Our plans to play tourist in Washington, D.C. were rained out yesterday. It started raining just after midnight and came down all day long. Not just a drizzle, but a hard, pounding rain that was not fit for man nor beast. So we spent the day in the motorhome at Cherry Hill Park, watching TV, cruising the internet, and being lazy.

I’m pleased that the Winegard Trav’ler automatic rooftop TV dish we had installed on our motorhome last December doesn’t suffer from rain fade nearly as much as the old tripod mounted dish we used to use. I don’t know if that is because the dish is bigger than the old one, but whatever the reason, it sure is an improvement.

A blog reader wrote yesterday to ask me about rooftop dishes, and if there are any major differences between DirecTV or Dish Network. We had DirecTV in our home and during our first few years on the road, before switching to Dish Network. I believe that the programming choices and prices are about the same overall, though personally the Dish support folks have been just a tiny bit more helpful, in my opinion.

I’m curious, what type of antenna do you use for TV reception, and do you subscribe to Dish or DirecTV, rely on over the air programming, campground cable TV, or?

We had a couple of orders to mail out, so about 4 p.m. we left the campground and ran to the post office, then stopped at Home Depot to look for some cabinet latches to replace a couple of broken ones on our kitchen drawers. No luck there, so I guess I’ll have to order original equipment replacements from Lichtsinn, a great Winnebago repair shop and parts supplier in Forest City, Iowa. Winnebago will sell you replacement parts if you go to their service facility in Forest City, but otherwise you have to order from a dealer. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea how or why any company makes the decisions they do.

Back at the motorhome, it was still raining, so we did the same thing we had done all day. It seemed a perfect day for a nap, so I stretched out on the couch and did just that for a while. I woke up in time for dinner, but I’d have been just as happy snoring away until morning. Rainy days make for good sleeping.

Today the weather is supposed to be a little better, and we hope to spend the day touring the Newseum and whatever else we can squeeze in. We covered most of the major monuments and a couple of the Smithsonian museums during our last visit to Washington, so this trip we want to get to some of the attractions we missed the first time around.

Thought For The Day – If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.

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In spite of the fact that it was windy and chilly yesterday, we just couldn’t stay inside when we were this close to a beach. We started out by dropping off bundles of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal at some of the local RV parks between Oceano and Pismo Beach. They sure cram a lot of RVs into small spaces here on the central California coast, where land is at a premium!

Then we spent some time walking out on the Pismo Beach pier, stopping to watch surfers trying to catch just the right wave. Those kids have more energy than common sense! That water sure looked cold!

Further out the pier, there were a few folks fishing. No license is required, and you can rent a rod and tackle from a vendor on the pier.

As much as we enjoyed the pier, the cold wind drove us off after a half hour or so. We did some browsing at the shops along the waterfront, then drove to a used book store in Grover Beach, where the pickings were slim.

Blog reader Levonne Gaddy had suggested we try Mama’s Meatball, a block or two from the Elks lodge campground, for pizza, so we stopped there and it was very good. The crust was super thin, but the blend of cheeses was delicious.

The Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is within walking distance of the Elks campground, but we chose to take the van and stay out of the wind. We parked near the entrance to the fee area and spent the afternoon watching all of the activity on the beach. We love people watching, and a day at the beach can be more entertaining than an afternoon matinee.

This is one of the few places where you can drive on the beach, and people come here from hundreds of miles away to drive 4x4s, ATVs, motorcycles, and even family cars on the sand.

If you drive on the hard packed sand, you are usually okay, but if you get stuck (and a lot of people do), the local tow trucks are equipped to pull you out, for a price.

Some folks get carried away having fun and get stupid instead. This is the end result when that happens. Whoever was in the cab of this truck must have had a terrible headache, if not worse.

You can even camp on the beach, and though we would not have considered bringing our Winnebago out there, we saw a lot of RVs coming and going.

If you get your fifth wheel or motorhome stuck here, you’re really stuck!

