Proving just how hard it is to break a bad habit once it gets established, I was awake by 7 a.m. yesterday morning. That’s about four hours after the time I normally get to bed. This really has to stop!

The weather report had called for scattered thunderstorms in western Michigan, and soon after I woke up, strong winds began to rock the motorhome, followed by rain.

Now we had a decision to make. Do we go ahead with our plan to drive to Elkhart, Indiana, hoping we can find a window of good weather to travel in, or do we sit tight at Fisherman’s Landing Campground in Muskegon?

Normally, we would stay put and avoid traveling in bad weather. But the storm passed by in a few minutes, and the weather report called for more of the same for all of this week. Add to that the fact that our power had been kicking off every few minutes at the campground since the night before, even though we had turned off the TV and Dish network receiver, switched our water heater and refrigerator to propane, turned off our air conditioning, shut down our computers and wireless router, and set the battery charge rate on our inverter to just 5 amps. It doesn’t do you any good to have a 30 amp RV site if the campground is crowded, their power is crappy, and everybody else is running everything they have.

We didn’t feel like paying another $25 to dry camp, and with temperatures in the mid-80s, it wouldn’t have been very comfortable anyway. So a little after 9 a.m. we pulled out, stopped at a Bob Evans Restaurant to meet Berni and Rocky for breakfast and a last goodbye, and then headed south on U.S. Highway 31.

Fortunately, we got a break in the weather, and except for a few sprinkles, we had a nice trip. Well, except for the road construction.

Michigan has two seasons; winter and road construction, and we’re smack dab in the middle of the latter. We hit a couple of construction zones on our trip south. I’ve never understood drivers who come into a construction zone and ignore signs telling them to merge right or left, instead speeding forward until the every last minute, then trying to muscle their way in. All they do is create a bottleneck and make things harder for everybody, themselves included. Just get over as soon as you see the signs and keep on rolling. At least until you have to slam on the brakes to keep from running over the idiot trying to wedge in ahead ahead of you, who didn’t.

We pulled into Elkhart Campground a few minutes before 2 p.m., and the place is packed! A lot of folks are here early, just hanging out before our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

By the time we got unhooked, Greg and Jan White had come out to greet us, Jan with a batch of freshly baked cookies in her hand. What a beautiful sight! A pretty lady with a handful of goodies beats the heck out of an angry woman with a revolver, a rolling pin, or a restraining order. Trust me on this!  Several other folks came by to say hello as we were getting set up, but I was busy and didn’t get everybody’s name.

Bob and Gita Patel, owners of Elkhart Campground, have really been busy this summer, adding a lot of new 50 amp full hookup sites, and upgrading older sites. If you’re a regular here and haven’t seen all of the improvements yet, I know you’ll be impressed.

Here is our Winnebago on the right, and Greg and Jan’s American Eagle on the left. Don’t you just love a spacious RV site?

Once we were all settled in, and had time to check our e-mails and rest up a while, we went to dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ in Mishawaka with Greg and Jan. We like Famous Dave’s because they serve huge portions, and everything on the menu is delicious. We always have fun with Greg and Jan, and the time went by fast as we talked about the upcoming birth of their second grandchild, about our mutual RV travels, and anything else that came to mind.

Back at the RV park, we visited for a while more, and then Greg and Jan called it a night. Soon after they left, Frank and Marlene Hinman stopped in to say hello and welcome us to Elkhart. We love visiting with our friends wherever we may be!

Another couple of wonderful friends of ours, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy, just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and are spending the summer on their lot at the Escapees co-op in Benson, Arizona. This is monsoon season in Arizona, which was always my favorite time of year when I lived there.  Jerry has some awesome photos of the dramatic cloud formations that fill the sky during monsoon season in their blog. Check them out, I think you’ll be impressed.

Thought For The Day – I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

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As RVers, we all find ourselves in strange towns, wondering where the good places to eat are located. One good resource for us is Road Food, both the book and the website. We have discovered some real delights there, from the Brick Pit Barbecue in Mobile, Alabama, to Don’s Drive-In in Traverse City, Michigan, which has the best strawberry milkshakes we have ever tasted.

