We only have a couple of days here in Gettysburg, and we had planned to spend yesterday playing tourist. There is so much to see and do here that we could never cover it all, but we had hoped to at least get to the new National Parks Visitor Center. But things didn’t go exactly as planned.

Miss Terry has not been feeling 100% since we spent 11 hours a day standing on the ice rink at the Hershey RV Show last week, and whatever has been hanging around in the background came to the forefront yesterday.  She woke up feeling pretty puny, with a sore throat, headache, congestion, and generally achy all over. So we decided that a quiet day at home might help her get to feeling better.

Of course, you can’t get Terry to take it easy, so for her a “quiet day at home” involved hours wading through the paperwork from our recent Elkhart rally and the Hershey show, and doing a couple of loads of laundry.  I spent most of the day working online, answering e-mails, and contacting vendors and potential entertainers for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally, which will be March 7-11, 2011 in Yuma. I’m hoping David Bradley, who was a hit at this year’s rally, will come back and put on another show for us.

Also, due to popular demand, we’re bringing our Cactus Queen Beauty Contest back. We skipped it last year, because we thought that people might be getting tired of it, but a lot of folks let us know that they missed it. Besides, it’s just so darned much fun!

For some reason, the links on the Rally Registration Page were not working, so I fixed that problem, and now you should be able to just click the link and register. A lot of the vendors who were at the rally this year have already told us that they want to come back, because they had such good sales. And we’re looking forward to having them back, with all kinds of bargains for our rally attendees.

By late afternoon, Terry was feeling a bit better, so we drove into town and looked at some of the neat old houses and storefronts. I first visited Gettysburg back when I was in the Army, and fell in love with all of the history and charm of the famous old town and the surrounding area. If I was ever willing to get off the road (which I hope never to do), and if I had to live in a place where it snows (which I definitely hope never to do), I could live here.

Maybe I watched too many old movies growing up, but I love fedora hats, and all of my life, I have always wanted a good one. Wandering around Gettysburg, we found a neat little shop called Wilderness Lodge Leather & Hat Shops, where they had a fantastic selection at excellent prices. Such a good selection at such good prices that by the time we left, I had three new hats, two felt and a nice Panama straw!

What does a guy who lives in a motorhome need with three hats, when he already has an excellent medium brim Stetson? Miss Terry says it’s because I work hard and I don’t drink, smoke, play golf, or blow money in a lot of other ways, and I deserve them. And who am I to disagree with her?

Gayle Underwood, who was on duty behind the counter, is a history nut; a retired history teacher, and a wealth of information about Gettysburg. We spent quite a bit of time talking with her, and she gave us a lot of tips about places to see and things to do.

By then we were both hungry, and Gayle recommended  O’Rorkes Eatery & Spirits, almost across the street. Jerry, one of our regular blog readers, had also recommended O’Rorkes, so we walked across the street and tried it out. They were busy and there was a 20 minute wait for a table inside, but the hostess said we could get an outside table right then. It was a pleasant, warm evening, so we said okay, and enjoyed watching all of the tourists passing by as we had a fabulous meal.

Here is Miss Terry looking over the menu, which ranged from seafood to steaks and prime rib. She chose the salmon, and I had a New York strip, and both were delicious.

Then we drove out through part of the old battlefield, just to see how it felt in the dark, under a full yellow moon. It was a lot more peaceful than it was here in  July of 1863, for sure!

Thought For The Day -  It’s the small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Whether we’re in our motorhome or our van, whenever time allows, we always prefer to travel the two lane back roads wherever we are going. A Denny’s or a Flying J truck stop are pretty much the same, whether they are at an interstate highway exit in Arizona or Tennessee.

But on the back roads you see the real America; the small towns, the neat farmsteads, the old courthouses with their Civil War statues, the fields of corn, and the roadside produce stands. You can’t travel as fast on the back roads as you can on the super highways, but why would you want to, anyway? There’s too much to see along the way.

Yesterday we drove back up to Allegan, Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer. Our route took us up State Route 40, through the small towns of Marcellus, with its handsome old houses and storefronts; and Lawton, where the beautiful old stone railroad depot is now home to an American Legion post.

We passed a lot of farm fields, those roadside produce stands I mentioned above, and several lakes. I’d like to get our kayaks wet up here, and I bet there is some good fishing in these waters too!

I always like driving through the busy little town of Paw Paw, just for the name if nothing else. Paw Paw is the home of the St. Julian Winery, which offers free tours and wine tasting.

The Paw Paw Police (as opposed to the cantaloupe cops), have a neat old 1950s-era police car that we had hoped to get a picture of, but it wasn’t in its usual parking place, so we’ll have to try again one of these days.

We enjoyed the ride up to Allegan so much that, once we loaded the new issue into the van, we drove right back to Elkhart along the same route. (Of course, it’s the shortest and easiest route, so that helped too.