Some people choose to get back to the basics when it comes to horsepower. These may not be the most comfortable ride on the beach,  don’t at least they get stuck very often.

We also watched windsurfers zipping up and down just offshore. It must take a lot of arm strength to hold onto those things!

Some of the acrobatics they were doing were fascinating!

We returned to the Oceano Elks campground about 7:30 p.m., and the place had really filled up while we were gone! I don’t know how they squeeze so many RVs into such a small campground, but like I said, space is at a premium on the coast.

We spent the rest of the evening inside, not doing much of anything. It was a wonderful, relaxing day, in spite of the wind and cold, and we are feeling more relaxed than we have in months. We really needed this time. We love our family and friends, and we cherish being with them. But sometimes we just have to have some “us” time, away from everybody. It’s our special reward to ourselves.

Bad Nick has been lazy lately, and we haven’t heard much from him. But yesterday while we were out playing beach bums, he was at the computer posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled What About Them? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – The things that come to those who wait may be the things left by those who got there first.

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I got an e-mail from a blog reader who is shopping for a new motorhome, asking me how important we felt our built-in vacuum cleaner is, because the salesman is telling them that RVers consider this an essential item. I guess they’re still too green to know that if an RV salesman’s lips are moving, he’s lying.

The only reason our coach has the onboard vacuum is because Winnebago built it in when the rig was new. We have carpeting in our living room and bedroom, and 9 times out of 10, when Miss Terry needs to clean something up, she reaches for her handheld Dyson DC31 Vacuum instead. It’s lightweight, sturdy, powerful, and versatile, and is much easier to get out and use than dragging out the hose for the onboard vacuum.

Our MCI bus conversion didn’t have any slide-out rooms, but ever since we got our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, I have been collecting an assortment of scars and dents in my head from running into the bedroom slide. A couple of times I have hit it so hard that I knocked myself on the ground. Miss Terry got tired of patching me up and listening to my sniveling, so yesterday she bought one of those plastic pool noodles that kids use to keep themselves afloat, and cut it into short sections, then split them open lengthwise. They slip right over the corners of the slide, and will hopefully stop me from bashing my original equipment noodle. 

I got an e-mail yesterday from a blog reader in Nashville with this link to a couple of moving You Tube videos about the terrible flooding there. Ken reports that the Nashville KOA, which took the brunt of the storm, is closed. Everything at the KOA was underwater, including their office and store. The Yogi Bear Jellystone Campground also suffered some damage, but is up and running. Two Rivers Campground is high and dry, with no damage. Ken said the Nashville Camping World is also undamaged and open for business. If you are an RVer who feels the need to give something back to society, I’m sure there are plenty of folks in Nashville who need a hand right now, whether in the form of a donation check, or another pair of strong hands to help clean up the mess.

I’m an old car guy (that’s old car guy, not old car guy), and the fellow in the site next to us here at Happy Days Campground has this beautiful old 1951 Buick Roadmaster police car. How cool is that?

I was admiring the car yesterday, and he told me that he is a volunteer with the Apache Junction Police Department, and he spotted the old car sitting in the back of the department parking lot soon after he started. The sergeant said it hadn’t been started in years, so our neighbor took it upon himself to get it running again. He spent a month getting the old police cruiser roadworthy again, and now the police department uses it as a DARE car, in parades and at car shows, to spread the word that crime doesn’t pay.

It’s getting hot here in the desert, with temperatures predicted in the upper 90s the next few days, and higher after that. We are enjoying our stay at Happy Days, and we have a great RV site, but we don’t like excessive heat almost as much as we don’t like cold. We will stay here through the weekend, and then head back up to Show Low on Monday, where daughter Tiffany tells me it has stopped snowing, and is very pleasant.

Bad Nick has been too quiet the last few days, but never fear, the little imp is back again, with a new Bad Nick Blog titled Potpourri. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.

