The Affinity rally ended yesterday, and while we had a good time visiting with old friends and meeting some new ones, it was a break even event for us financially.

While we’d have loved to come away with buckets full of cash, going in we said that if we could cover our costs and introduce some new readers to the Gypsy Journal, we’d be happy with that, and we accomplished that goal.

So what’s with people and their dogs?

Though we choose not to own a pet while we travel, I love dogs. I love big floppy eared mixed breed mutts. I love AKC dogs with pedigrees that make my own family tree look pretty shabby by comparison. My preference is big dogs, but I’m quite content with the medium size breeds too.

My good friend Ann Pruitt has an adorable medium size service dog named Curlie Sue whom I have a special relationship with. My pal Mike Howard in Kingman, Arizona lives next door to a massive mutt named Skeeter who is taller than me when he stands on his hind legs. They’re both on my Favorite Dog list.

In a pinch I’ll even cozy up to a small dog, unless it’s a yappy little mutt with a big mouth and a bad attitude.

I don’t like French poodles, probably because the only things French I like are toast, fries, and kisses, though not necessarily in that order. Don’t tell Chris and Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour, but I even sneaked a surreptitious scratch behind the ears of their yappy little poodle Odie once when nobody was looking. When you need a dog fix bad enough, I guess any old mutt will do.

My favorite dogs are German shepherds, and I’ll walk a block out of my way to meet and pet every one I see. I don’t trust pit bulls, most of whom deserve their bad reputation, no matter what their fans will tell you. In my many years in the newspaper business, I never covered a story about a collie mauling a kid, but I did have to report on too many sad stories involving pit bull attacks.

So, overall, I’m a dyed in the wool dog lover.

What I don’t like are irresponsible dog owners, and people who think the rules do not apply to their dogs. People who allow their dogs to bark endlessly, or who go off and leave their noisy dogs back in the RV to annoy everybody in the campground in their absence.

I get really ticked off by people at public events where dogs are specifically prohibited, but who insist on bringing their canine companions in anyway. We saw dozens of people doing this at the Affinity rally in Albuquerque. One person after another came wandering through the vendor area with their dogs. One lady even had two little mutts in a twin baby carriage, forcing shoppers to find a way around her as she blocked the aisles.

Besides being against the rules, some people, like Miss Terry, are allergic to dogs, and some are afraid of them. But these inconsiderate pet owners could care less. After all, it’s all about them.

We welcome dog owners to bring their critters to our Gypsy Gathering rallies, but we make it very clear that their pets are not allowed in the buildings or in the vendor area, as mandated by our insurance company and the fairgrounds who rent us the space, and I don’t hesitate to enforce the rule.

Yet we have had people show up at seminars and in the vendor area with their dogs. A couple of years ago at our rally in Casa Grande, Arizona, we even had a woman carrying her dog in to get donuts in the morning, leaning over the open box of pastries with the dog in her arms!

Invariably when I tell someone they are breaking the rules, I get the same reply “But this is my baby!”

No, it’s not your baby. You may consider it your fur kid, but it’s still an animal. I wasn’t a memorable student in high school, but even I learned that much in biology class! Human babies have two legs, and if that thing has four legs and is your baby, you need to sell that freak to a sideshow!

Thought For The Day – The treasure you find is rarely what you thought you were looking for.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Even though we really don’t need or want anything, we occasionally enjoy wandering through a flea market, just to see what’s being offered.

We spent some time yesterday afternoon wandering around the Mesa Market Place indoor swap meet, looking at all of the stuff offered for sale. I’m sure glad we live in an RV, because we don’t have room for all of the ceramic trinkets, cookware, cactus shaped water fountains, and other junk you can find in places like that.

Mesa Market Place is not your typical old style flea market, in that about 90% of the vendors are selling new items. You can find cheap tools made in China, foot massagers, incense, T-shirts with funny sayings (my favorite this trip said “Go Ahead And Whine If It Will Make You Feel Any Better), sunglasses, kitchenware, and all kinds of other merchandise. In my opinion, most of it isn’t worth hauling home, no matter how cheap they sell it for.

I did find a wide brimmed hat to keep the sun off my face and ears, and hopefully it will reduce the number of skin cancers I have to have burned off on my next trip to the V.A. hospital. Terry also got a good deal on some ribbon to use in a couple of crochet projects she’s working on.

More and more of the swap meets and flea markets we’ve seen around the country have moved away from the used merchandise and collectibles we enjoy looking at, and to the same cheap imported stuff we saw yesterday.

We were really disappointed on our first trip to the big Shipshewana Flea Market in Indiana several years ago. Since it’s located in the heart of Amish country, we expected handcrafted goodies, but most of what we found was bamboo back scratchers and such.

