit that I really do like having a quiet day at home too.

We’re only going to be here at the Escapees campground a couple more days, because we are scheduled to go back to the Orlando Thousand Trails on Sunday, so we can get the Blue Ox base plate installed on the Explorer next week at Camper Connection. I’m hoping that we’ll get to feeling well enough to hit some of the local RV parks around here and drop off sample bundles of the Gypsy Journal before we leave.

Somebody wrote to ask me if I wasn’t worried about not having our whole winter booked up here in Florida, and if we were going to be able to find a campground to get into, once all of the snowbirds start flocking in during the next few weeks.

We’re really not concerned, we purposely have not booked any long term stays anywhere, because we want to be able to bounce around and do whatever we feel like doing, wherever we feel like doing it, while we’re here. Between Thousand Trails preserves, Escapee campgrounds, Passport America, Elk and Moose lodges, and VFW posts that welcome traveling members, we figure we can always find somewhere to park.

We’ve had to be someplace at some certain time for so much of the last few years that we are really enjoying the freedom of not having a schedule. The only place we have to be is Yuma in early March, for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally.  Hey, if worse comes to worse, there is always Camp WalMart! Wherever we end up, we’ll be together, and that’s all that matters, right?

Thought For The Day – When you’re willing to be seen as someone who makes mistakes and has flaws, you’re essentially telling yourself being human isn’t something to be ashamed of.

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I try to be upbeat in this blog, but anybody who knows me knows that I don’t pull any punches either, and I give you the good with the bad. Not to be a downer, but today I have a couple of the bad to share.

Even though I am married to the best cook in the world, I enjoy dining out, and we do it a lot. It just seems to be a basic part of the RV lifestyle. Put the fulltiming occupants of any two or more RVs together for the first time in a campground, and once they discuss where they just came from and where they are headed next, the very next question is “Where are we going for dinner?’

When we are in a new area, I frequently refer to the Yelp website for reviews of local restaurants. Overall, I have found that if you disregard the obvious cranks with an ax to grind, and the guys who sign in to pump up their own or a friend’s place, when you average the rest of the reviews out, you get a pretty accurate idea of what to expect.

We have been wanting to find a good Chinese buffet ever since we left Apache Junction, Arizona, and the Yelp review showed a place called Best Empire Buffet in Gilroy, about ten miles away. So once we got settled in at the Thousand Trails campground in Morgan Hill on Monday, we drove back to Gilroy to try it out. The reviews were very positive, but as it turned out, they were wrong in this case. We’re still looking for a good Chinese buffet.

At this restaurant, I accomplished two “firsts.” I had the very worst Chinese buffet meal of my life (and we eat at a LOT of Chinese buffets coast to coast), and I paid the most I ever have at a Chinese buffet. The selection was huge, but everything was cold, and a lot of it was stale. I complained to a young lady monitoring the service line, and she just nodded and stood there.

If it wasn’t late in the day, and if we had not been tired and very hungry, we would have left. Once we got our bill, we wished we had. For two people, with me having a Coke and Terry having tea, the tab was $32.91. When Terry told the girl at the cash register that we were unhappy with the meal, she just said “Okay, thank you for coming!”  Hey, life is a crapshoot, right? Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.

Then yesterday, I had another unpleasant experience. Terry needed to make a WalMart run to stock up on some things, so while she did her shopping, I sat out in the van cruising the internet on my iPad. It was in the upper 80s, and Terry’s shopping took longer then expected, so when it got too hot in the van, I started the engine to let the air conditioning cool things down.

So there I am, reading the Escapees RV forum, when somebody knocks on my window. I look out and there stands a pissed off policeman. Did you know it is illegal to let a car idle in California? I sure didn’t, until he explained it to me in great and forceful detail. Apparently it’s a crime that ranks right up there with armed robbery and peeing in public.

He sternly told me that I was wasting precious fuel and adding to the state’s pollution level, among other things. Did you know that if all of the millions of drivers in California did the same thing, nobody could breathe? I didn’t, but I do now. I’m not sure, but I may also be responsible for the current budget crisis, and for the fact that French poodles are such ugly dogs, too.

Okay, I get it. I was wrong. I was wasting fuel, and I was properly chastised. But that wasn’t enough, he ran my license plates and drivers license, apparently to see if I was recently featured on America’s Most Wanted, or in any way affiliated with terrorist cells Then he told me I was very, very lucky he didn’t give me a ticket, or arrest me.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of law enforcement. The men and woman who take on that job deserve all of our respect for everything they do to keep us all safe. And again, yes, I was wrong. I should have gone inside the store to cool off. But gee, a simple “turn the engine off” would have worked just fine.

I don’t think I like California.

Thought For The Day – Life is not always fair – get used to it!

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As I reported last week, our Verizon air card has been giving us a lot of grief lately. We had frequent periods when service was very slow, and we were getting knocked offline over and over again. The problem happened at any time of the day or night, but more frequently in the evening, from about 6:30 p.m. until after midnight. As I wrote then, I’m sure part of the problem is just the sheer numbers of people using the cell towers, both for telephone and internet access.

I tried several fixes that I read about online, or that other Verizon users recommended, but nothing really helped. So yesterday I went to the local Verizon store to see if they had any ideas.