Yesterday, my cousin, Berni Frees, sent me a link to the Wheel of Lunch website, and just for giggles, I tried it out. Since we are in Tucson, I entered the zip code of Tra-Tel RV Park, and the first choice was one of Miss Terry’s favorite places, La Fuente Mexican Restaurant.  I gave it a second spin and it came to another place I’ve enjoyed in the past, the Bum Steer. Then I entered my daughter’s zip code in Show Low, Arizona, and it came up with El Rancho, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in the country. Cool! I know it’s only an advertising gimmick, but what the heck, it’s fun.

Speaking of lunch, today we’re having lunch with a couple of very good friends, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy, who are driving up from their place in Benson to meet us at Mimi’s Cafe. Jerry and Suzy were not able to make it to our Yuma rally this year, so we’re looking forward to seeing them.

We’ve been having a frustrating time trying to get the recall upgrade for our Norcold refrigerator done. We got a letter from Norcold a few weeks ago, along with a number to call for a referral to a shop that could do the job. We were in Las Vegas at the time, and headed for Kingman, Arizona from there, so they gave us the name of a shop in Kingman.

We called, and the shop’s owner told us that he didn’t have the part in stock, but assured us that by the time we got to town he’d have it. As soon as we got to Kingman I called him, and was told it would be in the next day, and he’d call me as soon as it arrived. Of course, no phone call came, so I called late that the next afternoon, and got the same story. Tomorrow for sure. This went on for several days, and finally I called the day before we left town, and was assured the part would be there that afternoon, and they would call me the minute it arrived. Of course, no call came in, and it wasn’t until three days after we left Kingman that they finally called to say that it had arrived before we left, but they forgot to call us.

When we arrived in Show Low, Terry called Norcold again, and they gave us the name of a repair shop there. We called, got the same story (the part is out of stock, but I’ll call and get one right in), and we never heard from him again). Over the next four weeks, Terry called back several times, and the story never changed.

So yesterday, Terry called Norcold again, and asked if RV Renovators in Mesa, Arizona is an authorized shop to do the recall work. We have heard good things about this company, and our friends Tom and Barbara Westerfield had a lot of work done there just before our Yuma rally. Yes, RV Renovators is an authorized shop, but guess what? They don’t have the part in stock. They promised us they will get it in and be able to do the upgrade on Friday of next week. We are cautiously optimistic at this point.

Another frustration has been my search for an Apple 3G iPad. The only shops in Tucson that carry them are the Apple store and Best Buy. But nobody has one in stock, and they sell out the minute they arrive. They all have the WiFi model, but not the 3G. I guess the gadget is just too new yet, and everybody wants one. I’ll just wait until the big rush is over, and eventually I’ll locate one.

I’ve heard from several blog readers who have found them, and all are very pleased with their performance. The only negatives I have heard are about the poor service on AT&T’s 3G network. We left AT&T years ago for Verizon’s faster, more reliable service, but since the iPad only works on the AT&T system at this point, and I don’t want to invest in a secondary MiFi device to get online with Verizon when we’re away from the motorhome, it is what it is. 

Thought For The Day – Time is the best teacher; unfortunately it kills all of its students!

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After two long days of driving from Indiana to North Carolina, then two busy days playing tourist around Mount Airy, followed by the drive to Kinston, Miss Terry and I needed a day to just relax and recharge our batteries. So yesterday we slept in, and then spent most of the morning just cuddling in bed and talking. I cherish these quiet times with the love of my life, and I believe they are one of the reasons why, after being together twelve years, we still feel like we’re on our first date. 

When we finally got up and in gear, we didn’t go very far for most of the day. Instead, we stayed inside catching up on e-mail, cruising the internet, and catching up on some of the RV blogs we read on a regular basis.

I see on our friends Jan and Greg White’s Our RV Adventures blog that they are hanging out in southern Indiana visiting family, though I secretly suspect that Greg is just hiding out in case I need anything else fixed. Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour have been kayaking and diving in Florida, and are getting ready to visit Google’s headquarters in California.

