This really isn’t an RV topic, but I wanted to share something with you, besides the fact that we are still moving from the bus to the Winnebago, between a never-ending series of rain storms that have made the move a real hassle.

Like most people, I have seen magnetic jewelry for sale at RV rallies and craft shows, and probably like most folks, I really didn’t give it a whole lot of credibility. I had heard that wearing a bracelet of magnetic hematite could reduce all kinds of physical pain, and over the years I have even had friends tell me that they have had amazing results when they tried the things. Still, I guess I am too much of a skeptic, so I wasn’t convinced. Until now.

For two or three months now, I have been dealing with a lot of pain in my right elbow, to the point where it seemed like I was taking Advil or Tylenol a couple of times a day just to keep the pain at bay. I’ll be having my annual checkup at the VA hospital in Lexington, Kentucky soon, and it was one of the things I had planned to talk to my primary healthcare provider about.

I have also been dealing with either a bone spur or something on my tailbone, which over the winter got so bad that I could not ride my bicycle, and just sitting in the office chair I use at my desk was extremely uncomfortable after more than an hour or two. That was also on my list for when I have my medical checkup.

Last year at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, vendors Russ and Debbie Davis were selling magnetic bracelets, and they gave me one. I promptly laid it down on my desk and forgot all about it.

About three weeks ago I came across the bracelet when I was sorting through all of the stuff I allow to pile up on my desk, and I slipped it onto my wrist just to get it out of the way. About three or four hours later I suddenly realized that my elbow had stopped hurting! I was amazed, because the pain had been there so long, and it took me a while to notice that it was gone.

I have been wearing the bracelet pretty much fulltime ever since, and if I had not experienced it myself, I’d still be very skeptical. If I had to put it in mathematical terms, I’d honestly have to say that the pain has been reduced by 80%. My elbow still hurts if I lay on it wrong at night, or if I leave it extended in any position for a long time, but otherwise, I really am not aware of it any longer.  

Just this week there was a vendor at the Carriage RV rally selling magnetic bracelets, and I bought a couple more. When Miss Terry and I were talking about how much the bracelet has helped my elbow, I suddenly realized that the pain in my tailbone has been dramatically reduced too.

Yeah, I know some of you are shaking your heads right now, but all I can tell you is what I have experienced. I can’t explain how it works, but for me, it does. I’m not selling magnetic jewelry, and I’m not pointing you toward any particular vendor who does. But I know I have felt a tremendous reduction in my pain levels since I’ve been wearing the bracelet, and for the few bucks they cost, you might want to give one a try. What do you have to lose?

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things.

Moving is never fun, but I guess the good thing about moving from one motorhome to another is that there isn’t much furniture to lug from the old rig to the new one.

Since the customer traffic at the Carriage RV rally was so slow Monday and Tuesday, yesterday Miss Terry stayed home to start moving her kitchen items from our bus conversion to the Winnebago, while I drove to the fairgrounds in Goshen to man our vendor booth. By the time I got home in the afternoon, Terry and Brenda had pretty much moved and set up all of her kitchen and the bathroom.

The rally was such a bust that I decided not to go back today for the last day of vending. Every day we have spent more time talking to the other vendors, who were just as bored, than we ever did to any customers. The problem is that every day they are off to some tour or event away from the rally grounds. That’s fun for the attendees, but it makes the rally a complete waste of time for the vendors. I can use the time much better to help in getting the move completed. 

Right now we living in a sort of disorganized limbo, because half of our stuff is in the Winnebago and half is in the bus, so whenever we need something, it always seems to be in the other motorhome. But hopefully we can get moved and settled in within the next few days.

Some good news for the RV industry; Dutchmen RV in Goshen, Indiana announced yesterday that it is hiring 50 new employees to fill new manufacturing positions. Company executives said they’ve recently made “internal structural changes to support additional job growth” within the company. Hopefully this is just a start and we’ll see more RV industry workers going back to work in the near future.

I have had a tremendous response to the new Bad Nick Blog, and it has been interesting to read some of the comments and e-mails that have come in. I just posted a new blog entry titled Bad Nick Gets A Discount that I think every frustrated shopper can relate to. 

A few people have commented on the type of Google ads that have shown up on the blog. As expected, some hard core Republican conservative readers are already objecting to the ads pushing a Democratic liberal agenda, and just as many folks from the other side of the fence are upset when the ads Google serves up are about things they disagree with.

I don’t control the ads, Google’s AdSense program automatically inserts them. I just cash the small commission check I get from them to help pay the bills. But here’s an idea from Bad Nick – if you see something that piques your curiosity or interest, by all means, click the ad link and check it out. And if a particular ad offends you, don’t click on it!

Thought For The Day – When I read about the evils of drinking it scared me, so I gave up reading.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We all knew it was coming. I warned you. Well, the day has finally come. Bad Nick has his own blog! It went live Tuesday at www.BadNickBlog.com and I officially disavow anything the little munchkin does from here on out. Miss Terry was worried that I might offend somebody, but I reminded her that it’s not me at the wheel of this new blog, it’s Bad Nick. And we all know how he can be.

