We had 221 RVs at the rally, and nearly 300 people who are staying in local RV parks here in Yuma came in on day passes. That’s a pretty good turnout, and we were very pleased with the numbers.

In looking over the feedback forms and the e-mails we have received about the rally, we see a common theme in them. The biggest complaints we had were about a lack of power. A lot of people said that they expected 30 amp hookups, but we seldom find that at fairgrounds or RV rallies. The 20 amp power more commonly available is enough to keep your batteries charged, but as soon as people start using coffee pots, microwave ovens, and curling irons, circuit breakers start tripping.

The noise caused by aircraft from the Marine Air Station was also a problem for some people, but there really isn’t anything we can do about that. But, a lot of people said that while the noise was somewhat bothersome, it was no big deal, and that they would rather put up with that than wading through the mud at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, or the noxious smell from the nearby dairy there.

There were some other issues raised and suggestions made for future rallies at this venue, and in a meeting yesterday with the fairgrounds management, I think we resolved most of them. Unlike the people running the fairgrounds in Casa Grande, the management here in Yuma is eager to earn our continued business, they listen to our needs, and they try to address them.

The fairgrounds is going to increase the electrical power available for RV hookups, as well as the number of “spider boxes” used to supply temporary hookups during rallies. They hope to increase the amount of electric available in the north parking area (Lot B), as well as bringing power to a new area where we should be able to park 30 or more RVs. 

Next year the rally will be March 7-11, right here at the Yuma Fairgrounds. We plan to have a food vendor on site, we will rent a couple of six passenger golf carts to shuttle people around, and we have arranged for the use of an extra building for vendor seminars, which will solve the problem of noise in the large vendor building interfering with seminars. Another complaint was low water pressure in the north lot, which has been resolved already. Apparently there was an underground leak, which they fixed Monday.

This rally was a learning experience, and we are putting those lessons to use.  I also obtained permission for our parking crew to come in a day early and dry camp next year, which will speed things up on Early Bird parking day.

This year’s rally was a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun. We’re already looking forward to next year!

Our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage really needed a bath, and Greg and Jan White’s American Eagle was just about as bad. So yesterday we had a mobile crew come in from Road Runner RV Wash, and they washed and hand waxed both rigs from the roof down. There are several companies that provide this service to the snowbirds here in Yuma, and they keep pretty busy. The cost for our 40 foot motorhome, including hand waxing, was $100.

Our van was coated in mud from parking RVs in the rain last week, and when I asked how much it would be to do it too, I was told $10. It costs me more than that  do the job at a car wash myself!

Today we are going to leave Yuma and caravan north with Greg and Jan. They have never been to Lake Havasu City or seen the London Bridge, so we’ll make a stop there to play tourist, and then we’ll go on to Laughlin, Nevada for a night.

We have reservations at the Thousand Trails in Las Vegas on Wednesday, where we plan to just relax and unwind for a week or two, while we wait for the weather to warm up in our old hometown of Show Low, in northern Arizona. Once we’re sure winter really is over in the high country,. we’re headed there for a much needed grandkid fix.

Thought For The Day – ‘Normal’ is just a setting on the dryer.

We’re getting down to the wire on our Western Gypsy Gathering rally, and I need to be twins, maybe even triplets, to get everything done! Most of yesterday was spent answering e-mails and phone calls from folks registering for the rally.

We have over 200 RVs registered now, and more coming in all the time. I just hope we can find a parking place with electricity for everybody! We have lots of room for dry camping, but we hope to have 20 amp electricity for everybody too.

There are no full hookups for RVs at the fairgrounds, but there are water bibs and a dump station. We have very few 30 and 50 amp electric hookups, but those have to be reserved for people with special needs. And no, wanting to use your microwave or curling iron is not a special need! Sorry.

Hey, Terry and I have been here all week, and we’re getting by just fine on 20 amp electric in our Winnebago diesel coach. Just because we have a 50 amp plug doesn’t mean we have to have 50 amps to live comfortably.

Bill Becker stopped by to say hello yesterday afternoon. Bill and his wife Mabel handle T-shirt sales at our western rallies, and they are hanging out around Yuma until it’s time to come in for the rally. Bill is a retired Marine, and he has arranged for a spokesman from the Marine Air Station here in Yuma to come to the opening of the rally and tell us all a little about their mission to train pilots and crews.