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Terry and I broke the cycle of getting up early that we had recently fallen into, and slept in yesterday morning. Now that was nice! Somebody chastised me the other day because I said we like sleeping late, but you have to keep in mind that I do most of my serious writing after 9 p.m., and we seldom get to bed before 1 or 2 a.m. So we still only get seven or eight hours of sleep a night, like most people. It’s just the schedule that works for us.

We had a relaxing day, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get a lot accomplished. Terry tackled a backlog of paperwork that had begun to accumulate since we left Texas last week, did some chores inside the motorhome, and got some laundry out of the way. Meanwhile, I worked on the schedule for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma, as well as answering a lot of e-mail, and doing some research online.

I always enjoy a good laugh, and if you do too, check out this link that a blog reader e-mailed me about the honey wagon. But set down your coffee cup first, I don’t want you giggling and spilling anything on yourself. I’m not McDonalds, and you won’t get anything if you burn yourself and sue me anyway.     http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?id=3515749

If you like good music, I know you’re going to enjoy the evening entertainment we have lined up for the rally. Michael Hargis will be presenting his excellent Rolling With The Flow concert, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Late in the afternoon we went to Terry’s mom and dad’s for a while, and then took them out to dinner. It was nice to have time with them, telling them about our most recent RV adventures, and listening to stories of their own time as fulltime RVers several years ago. On our way to the restaurant, we stopped by our motorhome so Terry’s dad could see the Winnebago. I think he was ready to take it on a road trip right then!

Today we have more of the same planned. I want to wash the motorhome, we have some orders to put together so we can mail them out Monday, and I just may take an afternoon nap, if the spirit moves me. Of course, we may scrap those plans and do something entirely different that comes up on the spur of the moment. Then again, there’s something to be said for just sitting outside and soaking up some of this Arizona sunshine, and feeling sorry for all of our friends who are stuck someplace cold right now.

Bad Nick has been kind of lazy lately, but yesterday he got off his rear and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Every Kid Should Go. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying “I will try again tomorrow.”

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Okay, the Labor Day weekend is over and it’s time for kids to get back to school and for life to get back to normal.

We had a busy weekend. My cousin Berni Frees and her husband Rocky came down from their home in Muskegon, Michigan and spent part of the weekend with us. We had a great time visiting, going out to dinner, sitting outside watching the sunset and swatting mosquitoes, and playing Mexican Train. Any time we get together with Rocky and Berni is guaranteed to be lots of fun.

Several people stopped over to say hello and visit, including Jim Truman, a new blog reader and subscriber who just retired and started his fulltime RV life September 1^st. Yesterday, Dave and Linda Sand came by to chat for a while, and Linda took a few paperback books from the pile we are trying to get rid of. There will be a book exchange table at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio and I hope we get lots of folks there who like to read, because I don’t want to haul those books another mile!

Nancy Haney also came down to tell us how delighted she and husband Terry are with their fifth wheel after my friend Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint worked her magic on it. Terry and Nancy were seriously considering getting a new rig, but they loved the floor plan of their rig, and decided that by having it refurbished they could keep it, and save thousands of dollars. We checked the job out, and as always, Michele did a wonderful job, for thousands of dollars less than the competition wanted for the same work. Why pay more?

We did have a very small Bad Nick episode yesterday. One of the regulars here at Elkhart Campground was hosting a family reunion, and several young people were playing football, and an errant kick sent the ball into the front end of our motorhome. I really did not appreciate that, but I let it go… until the second time it happened.

Then Bad Nick went out and explained, in a very calm and quiet manner, that he didn’t want to be rude, but bouncing your ball off somebody’s RV is kind of rude too.

Actually, the little imp inside of me was pretty mellow about it. I’m worried about him. Is he getting soft? I don’t know. He just uploaded a new post to the Bad Nick Blog called We Must Protect Our Children. Check it out and leave a comment and let him know what you think.   

Thought For The Day – All reports are in. Life is now officially unfair.

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