Back at the bus, I took a short nap, and then we visited with Terry’s parents for a while. Her mom is dealing with a nasty cold, so we didn’t stay long so she didn’t have to feel like she should entertain us.

Today we’re leaving Apache Junction, headed for Kingman, Arizona, where we’ll spend a few days visiting with my old buddy Mike Howard. Mike is a confirmed bachelor, and we try to stop in every year so Miss Terry can spoil him with home cooking and bake him a couple of batches of her delicious chocolate chip/pecan cookies. Of course, I’d hate to see Mike overindulge in sweets, so I’ll be sure to help him work his way through all of those cookies! What are friends for?

From Apache Junction to Kingman is about 225 miles, which makes for a good driving day, and about half of it will be on two lane roads, which are our favorite routes. 

Between our time in Casa Grande, then Tucson, and most recently Apache Junction, we’ve been sitting still too long. We’re eager to do some traveling!

Thought For The Day - Being kind is more important than being right.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Like so much in the RV industry, our attendance at this year’s Western Gypsy Gathering rally was down considerably from last year. The 2008 rally had 254 RVs, and this year our top number was 157. But the folks who came sure had fun, in spite of the rain, mud, wind, and cold. Here is a picture our friend Bill Joyce took from the top of his RV, showing some of the parking area, and just one of the numerous mud puddles left over from the storm that hit early in the week.

Yesterday morning after coffee and donuts, most of the RVs pulled out, off to their next adventure, or in search of more comfortable parking facilities. The fact that a rabbit and pig show was coming into the fairgrounds as we were ending our rally (more of that double booking we appreciate so much), didn’t do much to make folks want to stay longer. By noon the greatest majority of rigs had left.

But a few of us are hanging around, at least for the weekend. We moved from the front of the fairgrounds to the back, to be away from the incoming activities, and our friends Sami and Earl Aeverman are parked right next to us. Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety is one space away on the other side. Several others from the rally are scattered around the fairgrounds.

Coming into the rally, I asked people to save their receipts for any purchases they made with local businesses, because I want to show the community leaders the money our one little rally brings to town. Even Terry and I were surprised. Judging by what I have seen from the receipts handed in, I estimate that each RV spent well over $300 in Casa Grande. That’s over $47,000 minimum, in one week!

Not to mention the many thousands of dollars Terry and I paid to rent the fairgrounds, or the revenue they made from RVs who arrived early or are staying over. Or the nearly $1,000 we spent on the pizza party, or the hundreds of other dollars we spent on door prizes, donuts every morning, and rally supplies. And we are just one small RV rally.

Yet, the folks who run the fairgrounds just don’t seem to get it. In a couple of meetings yesterday, I showed them the feedback forms from the rally, where one attendee after another complained about the poorly maintained buildings and grounds, the filthy restrooms, and inadequate water and electrical hookups. They acknowledge they have serious problems, but don’t seem to care about fixing them.

Another major complaint we had was the fact that when we started having our rallies here, we had the exclusive use of the fairgrounds for the week. But somewhere along the line they decided it was okay to double book events, and to rent RV spaces to the general public in the middle of our rally!

Since the powers that be here obviously don’t care about our business, we’ll just take it (and our money) elsewhere. The coordinators of other RV rallies who have been using the fairgrounds told me that they are also not returning. Our attendees made it very plain to us that they don’t want to come back, and unless major improvements were made in both the fairgrounds itself and the mindset of the management, we won’t be.

There will be a Western rally next year, like always, but we have not settled on a location or a date yet. We are looking at several different venues, so stay tuned. As soon as we have something finalized, we’ll announce it here.

After existing on four or five hours of sleep a night all week, Terry and I plan to turn off our telephones and sleep late tomorrow. We’ll wrap up some business here over the weekend, have dinner with some friends we didn’t get to spend enough time with during the rally, and Monday we’re headed for Tucson.      

Thought For The Day - I think, therefore I laugh.

I can’t find it right now, but somewhere in my contract, I’m sure there is a clause about icicles. Yesterday morning when I started unhooking our utilities at the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico, I found a four inch icicle hanging off the bottom of my bus! That is just not acceptable! 

I had filled our fresh water tank when we arrived, and the water had apparently dripped out of the overflow and formed the icicle in the 25 degree temperatures we had overnight. Yeah right, global warming my foot!

So why, you ask, did I fill our fresh water tank if we were hitting the road the next morning? Because I could. While many production model RVs are tipping the weight scale when they come off the production line, our old MCI bus conversion can comfortably carry anything we can stick in or tie on top of it. We have a 105 gallon fresh water tank, and even though we planned to be in a place with water and electric hookups the next day, it comes in handy to have plenty of water on board just in case we get delayed and find ourselves boondocking somewhere.