About 3 p.m., Tom and Barbara Westerfield arrived at the fairgrounds. They are part of our advance staff, and boy, do we have a lot of work for them to do! They handle a lot of our technical things, making sure the seminar speakers have the audio-visual equipment they need and that it is working properly, as well as 1001 other tasks. We sure do appreciate all of our volunteer helpers!

Once they were settled in, the four of us took a tour of the fairgrounds, and I showed them where the two main RV parking areas will be, as well as other spots where we can park a rig or two. Unlike the fairgrounds in Casa Grande, where we have held our past rallies, here we won’t have everybody parked in long back to back lines of RVs. Some folks will be parked that way, but others will be put in spots next to buildings where we can get them plugged into electric.

If you don’t have or want to use your rooftop TV dish during the rally, we have several 20 amp electric hookups with water that are under a large covered canopy.

With so little time left before the rally starts, there isn’t time to send rally confirmations by snail mail, but we can do so by e-mail if you register online. You can also register and pay when you arrive at the fairgrounds, either on Sunday, the 7^th from noon to 5 p.m., or Monday, the 8^th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. If you are staying in the local area and don’t want to bring your RV to the fairgrounds, you can come in on day passes, for $5/person per day, which entitles you to all rally activities. Come join in all the fun!

Thought For The Day – I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I got an e-mail the other day from a person who markets a well known product to the RV industry. He was unhappy with the comments I wrote about one of his products that he sent me to evaluate. He called what I had to say a “hatchet job.” While I wouldn’t go that far, I did say that I didn’t feel that his latest offering measured up. I’m sorry, but I don’t write puff pieces. I tell it like I see it, good, bad, or indifferent.

Of course, we also have the people who don’t even send a product to evaluate, they just send us a glowing pre-written review, and then expect us to publish it. I always tell these people that if they have enough confidence in their product to send a sample, I’ll try it, but that only gets them my honest opinion about it. If they just send a press release, I just send them back an advertising rate card.

I also upset an RV dealer who wanted to bring some rigs to the fairgrounds in Yuma to display at our rally. He insisted that these display RVs would be parked where we intend to put our outdoor vendors, so that everybody would have to walk past them, and his salesmen, to go from the indoor to the outdoor vendor area. I told him that wouldn’t work, and that I was not going to do that to our outdoor vendors (or our attendees), but I would let him park the RVs in a convenient and visible area.

The fairgrounds charges us for every RV on the grounds during the rally, in addition to the rental of the facility itself, and I gave him a price per rig that would cover our cost. He was amazed that I would consider asking him to pay. In fact, he expected us to pay him, because he felt that just having his units there would be a feather in our cap. 

A couple of years ago, we had a dealer who wanted to display RVs at our rally in Casa Grande, but he demanded that we supply him with the snail mail addresses, e-mail, and telephone numbers of all rally attendees for his marketing purposes.

Over the years, we have been approached many times by companies wanting to buy our mailing list, and we always tell them no. We never give out our subscribers’ or rally attendees’ personal information. We’re fulltime RVers too, and we don’t like junk mail, spam, or unsolicited telephone calls.

No, I can’t please everybody, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror when I brush my teeth every morning.

It’s time for us to order rally T-shirts, and we’re trying to get an idea of how many we’re going to need. Regular sizes are $15 per shirt, and 2X and larger sizes are $2 more per shirt. We don’t need payment at this time, but if you want a shirt, please e-mail me at editor@gypsyjournal.net and tell me the sizes, and how many you want.

We’ll send the new issue of the paper off to our printer tomorrow, and then we’ll turn our attention to Terry’s dad’s 80^th birthday party until Monday, when we’ll start stuffing envelopes to get them all in the mail. 

Thought For The Day – The engineer knows the glass isn’t half full or half empty: it’s twice as large as it should be for optimum utilization of resources! 

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

According to a story on RV E-News, Affinity has announced the sale of its Camping World stores nationwide to help ease some of its heavy debt load. I have heard rumors of this before, but to date nothing has happened. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

While newbie’s and weekend campers spend a lot of time prowling their aisles, very few fulltimers I know do much shopping at Camping World, especially after they have been on the road a year or so. Especially if they care about saving money. While it’s true that Camping World Stores often have a large inventory, we have found that we can usually get anything we need online, and even at small Mom and Pop RV stores, for less money.