According to their Gypsy and the Mariner’s RV Adventures, our pals Don and Sharon Del Rosario are back on their lot in Benson, Arizona; and also in Benson, Jerry and Suzi LeRoy report in their Our Life On Wheels blog that they are having computer woes.

In Texas, Mike McFall wrote in his Mike and Pat’s Travels blog that his lovely wife Pat had a surprise birthday this week. I love reading blogs, because they help us keep up with our RVing friends.

If you’re not a fulltimer, you can get a good insight into the lifestyle by reading some of these and the many other RV blogs out there. As you can see, sometimes we have days filled with adventure, and other days are pretty routine, just like folks living in sticks and bricks homes.

Eventually I wandered outside, where I took a few pictures of the campground at Neuseway Nature Park. Our RV site backs up to some trees, and I wasn’t sure our rooftop automatic television dish would be able to pick up a signal, but after a couple of false starts, it managed to lock onto a weak signal. If we were parked across the road, facing our present site, we’d have had no problem, but since those sites back up to the Neuseway River, they are in demand and were all taken when we arrived.

One thing that mystified me was why the campground electrical hookups were mounted on tall poles that my stubby little legs barely allowed me to reach. When our friend Patti Ivey came by to visit, I mentioned the strange electrical hookups, and she explained that they are that way to keep them above the high water level when the river floods. I made a mental note to myself not to be anywhere near here if the water starts rising!

We spent the evening with Patti and her two sons, having a fun dinner at Pizza Hut, and then going back to her townhouse to visit for a couple of hours before we returned to the campground.

Not a very busy or exciting day, but one that will give us pleasant memories of a quiet day in the life we enjoy so much.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out

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My dad never read the newspaper’s obituary column. “I’d rather think that my friends don’t like me anymore and just stopped coming around than to find out that they’re dead,” he’d say.

Sometimes I feel that way when I hear about another fulltime RVer who has come off the road and hung up the keys.

Not that there isn’t life after fulltiming. We’ll all have to hang up the keys someday. But Terry and I just hope that for us, it’s a long, long way down the road. We have too much left that we want to see and do.

The fulltime RV lifestyle isn’t for everyone. We’ve seen a lot of new fulltimers come and go in our many years of traveling. Some tried it for a while, then found some place they fell in love with and settled down there. Others were forced off the road by death or illness. Finances made some RVers come off the road. We’ve known people who have tried fulltiming and discovered that it’s just not for them, and took another direction in life. There’s nothing wrong with that, everybody has to do what’s right for themselves. But I sure miss pulling into a campsite next to them someplace, or sharing a campfire with them.

We’ve also met fulltimers who still live the RV lifestyle, but who have purchased a lot someplace and use it for a base from which they do their traveling, and then return to.

A couple of months ago, Terry and I were very tempted by a lot we found for sale close to the water in Aransas Pass, Texas, a friendly small town we dearly love. But we realized (or feared) that if we had a lot, we’d feel obligated to return to it on a regular basis, if for no other reason than to justify the small expense of the annual property taxes. Would it become the first strand of strings that would eventually tie us down? We mentioned the property to friends, who may purchase it for their own use. Again, to each their own. It’s all about the choices we each make for our own lives. There is no right or wrong answer, no one way of doing it.

We’ve enjoyed the RVing friends we’ve made, those who have settled down someplace, and those who are still out here making the wheels turn. They have become a part of our extended family.

Yesterday two of those friends left us to continue on down the road. Orv and Nancy Hazelton had been parked next to us here at Tra-Tel RV Park for a couple of days, and they left in search of new adventures.

After we saw Orv and Nancy off, Terry and I drove down to Benson and dropped off sample bundles of papers at the local RV parks in that area. As we were leaving the Escapees park, we spotted Rick and Terry Traver pulling in, so we made a U-turn and followed them back to their fifth wheel on a rented lot in the park. Rick and Terry are a neat couple, and it was fun to have some time to visit with them before we made the drive back to Tucson.

That’s one of the great things about this lifestyle, we never know what old (or new) friends await us around the next corner.

Thought For The Day - The most precious thing we have is life, yet it has absolutely no trade-in value.

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