Now that we’re out here in the mountains of the West, I can really tell how much of an improvement the repairs that Christopher Best did on our engine have made. From Deming to Tucson, we were climbing most of the way. The road ranges from long gradual inclines to a couple of pretty steep climbs. The bus handled them all well.

In the past, on the climb up to Texas Canyon on Interstate 10 just east of Benson, we would drop down to about 35 miles per hour. Yesterday I kept it floored and we topped out at about 60. I had the radiator misters on as we made the climb, and the temperature gauge stayed well down in the comfort zone.

The one place where we did slow down a lot was coming out of the San Pedro Valley at Benson. This is a long, hard pull in a heavy rig, and in the past we’d drop down to about 18 miles per hour on the westbound grade. Yesterday we were down to 33 miles per hour, which was still uncomfortable with all of the high speed traffic flying past us, but a significant improvement from the past.  

Interstate 10 through Tucson is still under construction and down to two lanes with concrete barriers on both sides, but we rolled right on through with no problems. We stopped to fill our fuel tank at the Flying J in Eloy, and we averaged 5.2 miles per gallon since our last fill up. For our old bus, in the hills and mountains we’ve been driving in, that’s about what I expected.

We arrived at the fairgrounds in Casa Grande about 4 p.m. and discovered that the new manager, who has been giving us and other RV rallies scheduled to come into the fairgrounds such grief, has been replaced. The new, new manger is supposed to take over next week, and hopefully we can get some details hammered out.

When we unhooked the van from our Blue Ox tow bar, we discovered that our Remco drive shaft disconnect would not engage. I called Cliff’s Welding Shop in Mesa, Arizona, who had installed the unit, and asked for advice. Apparently somewhere in our trip the cable that operates the disconnect had gotten misaligned, which can apparently happen on rough roads with a lot of bumps.

Even though they were in the process of closing for the day, one of their guys stayed there and talked us through the process of crawling under the van to disconnect the cable, manually turning the drive shaft until it was properly aligned, and then manually engaging it. Now that’s the kind of customer service we appreciate!

Of course, Miss Terry was the one who took on this task, coming out pretty well covered in dirt and grease from head to toe. I really think I could have done it, but Terry insists it’s better for her to do such things than for me to try them, which will result in her having to take me to the nearest emergency room to have a finger or two sewed back on, and she’d still have to fix the thing anyway! I have to be honest folks, it’s kind of nice to be married to a good looking lady MacGyver who can fix anything.

Thought For The Day – He has acheived success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

In Thursday’s blog, I mentioned that our inner children are whimsical, and our travel plans are set in jello. As Mac McClellan wrote in his Casino Travel blog on RV.Net, we have a general idea for our year’s travels, and anchor points along the way. Between those, we like to just roll with the flow and take it as it comes.

We prefer not making reservations, because then we have some place we have to be at a given time. What fun is that? What if we find a neat place along the way and want to tarry there for a while? What if we discover an interesting back road we want to explore? So, about the only time we make reservations is when we are going into a high use area during their peak times. Otherwise, we play it by ear.

We’ll be leaving the Texas Gulf Coast in a few days headed west. As of right this very minute, we plan to spend the rest of the winter and the spring in Arizona. We’ll be in Casa Grande in a couple of weeks getting things arranged for our Gypsy Gathering rally, and after the rally we plan to spend some time in Tucson and southern Arizona. Now that we have our kayaks, and with Miss Terry’s newfound interest in fishing, I would like to introduce her to bass fishing on a couple of my favorite lakes.

From Tucson we may go up to the Thousand Trails in the Verde Valley, or maybe we’ll go hang out at the Escapees North Ranch campground near Congress, Arizona until it warms up a bit in the high country. Since we don’t have to rush back east for Life on Wheels, we want to spend a few weeks in our old hometown of Show Low, in Arizona’s White Mountains spoiling our grandkids

We have never been to The Rally, which will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in April, so we may get a vendor booth there. Then I think we’ll head for the Pacific Northwest. It’s been a long time since we’ve visited the Oregon and Washington coasts, which is a very special place to me. The only time Terry has ever been up that way was just before she was diagnosed with cancer, and she would like to see it again through healthy eyes.

Sometime toward the end of summer we’ll start making our way east to Traverse City, Michigan for Terry’s annual checkup with her oncologist, and then we’ll be in Celina, Ohio in September for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

From there, who knows? We’ve never explored the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas. I think it’s about time. We both have fallen in love with the Florida Keys. Maybe I’ll try to weasel another visit to our pals Tom Owen and Diane Rojewski’s houseboat in Key West.

That’s the general plan as of this moment. But than again…. autumn in Branson is supposed to be really pretty…. or maybe leaf peeping in New England … or?

Thought For The Day – We don’t have to change friends if we understand that sometimes friends change.