I reminded her of the days when I published small town newspapers, when if I didn’t get a half dozen or more calls from irate readers when the new issue hit the streets, I didn’t feel like I had done my job well.

This new blog has absolutely nothing to do with the RV lifestyle. It’s just a soapbox for sounding off about topics that don’t fit in the RV blog. Some political commentary, some common sense, some observations on life in general, and a touch of nonsense now and then. Check it out and leave a comment and let Bad Nick know what you think. 

Okay, on to other things; Monday night we moved our Select Comfort airbed over to the new rig and spent our first night in our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome. That sure was nice!

Because we have an open bedroom/bathroom floor plan, except for the water closet, the bedroom really feels roomy. A couple of issues came up – we noticed right away the difference in sound levels between our bus conversion and the Winnebago. We put so much insulation into the bus that it is very quiet inside. Elkhart Campground is less than a mile, as the crow flies, from the Indiana Toll Road, and in the Winnebago we noticed a lot more traffic noise.

The other thing is that the bed in the new rig is in the slide, and Terry’s side of the bed is to the rear, and is accessed by two carpeted steps that lead up to the cedar lined closet. In the middle of the night she got up to go to the bathroom, and coming back to bed she forgot about the steps and stubbed her toes when she walked into them. I don’t think she’ll do that too many times before she remembers!

As it turns out, the Carriage rally has been a total bust in terms of sales. Every day they load folks up in busses or form car pools and go off to tour something, leaving us vendors twiddling our thumbs and staring at each other across the vacant aisles. In my Highway History and Back Road Mastery seminar yesterday afternoon, I had a total of three people in the audience. That’s a long way from the 250 or more people I have presented it to at other venues!

There is no use in both of us sitting there being bored when so much needs done here, so Miss Terry is going to stay at the campground today and start moving some stuff over to the Winnebago and getting it arranged the way she wants it. I’m not sure which one of us comes out better on that deal.

Thought For The Day – You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

As most of my regular blog readers know, we have been looking for an RV to replace our faithful old MCI bus conversion. We have lived in the bus for 8 years and loved it, but our needs have changed and we needed something different.

Our criteria was a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher, with at least a 330 horsepower engine, and a living room slide. As many of you know, I have long been a critic of many production RVs, but I have always said that there are a handful of manufacturers whose RVs we would be comfortable owning. If we had been shopping for a fifth wheel, our search would have begun and ended with Heartland. Unfortunately, they don’t make motorized RVs, only towables.

Of the production model diesel pushers, our top three manufacturers of choice were (in no particular order) Allegro, Winnebago, and Newmar. 

We did a lot of internet research, and looked at a lot of used RVs over the past six months, and almost bought a couple, but either we couldn’t quite get together on the price, or we couldn’t arrange the financing in time and someone snatched them out from under us.

Of all the rigs we looked at, the ones that really stuck out in our minds were the Winnebago Ultimate series, which was the top of the Winnebago line from 1998 to 2004, but every one we saw was out of our price range.

In early June we drove past a car dealer’s lot in Goshen, Indiana, and at the last minute out of the corner of my eye, I  spotted a beautiful 2002 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. We made a quick U-turn and checked it out, and though it was everything we wanted in a new home on wheels, we knew it was out of our price range. We looked at a couple of other RVs since then, but our minds kept going back to the Winnebago, and after a couple of visits and calls to the dealership, we were finally able to get them to negotiate a price we could live with.

Our goods friends Ron and Brenda Speidel are longtime Winnebago owners, and they are even on the company’s Consumer Research Panel, so they know their Winnebago’s. Added to that, Ron is one of the most technical guys I know, and he has always wanted an Ultimate Advantage, so we asked them to go with us to check the rig out.

I told Ron I wanted him to go over it with a fine tooth comb, with the mindset that Brenda wanted to buy it, and his job was to talk her out of it. After crawling over, under, around, and through every square inch of the rig, Ron had just one thing to say – “If you don’t buy it, I will.”

So yesterday we took delivery of our new home on wheels, and we are ecstatic! It has two slides, a 350 horsepower Cummins turbo diesel engine, six speed Allison automatic transmission, 7500 watt Onan Quiet Diesel generator, and every option we could ever want or need. Things like an automatic satellite TV dish on the roof, four door Norcold refrigerator, central vacuum system, and more. The rig has been babied, only 33,000 miles on it, all service done at the Cummins/Onan dealer here in Elkhart, and it lived inside a heated garage all its life.

It drives like a dream, and has more power than I know what to do with. In fact, when we were driving back to Elkhart Campground from the dealership, Ron and Brenda were following us, and had to call Terry on the cell phone to tell her to tell me to slow down. I thought I was doing about 35 and it was closer to 55!

We have the new motorhome parked next to the bus, and can’t wait to start moving in. Unfortunately, today we have to drive to Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer, and then it will take several days to get it stuffed into envelopes and mailed out. And next week, we are supposed to be vending at the Carriage rally in Goshen, Indiana. But maybe we’ll at least sneak next door and just go sit in our new motorhome and grin at each other for a while.  

Thought For The Day – When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally