When we woke up Friday morning it was raining hard and the wind was blowing. Obviously, we were not going to do any traveling in that kind of weather, so we rolled over and snuggled back down under the covers.

The storm hung on all day long. Sometimes the rain pounded down hard, and other times it was just a steady drizzle, but whatever it as doing, it was not conducive to being outside or traveling.

I spent the day getting a lot of things done online, including loading up Carlyle Lehman’s new Focal Wood website. Carlyle is the Amish craftsman who built the custom workstations, bookcase, and dinette table for our Winnebago motorhome.

I stopped out to see Carlyle at his place in Nappanee a few days ago, and he said that ever since I told our readers about him in the blog, and then Ron and Brenda Speidel mentioned him in their Don’t Replace, Refurbish seminar at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally last month, he has been swamped with work. When I was at his place this week, he had three motorhomes there getting things installed. That’s great, because Carlyle does excellent work and I would recommend him to anybody wanting custom RV furniture.

Besides working on Carlyle’s website, I re-entered all of the telephone numbers into my Blackberry Storm that I had lost when I updated its software the other day. Note to self – back up the darned Blackberry!

It was a lazy day, and sometime in the afternoon I decided that a nap was in order. I stretched out on the couch, and had just fallen into a very good dream when the phone rang. It was Greg White, asking if we were up for dinner. We’re always up for dinner, so we piled into their truck and headed for the local Ryan’s Buffet.

It was the first time I had been outside all day, and the entire campground was one huge puddle! In fact, all of Elkhart was one huge puddle! Greg and Jan had braved the weather to drive their pickup down to Decatur, Indiana to tour the American Coach factory, and they said the wind had been strong all the way down and all the way back. We were glad we had decided to stay put and wait for the storm to move on.

Today the rain is supposed to be over, but the wind may hang on. We would really like to get on the road, and we probably will unless it’s just too windy. But just as I said in yesterday’s blog, there is no place we have to be anytime soon, so we have the luxury of staying or going, whichever seems best.

Thought For The Day – Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.

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I spent most of yesterday working on a website for Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Many people are surprised to learn that while the Amish people live a much simpler lifestyle than most of us, with their horses and buggies, they do in fact make use of many modern conveniences, including telephones, electricity, and even the internet.

Every Amish community has its own rules as to how much of the “English world” (as they call life among the non-Amish), they can incorporate into their homes and businesses. While the Amish don’t own or drive cars, they will hire someone to take them where they need to go if it is too far for their buggies, and crews of Amish workers at local factories car pool in vans driven by non-Amish co-workers.

If you drive past the Amish farms on some of the back roads here in northern Indiana, you will see small wooden structures at the end of the driveway at every third or fourth home. These are shared telephone booths, where they can make and receive calls relating to business. But these booths are not heated and do not have a seat, to prevent them from spending much time chatting. We often see newspaper advertisements for items for sale, with a telephone number and the notation “Call between 7:30 and 8 a.m.” Those are the hours when they will be monitoring the telephone to receive calls. For businesses such as Focal Wood Products, they have a voice mail system, so if we call when Carlyle is busy, we leave a message and he calls us back. It’s not quite as convenient as calling a traditional business, but it works for them.

In the case of his website, Carlyle received permission from his community to have one to advertise his products, but he cannot build or maintain it himself. That’s where I got involved, and it’s been an interesting experience working with someone whose culture is different in so many ways from our own.

I mentioned a while back that I have co-authored a new book on self-publishing, titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit. Last week I received my first copy of the book, hot off the press, and I’m very pleased with it. All of the credit goes to my co-author, Christy Pinheiro, who conceived the project and handled all of the production details. For more information, here is a link to the book’s website. Check it out; you too could be a published author!  

One of the things I suggest on my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit, is producing small niche guides aimed at very targeted markets. Examples would be our Guide to Free Campgrounds and Overnight Parking Places, and our Guide to Casino Camping.

I don’t know if Dale Sumner from Mobile RV Medic, Inc. spent any time reading the website or coming to any of my seminars, but he recently published a very good guide, titled Basic RV Electricity and Protection, which is an excellent primer for anyone who owns an RV. Dale packs a lot of excellent information into the book, without getting buried in technical details that the average RVer could not understand. If you want to know what happens when you plug your RV’s electrical cord into a campground’s pedestal, and how to avoid overloading the circuit, and how to protect your rig from problems, this is an easy to understand guide that is well worth the money. You can order your copy at www.lulu.com/basicRVelectricity or e-mail Dale at sales@mobileRVmedic.com.

Of course, if you’re staying at an upscale RV resort such as Retama Village in Mission, Texas, you won’t have to worry about things like electrical problems. My friend Jack Mayer owns a couple of RV lots at Retama Village, and Jack and some of the other lot owners have set up a website, Retama Rentals, to market their lots when they are not staying on them. We paid a visit to friends at Retama last winter, and I can tell you it’s the nicest RV resort we have ever seen! So if you’re thinking about spending some time in the Valley this winter, check out Jack’s website.

While I was busy building a website this weekend, Bad Nick wrote a new post for the Bad Nick Blog titled We’re Going To Lose The War On Terror. Check it out, it will give you something to think about.

Thought For The Day – Anything in the future will always look better because there’s always something wrong in the present.