How would you like to spend the morning driving through all that pretty scenery I just showed you, and come back to find this parked next to you? No, the Beverly Hillbillies didn’t get a motorhome and hit the road, that’s my buddy Greg White’s American Eagle. Greg managed to scrape up his bay doors on a boulder or a panhandler, I forget which, so he took them off and our pal Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint is fixing them like new again. In the meantime, I just had to pick on Greg, because you know what they say, you can take the redneck out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the redneck.

I was feeling a bit droopy by the time we got back to Elkhart Campground, so I laid down for a little nap, and woke up when my friend Orv Hazelton called to tell me he and his lovely wife Nancy had arrived and were parked next to us. We went over to check our their beautiful new Allegro four-slide diesel pusher, I fussed over their little mutt Duffy, who is almost acceptable for a wannabe dog, and then the four of us went out to dinner. We haven’t seen Orv and Nancy in quite a while, and it was nice to have some time to visit and catch up.

When we got back to the campground, I wanted to take a little walk, and then go inside and get caught up on e-mail from the day. But before I could, a series of folks stopped by to introduce themselves, say hello, ask about the rally, and to  talk about my Bad Nick Blog posts. I’m afraid I can’t remember everybody’s name, but they included Phyllis Schell,  and subscribers Gary and Elaine Regelman. My apologies to those whose names I missed, but my brain capacity is a bit exceeded right now.

I finally managed to get in a couple of laps around the campground, stopped to visit with some folks along the way, and got back to the Winnebago in time to check out the new series Hardcore Pawn on True TV. We managed about 20 minutes of the half hour episode and changed channels. It’s obviously an attempt to cash in on the popularity of A&E’s Pawn Stars, but we both felt that it pretty much sucked. We won’t waste any time on it.

Thought For The Day – If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.

We spent yesterday exploring part of the Crystal Coast; this interesting, laid back region of North Carolina. Here you can find everything from bustling small cities like Beaufort and Morehead City, to quaint little fishing towns like Harkers Island. No matter what your interests are, from history to collecting seashells, to fishing, or just sitting back in a beach chair and watching the seagulls fly by, you’ll find it all here.

Our first stop of the day was Fort Macon State Park, home to historic Fort Macon, which saw service from before the Civil War to World War II. The old fort was built as part of a chain of coastal defense forts, was seized by the Confederate Army during the Civil War and then recaptured after a siege by the Union Army, and has been restored to its glory days.

We enjoyed wandering through old barracks and climbing up to the fort’s walls to where sentries once stood guard duty, looking for enemy ships, blockade runners, and World War II German U-boats.

From Fort Macon, we drove 27 meandering miles to the charming little village of Harkers Island, where we stopped at the Cape Lookout National Seashore Visitor Center. It was here that we met a very nice man named Chuck Anderson, a fulltime RVer who is volunteering at the Visitor Center. He told us a little about his duties, we exchanged travel adventures, and then spent some time looking at the displays about the local wildlife and history.

Almost next door to the Visitor Center is the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center. This was one of the most impressive off the beaten path museums we have ever visited. We expected to see exhibits on the region’s hunting heritage, and there were certainly plenty of them, from duck decoys to massive ten gauge shotguns.

We also met a local woodcarver named Anthony Brooks and watched him at work for a while. Though he was born and raised on Core Sound, Anthony had a distinctive Scottish accent that he said he inherited from his grandfather, instead of the southern drawl we’ve heard most people use here.

What we didn’t expect at the museum were the impressive exhibits on the region’s history. There are displays on the fishing industry, a wonderful collection of model boats, quilts, and even a fully sailed fishing skiff on display. On the second floor, the several small towns strung along Core Sound have their own exhibits on their local history.

From Harkers Island, we drove back to Beaufort to tour the North Carolina Maritime Museum, which focuses on the seafaring past of the area. Everybody from the notorious pirate Blackbeard to the brave men of the United States Lighthouse Service and commercial fisherman are remembered here. The museum also has displays of fish and marine mammals that inhabit coastal waters, including this Great White shark caught 40 miles off Cape Lookout. This massive critter measured over fifteen feet long and weighed 2,080 pounds! Suddenly I wasn’t all that interested in launching my kayak anywhere around here!   

We had been bracing for predicted heavy rain and strong winds as the Tropical Storm Ida moved across the Southeast, but except for a few sprinkles while we were at Fort Macon, it was actually a pretty nice day. We’ll wait and see what today brings.

Whether you’re in sunshine or rain today, take a moment to thank a veteran for your freedom. Bad Nick made it a point to in today’s Bad Nick Blog, titled appropriately enough, Thank A Vet.

Thought For The Day – Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

With temperatures in the mid to upper 90s yesterday in Elklhart, and humidity over 50%, it wasn’t a day to get out and do much. Our MCI bus conversion is so well insulated that we seldom need our rooftop air conditioner to feel comfortable, but yesterday we turned it on early and stayed inside all day.