I was eligible for an upgrade under Verizon’s New Every Two plan, and the young lady who waited on me suggested that I swap out my USB 720 air card (which is actually a modem) for a newer model. I bought my air card before they had any restrictions on usage, and was concerned about losing my grandfathered status, with no five gigabyte monthly limit, even though I have only gone over four gigs once in two years. My customer service rep checked, and assured me that my unlimited status would remain in effect.

Since we travel all over the country as fulltime RVers, I also wanted a card that would still accept an external antenna. I had heard somewhere that no new Verizon air cards have an external antenna port. That was apparently not true, because she set me up with a USB 760 air card that does have the external antenna port, and she even threw in the adaptor cable that matches up with my Wilson Trucker antenna and amp. Total cost, after $50 mail in rebate, was $10.

The new air card is about half the size of the previous one, as shown in this picture. It also did not come with a separate CD to install the updated VZ Access Manager software. The software is apparently built into the modem.

I came home, plugged the new unit unto my desktop computer, it automatically installed its software, and I was good to go. I then plugged it into my Cradlepoint MBR 1000 router, which recognized it immediately.

So far, it works fine. Speeds are still not as high as I have had in the past, but faster than with my old air card. The young lady at the Verizon store did say that here in Apache Junction/Mesa, and other places where they have a lot of users, we can expect slower service in the evening, which is when our problems have been the worst.

From about 6:30 p.m. until after midnight, my service slowed down, though not as bad as it was before. Terry and I both got knocked offline a time or two, but we were able to get right back on. Overall, it was a significant improvement over what we’ve been dealing with. Once I’ve used the new air card for a while, I’ll update you on its performance in a future blog.

Before I close this blog, I need to send a message to one of our Canadian blog readers named Andy who wrote me asking if we have subscriptions available to the Gypsy Journal for Canadian addresses. I tried to respond three times, but the e-mail bounced every time. Yes, we have many Canadian subscribers. Cost is $25 for one year, or $45 for two years. You can send us a check payable in U.S. funds, or click this Subscription Link and scroll to the bottom of the page to subscribe online.

Thought For The Day – Life is sexually transmitted.

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Do you remember that famous line? It made actress Bea Arthur a star in the old 1970s sitcom Maude, and in its time, it was as common as Archie Bunker’s “Stifle” order to his wife, or “Sit on it” from Happy Days.

Well, in yesterday’s blog I wrote about how I was gloating to my cousin Berni Frees back in Michigan about our pretty blue sky, and how nice the weather is here in Apache Junction, Arizona. Guess what? Yesterday evening God put on a beauty lightshow, as streaks of lighting illuminated the mountains, and thunder rumbled across the Valley of the Sun, followed by rain! It was just God’s way of reminding me who’s in charge. Okay Big Guy, I get the message!

We had a real treat yesterday. We spent some time visiting with two of our favorite RVing friends, Ed and Alice Allard, at their park model in Sunrise RV Resort, a couple of miles from our place.

We have known Ed and Alice since very early in our fulltiming days, and we have run into them at RV parks, rallies, and all kinds of places, in every corner of the country. Some of these encounters have been planned, and other times fate has just put us in the same place at the same time. When this happens, it’s never hard to spot my buddy Ed, since he’s about seven feet tall (okay six feet eleven inches, but let’s not quibble).

And we’ve had some near misses too. One time we pulled in Country Roads RV Park in Lake Delton, Wisconsin, only to learn that Ed and Alice had left not more than a half hour before our arrival. Another time, we were northbound on U.S. Highway 31, headed toward Fisherman’s Landing RV park in Muskegon, Michigan, and our cell phone rang. It was Ed and Alice, who had just passed us going in the opposite direction. They had  left Fisherman’s Landing, and were headed to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana, which we had left a couple of hours earlier! Serendipity, my friends.

I wrote in a blog a while back that we sure missed our Olympian Wave 8 catalytic heater, which we left in our bus conversion for the new owner, and Ed had e-mailed me to say that they had an Olympian Wave 6 that they no longer used, and we were welcome to it. What a wonderful gift! Thanks Ed and Alice!

After we left Ed and Alice, we stopped at some local RV parks to drop off sample bundles of the Gypsy Journal. Or at least we tried to. The problem in Apache Junction and east Mesa, as in a lot of snowbird locations, is that what they call RV parks usually have about 75% park model trailers, with just a handful of RV sites. We’ve been at this a long, long time, and we know our potential market. Folks in park models are not usually into traveling as much as our reader base is, and we get very few subscribers from places like that.

We did drop off a couple of bundles, but by then it was getting late in the day, and Terry’s mom called to say that our bedroom day/night shades had been delivered, so we headed to her parents’ house to pick them up. They were the last remaining things we needed to complete the insurance claim from our burglary and vandalism. We’ve never installed day/night shades, but the folks at the RV repair shop that did the rest of our work told Miss Terry that they are easy to replace, and she, as always, is confident that she can handle the task. I’m the eye candy, all I have to do is stand around and look pretty while she does the work.

Thought For The Day – Have you noticed that they are making adults much younger these days?

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