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Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. I used to do a lot of hunting and fishing, but I never subscribed to the theory that you have to roll out of bed at O-Dark-30 just to ambush a bunny rabbit or hook a trout. Those critters are still out there at noon.

I usually do bookwork and research during the day, start writing about 9 p.m., and work until 1 or 2 a.m. before I call it a day. So I seldom get into an upright position before 9 a.m. That’s just what works best for me.

But the last few days I have been up way too early. We had company over the weekend, and Miss Terry said I had to get up and be a good host. Then yesterday I had to have my van in a shop just after 8 a.m. to have some work done on it. And this morning we are taking the Winnebago to Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products in Nappanee to have our custom desks/workstations installed. Carlyle is an excellent Amish craftsman, but those people sure do get up early in the morning! Did I mention that I’m not a morning person?

We’re slowly getting settled into the new motorhome, and once we get the new work stations installed today, we’ll start feeling more organized and at home. It is amazing that our bus was 40 feet long, just like the Winnebago, but the motorhome is six inches wider, and with the living room and bedroom slides, it seems so much bigger inside.

We’ll be here in Elkhart until about the 20^th, then we’ll head over to Celina, Ohio to start getting things set up for our Gypsy Gathering rally. We have had a lot of people offer to volunteer to help out at the rally, but one of the jobs we really need done is someone to come in early and canvass the local businesses soliciting door prizes. Last year the business community in Celina was very welcoming and receptive, but the folks who collected door prizes can’t make it this time around. Anyone feel like pounding the pavement?

I have to make a decision soon about my Today’s Hero Blog. When I came up with the idea, I hoped to be able to showcase the unsung heroes in our world who give of themselves to help others. It’s something I really believe in, but I have been receiving very few submissions in the last month or so, and without input from our readers, it can’t continue. If there is someone special in your life that you think deserves recognition for their good deeds, send me an e-mail and let’s share their story with the rest of the world.

Thought For The Day – It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

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Terry and I want to thank all of you who left comments or sent us congratulatory e-mails in response to yesterday’s blog about our motorhome purchase.

To be honest, Miss Terry had some real misgivings, not about the Winnebago itself, but about what the reaction might be from some of our readers. As longtime blog readers may remember, we were chastised by a couple of folks when I bought a motorcycle a while back, or when I announced that we were shopping for a motorhome. One rather vocal former reader felt that we were “getting rich off our subscribers,” and didn’t feel it was right for him to help pay for my new toys.

I told Terry that I have never apologized for what success I may have achieved in my life. We work very hard, and there has to be some reward now and then. Besides, it’s like my Dad used to say, “Never explain and never apologize. Your friends don’t need it, and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.” We feel very blessed to have so many wonderful friends such as all of you out there, who can share in our happiness and be happy for us. 

Two very special friends are Ron and Brenda Speidel. Not only did they help us inspect the motorhome before we bought it, yesterday they really blew us out of the water.

Terry and I had to drive 70 miles up to Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from the printer, and then drive 85 miles back to Mishawaka, Indiana to pick up the envelopes from our mail service. From there we needed to go 30 miles to Nappanee, Indiana for an appointment with Carlyle Lehman, a very talented Amish cabinetmaker who owns a company called Focal Wood and specializes in RV upgrades. We wanted to talk to Carlyle about building a custom desk/work station in our new (to us) motorhome. With that finished, we then had to drive 30 miles back to Elkhart Campground! And all we wanted to do was spend the day getting our new home ready to move into!

Before we left, Ron and Brenda told us that they had thought about getting us a nice lamp as a housewarming gift, but being fulltime RVers themselves, they know that the last thing we need is more “stuff.” So instead, they announced that while we were gone, they were going to clean our new motorhome top to bottom, so that as soon as we got the new issue of the paper stuffed and mailed out, all we had to do was start moving in! Wow! What a wonderful, thoughtful offer! We told them that wasn’t necessary, they have done so much for us already, but Ron and Brenda insisted.

We thought we had a nice looking motorhome when we brought it back to the campground Thursday afternoon, but now it’s even better! Ron cleaned every bay, including the walls and the insides of the doors, vacuumed them all, used 303 on all of the seals and grommets, and lubed and tested every hinge, strut and anything else that needed even the slightest attention. Our sewer bay gleams!

And inside, Brenda was just as busy, removing a few small spots from the carpet, and scrubbing every surface from the bedroom closet to the dashboard. There’s not a hospital operating room any cleaner than the inside of that rig! I daresay that no new RV from any manufacturer ever left the dealer’s lot looking as nice. Ron and Brenda worked hard for hours and the results really show. We thanked them profusely, but they just brushed it off, saying that’s what friends do for each other. (Though they did admit later that somewhere around mid-afternoon, they said to each other “We should have just bought them a lamp!”)

In answer to a couple of questions we have been asked several times; we have two buyers who are interested in the bus, and we hope to find it a good home soon, but nothing has happened yet. It is advertised on our website at Gypsy Journal Bus For Sale, if you know anybody looking for a nice, affordable bus conversion. Several people wanted to know if we are moving our solar panels to the new RV. We’re not sure yet. A lot depends on the deal we make with whomever buys the bus.

And last, but not least, a lot of folks asked how they will be able to recognize us when we’re not in the bus. That’s the idea! Now I can slip into a campground or rally incognito and let Bad Nick off his leash, and nobody will know it until it’s too late!

Thought For The Day – Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

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