It was a good day for paperwork, and while I updated our mailing lists, Miss Terry began proofing a new book I hope to get out before our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally. There wasn’t much on TV that interested us, so we listened to music most of the day. I like days like that once in a while, and we get a lot accomplished, but after spending the entire weekend inside, I’ve got cabin fever and need a break. Hopefully today we do something different, even if it’s just going to the laundromat.

As a writer, I don’t know how I ever got by without the internet. I used to spend hours in libraries doing research, and I loved prowling the stacks looking for books on any and every topic under the sun. But with the internet, I can find just about anything I want in seconds, with just a few keystrokes and a mouse click or two.

Yesterday I came across an interesting website called Mental Floss, which has an amazing amount of trivia and little-known information, from 7 Civil War Stories You Didn’t Learn in School, to the Bizarre History of White House Pets, to 10 Bizarre Athlete Superstitions.

Of course, the Internet is also a great source of misinformation. It has changed the Urban Legend into worldwide phenomena. I am constantly amazed at all of the crapola that shows up in my e-mail inbox. And you know it has to be true, because it’s on the internet. I delete about 90% of the stuff that gets forwarded to me, because I don’t have the time or interest to read it, and because I’ve seen most of it many times before.

Some of these stories have some basis in fact, but are updated and morphed into fiction to take advantage of whatever is currently catching the public’s interest.

One that I have received a dozen or more times in the last few days is that while the media was falling all over itself covering the death of Michael Jackson, there was no mention of the death the same week of Ed “Too Tall” Freeman, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Landing Zone X-Ray, in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam in 1965. Ed Freeman flew his unarmed helicopter into the overwhelmed landing zone under heavy enemy fire fourteen times on that day to bring out 30 wounded soldiers. When I was in the First Cavalry a few years later, Ed Freeman was a legend.

However, Ed Freeman did not die the same week as Michael Jackson! The war hero actually died August, 20, 2008 in Boise, Idaho. To use his name and accomplishments to foster an internet myth is objectionable to me. Whenever I get some story like this, if I look at it at all, I run it past Snopes to see if there is any validity to it.

Okay, enough with the internet, I need to get outside and experience real life today!

Thought For The Day – The labels we stick on ourselves define how we live. What do your labels say?

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We spent yesterday exploring cowboy country. Back in the years following the Civil War, western Kansas was the Wild West, and it was here that some of the best known characters of the time made names for themselves.

Meade, Kansas, where we are staying at the city park’s free “Tourist Camp” is the home of the Dalton Gang Hideout, complete with an escape tunnel that led from the outlaw gang’s sister’s house to a barn down the hill.  Marc Ferguson, manager of the Hideout, had invited us to come by and check it out.

Marc is a great storyteller, and he gave us a brief history of the Dalton brothers and their fall from grace, starting out as Deputy U.S. Marshal’s and ending up shot down in the streets of Coffeyville, Kansas in a bank robbery gone bad.

We were impressed with the tunnel, and displays in the neat little museum upstairs of the gift shop, which included everything from old guns and barbed wire to a stuffed two-headed calf.

We left the bus in Meade and drove the van about 40 miles to Dodge City, which was known as the Queen of the Cow Towns and one of the wickedest towns on earth. It was here that cattle drives from Texas reached trail’s end, and an army of saloon keepers, card sharks, shady ladies, and outlaws waited to separate the hardworking Texas cowboys from their pay.

Killings were routine business in old Dodge City, and it took hard lawmen like Bill Tilghman, Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson to bring peace. Plenty of outlaws and wild cowboys found their final resting place at Boot Hill, and the legends have only grown over the years.

Today Dodge City is a friendly town of some 25,000 people, and still makes its living off the cattle industry. Two large meat packing plants are the main employers, though tourism plays an important role in the local economy.

Jan Stevens, director of the Dodge City Convention and Visitors Bureau, met us and took us to lunch, while she gave us a very good overview of the town’s history and how things are today. We deal with a lot of public relations and media representatives in our work, and I have to tell you, if they were all half as good as Jan, we’d have an easy job. She spent a long time with us, answered all of our questions, gave us a ton of excellent reference material, and then arranged a tour of Boot Hill and the re-created Front Street, once the centerpiece of the wild cow town.

Jan also arranged for local historian Charlie Meade to give us a walking tour of Dodge City, which included all of the historically important places, as well as this neat statue of Wyatt Earp.

Charlie is a real treasure, and it was wonderful to spend the afternoon with him. A retired Deputy Marshal, and recently appointed as a Special Deputy United States Marshal, at 74 years young, Charlie is a walking encyclopedia of Old West history and lore.

We were great friends by the end of our time together, and Miss Terry posed for a picture with our new pal. Charlie was only too happy to do so, saying he never passes up an opportunity to get close to a pretty lady. I can’t say that I blame him.

Thought For The Day – I suffer occasional delusions of adequacy.