As a case in point, last winter I was shopping for a Vu Qube portable satellite TV antenna. I found them as much as $75 cheaper at a small RV store in Casa Grande, and another in Tucson, then I did at the Camping World stores in Tucson and Mesa, Arizona.

So I guess if the sale of their Camping World stores helps Affinity, it’s a good thing for them. But I don’t think I’ll be rushing into one of their stores to make a purchase anytime soon, no matter who their corporate parent is.

Terry and I have not gotten much accomplished since we got to Elkhart Saturday, because we both have been feeling under the weather. In fact, I probably spent nearly as much time napping as I did awake yesterday.

But this afternoon we have to go over to the fairgrounds in Goshen to get our booth set up for the Heartland Owners Rally, where we will be vending Thursday and Friday. I’ll also be presenting my Highway History and Back Road Mystery seminar Friday afternoon at the rally.

The fairgrounds is close enough that we won’t be taking the bus to the fairgrounds, just commuting in the van for the two days of the rally.

There are several other RV events scheduled for the fairgrounds this summer, including a Newmar rally we hope to get a booth at. We are still shopping for a diesel pusher to replace our bus conversion, and Newmar is in the top three of the manufacturers we are considering. I’ve always admired their products and their reputation, so it will be interesting to spend some time around a crowd of Newmar owners and listen to their feedback.

Thought For The Day – The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

No matter how long you’ve been a fulltime RVer, you can still forget the simple things. Or at least I can. Tuesday night Miss Terry was washing some dishes and noticed that our water pump was making a low moaning noise. Hmmm…. I like to think that I’m the only reason moaning noises are coming out of our bus. I decided I’d better check things out.

I grabbed a flashlight, went outside and opened our water bay, and sure enough, our freshwater tank was almost empty. It was late in the evening, so we decided that we’d skip our baths that night and wait until the next morning to refill the tank.

So yesterday morning I got out my 50 foot water hose and stretched it out toward the nearest water bib here at Show Low Lake Campground. Way too short. No problem, I got out my backup 25 foot hose. I was still short, by about five feet. I started to get out my backup to my backup 25 foot hose, and discovered that it was missing. Then I remembered lending it to someone at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Casa Grande, but apparently I never got it back.

So it was off to Wally World for a new hose, I needed one anyway to replace the one I lost, and you can never have too much water hose, right? Back at the campground, I finally could fill our holding tank, and it was a good thing I did! If Miss Terry doesn’t have her morning coffee, she gets a bit testy. Throw in the fact that if I don’t get my shower, I get a bit ripe, and it’s not a recipe for romance.

In case you are wondering how we could run out of water, I have a good excuse. Nick happens. It explains a lot that goes wrong in my world.

We don’t have monitors on our fresh or waste water tanks. They never work anyway, so when we built our bus conversion, we didn’t mess with them. I have enough aggravation in my life already, I don’t need the hassle of tank monitors to add to my stress level. We know about how long we can go on a tank full of water before it’s time to refill, and I can open the bay and look at the tank if I need to be sure. This time around we were just so busy that it got away from us.

In case you’re new to RVing and don’t know it yet, holding tank monitors never work. Especially the ones in your waste tanks. I have seen newbies fret themselves into a tizzy over the fact that they just left the dump station, and their monitors still show the tank is full, or half full, or whatever. If you live this lifestyle long enough, you learn to ignore the monitors. Otherwise it will drive you to drink.

Over time (and not much time at all), gunk builds up on the contacts inside of the tank and give false readings. I’ve heard of a hundred ways to clean the contacts inside a holding tank, from pouring ice cubes down the toilet and driving around to knock the crud off, to filling the tank with water and baking soda, or bleach, not to mention all of the commercial chemicals you can waste your money on. Trust me; none of them work long term.

If you spend much time in an RV, you’ll get to know about how long you can go before you need to dump, depending on the size of your tank and how many people are in the RV. Of course, if you drink a gallon of that stuff my doctor made me drink before my colonoscopy, all bets are off. Either get a full hookup site, or park at the dump station, because you’re going to need it!

Experienced RVers can usually tell when the black tank is getting full based on the way it sounds when they flush. Or you can just follow Uncle Nicky’s RV Potty Rule, which I’ve shared with hundreds of Life on Wheels students, but am now going to tell you too, “If you flush the toilet and your butt gets wet, it’s time to dump!” Trust me, it’s much more reliable than any darned holding tank sensor on the market!

Thought For The Day – I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally