Wow, I go away for one afternoon and the whole world changes! What’s up with that?

I had to get up earlier than usual for me yesterday morning, because I needed to be wide awake for a 9 a.m. conference call. I’ve found that folks tend to get offended or lose confidence in you if you snore during a business call.

The call took about an hour, and then I spent some time answering e-mails and checking some blog comments that were waiting for moderation. (To fight spam, all blog comments are held for review the first time somebody makes one. After that, the software recognizes their e-mail address and comments post immediately).

I also called my friend Greg White to ask his opinion on a couple of technical issues. No matter what questions I throw at him, from computers to digital cameras to synthetic transmission fluids, Greg always has the answers for me. Either he’s really smart, or he just makes stuff up off the top of his head and gets lucky a lot, I’m not sure which. Thanks for your input, Greg.

About the time I finished up with all that, Dave Damon showed up to borrow my Beanstalk ladder so he could fix something on his rig. Dave also reminded me that his wife, Jean, wants to give Terry and I massages while we’re here. I can hardly wait!

We left the Thousand Trails campground a little after noon, and drove around the area, dropping off bundles of sample copies of the Gypsy Journal at the local RV parks. We also stopped at the Camping World in Orlando to drop off a bundle of papers, but since we didn’t have a display rack for them, the manager said no. This is one of only two or three Camping World stores to say no in over twelve years. I understand their space limitations, but it’s a big store. We just don’t have the room to carry display racks with us, and we could never get back to refill them with every new issue with our travel schedule.

Interestingly enough, the nice folks at a very small RV parts store called Camping Connection, just a few miles east, were happy to have the papers, and found a place to display them. I guess if I need anything while we’re in the Orlando/Clermont area, I know who will get my business.

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Once we were done dropping off sample newspapers, we drove to the Bass Pro Shop in Orlando to do some browsing. I love Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shop, because they are RV friendly, and most of their stores will let RVers park overnight, and because they have every kind of toy a grown up boy could want or need. Are you looking for a new shotgun, or a sleeping, bag, or a GPS, or a fishing rod? How about a pocket knife, a boat, or a tent? They’ve got it!  

Most of the employees I have met at these stores are very professional, but I ran into one dunderhead at the Orlando store. We plan to spend a week or so in the Florida Keys, and I wanted to buy a rod and reel to do some fishing. I was looking for an inexpensive rig that would do the job without breaking the bank, because experienced fishermen have told me that if you use a cheap reel for fishing salt water, you can pretty much expect to throw it away at the end of the season.

An employee in the fishing department asked if he could help me, and I told him what I was looking for. He shrugged and said “ You got a rod, you got a reel, you got some line and a hook. They all do the same thing.” I was tempted to pick up a cheap $10 kid’s rod and reel, and then one of their most expensive units (some selling for over $1,000) and seek out the manager and ask him why there was a difference in price, since they “all do the same thing.” Instead, I just took my money and left.

After stopping for dinner at a good Chinese buffet, we arrived back at the Thousand Trails preserve a little before 7 p.m., to find the place much busier than it had been before we left. I think everybody left Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, and they all got here at the same time! When we left a few hours before, about a third of the RV sites in our loop were empty, including the ones next to and across from us. When we got home, those and just about every other site we passed in our loop was filled. I go away for one afternoon and the place fills up!

I guess the annual snowbird migration has begun. And it will only get busier over the next few weeks!

Thought For The Day – The greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I was hoping that the cold weather here in northern Indiana may have forced the gremlins who inhabit my computer to follow the rest of the RV snowbirds south, but alas, the little buggers are still hanging on.

We use a commercial mail service for sending the Gypsy Journal to most of our subscribers, who chose the Standard Mail rate. But we also send out separate mailings to subscribers who use the Escapees Mail Service, FMCA mail service, and some of the commercial mail forwarding services such as Alternative Resources, as well as for our subscribers in Canada, and those who choose to pay an extra fee for First Class postage.

Yesterday as I was trying to print the mailing labels for those subscribers, I suddenly starting getting an error message and they would not print. This has happened before, for no apparent reason, and usually after a lot of frustration, whatever the problem is seems to clear up and they finally print. But yesterday I spent hours fighting with the mailing lists, with no success at all.

Our friends Rick Schafer and Marcia Gantz stopped over to see our new motorhome and tell us all about their summer travels in Alaska. Between the two of them, they have forgotten more about computers and computer programs than I’ll ever hope to learn, and when I mentioned the problems I was having with the mailing list, they put their heads together and tried to come up with a solution. Rick downloaded new drivers for our HP laser printer, which we hoped would do the job.

As it turns out, the problem still persisted, and I tried to get the mailing labels to print out all evening. Finally, about midnight, the gremlins must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the problem disappeared and the labels printed just fine. I didn’t do anything different, so what gives?

I think we have figured out a problem a few subscribers to the digital edition of the Gypsy Journal had with the current issue. In each case, they could not open the new issue, and by a process of elimination, I discovered that all of their computers had recently done an automatic update to Adobe Reader version 9.

Miss Terry experienced it with her laptop, which did the automatic update after she had already opened the new issue on the older version of Reader. She deleted the update and reinstalled the earlier version 8 of Reader and once again could open the file with no problems.

We have also had subscribers who use Firefox as their web browser report the same problem, but when they use , it works. Did I mention that sometimes I hate computers?

Even with all of the computer problems, it was nice to see Rick and Marcia again, and to hear about their travels since we last crossed paths. Terry and I have not made the Alaska trip yet, but it’s very high on our bucket list.

Quite a few Gypsy Journal subscribers were readers of a great little tabloid called Two Lane Roads that a fellow named Loren Eyrich published a few years back. I was a fan of Loren’s work, and when he was diagnosed with cancer and had to stop traveling and publishing, we took over the balance of his unfulfilled subscriptions.

Several people have asked me from time to time how Loren is doing, and I’m happy to report that I got an e-mail from him yesterday. Loren has been cancer free for seven years now, and he told me that while he has some long term effected from the chemo and/or radiation, he’s well and happy to be alive. Loren posts occasional updates on his website at http://www.two-lane.com/, and I know he’d be happy to have you log in and pay him a visit. 

Thought For The Day – Don’t assume malice for what stupidity can explain.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

The title of today’s blog says it all. That’s how I feel sometimes, including right now. About the time I think I have a good handle on something, some unforeseen and unexplainable problem shows up.

After a couple of years of experimenting, we launched our digital edition of the Gypsy Journal several issues back, and after a lesson from my friend Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour and a short learning curve, I managed to upload the digital issues to the web with no problems.

But yesterday, when I tried to upload the new issue, it wouldn’t go. The Ipswitch file transfer program kept asking me for the user name and password to our FTP site, and when I entered it, I got an error message telling me to re-enter the information again. I could log directly onto our FTP site with my user name and password, so I knew it was correct, but it just wouldn’t work using the file transfer program.

After hours of frustration, just about the time I was going to call Chris Guld and ask for help, the darn thing logged right on and worked just fine. I didn’t do anything different, and it was the same user name and password I’d been entering all along. Go figure.

I know that computers are wonderful tools, and I wouldn’t want to go back to the old days before we had great things like websites and internet access. I just wish the darned gremlins would stay out of them!

We got our bus conversion winterized Wednesday, and yesterday morning we dropped it off at the building where we’re going to store it this winter. Even though it is going to be inside, out of the winter weather, we drained the water heater and all of the lines and filled them with RV antifreeze, just in case of a power failure or something like that. We probably overdid it, since we had never winterized an RV before, but we wanted to be safe, rather than sorry.

We had hoped to have the bus sold by now, and have several people who are interested, but we’re just about out of time and don’t plan to hang around here much longer. One gentleman asked if we would delay our departure until November 1^st, which is the earliest he can get here, and if he confirms he’s coming for sure, we’ll wait. But Elkhart Campground is closing in just a few days, so that’s about as long as we can stretch it.

Subscribers Greg and Jan White are parked behind us here at Elkhart Campground, and Greg has been helping me with a couple of last minute projects I wanted to get done on our motorhome before we hit the road for our winter travels. I sure appreciate your help, Greg!

We picked up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal at our printer yesterday, so the next few days will be a mad rush to get all of the envelopes stuffed and mailed out. As we were driving up to Michigan to get it and back, Miss Terry commented that we are very lucky. Even though we don’t like the cold weather, we get to see some spectacular fall colors, and then we can leave before the snow starts piling up.

Yeah, even with contrary computer programs and other little problems, I guess life is pretty good after all.

Thought For The Day – I believe in sharing the road with other drivers. They can have the part behind me.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Living on limited electric power seems to be a major concern for many RVers, and I have never understood why.

Time and time again I have had people ask when registering for our Gypsy Gathering rallies if we will have 50 amp power available. When I tell them that (depending on the location) we will only have 30 amps, or maybe even 15 amp power, they freak out. We have had more than one RVer cancel a rally reservation when they learned we don’t have 50 amp power. What has amazed me more than once is that they canceled on our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, after spending a week or two (or more) dry camping at Quartzsite! After that, even 15 amps is pure luxury to us!

Living on limited power is no problem if you understand how to manage your power consumption properly. We just spent a week parked in a relative’s driveway in Traverse City, Michigan plugged into 15 amp power. Actually, with the multiple cords we had to run to reach an outlet, I’m sure there was quite a power loss between the power outlet and our bus conversion. But we had no problems. We have a house style refrigerator that was plugged in all of the time, Terry made coffee every morning, and we used our computers, CradlePoint wireless router, and laser printer with ease. Terry even did a load or two of laundry and used our 110 volt apartment size electric dryer!

Of course, we did not use everything at once. When not needed, we turned the laser printer off to conserve power, and when she had the dryer running, we were careful not to use any more power than needed during the drying cycle. We never tripped a breaker and never felt like we were living on the edge.

One thing we always do when hooking up to a limited power source is to turn the battery charge rate on our Magnum Energy inverter/charger down to 10%. We don’t need any more than that, and the batteries charge up just fine while we sleep. Of course, we also have 540 watts of solar panels on the roof, and that helps too. But we got by just fine even before we had the panels. We also switch our gas/electric water heater to just gas to lessen our power needs. If we had an RV style refrigerator, we’d switch it to gas only to save power.

We have been to many different RV rallies where there were so many rigs hooked into the same circuit that we had 10 amps of power at best, and unless somebody insisted on making coffee in the morning, or fired up their curling iron, everybody survived. Of course, if somebody turned on one of the aforementioned appliances, there were circuit breakers popping all over the rally grounds!

At an Escapees Fun Days rally once, the fellow next to us insisted on turning on his air conditioner, which of course blacked out our whole line of RVs. He just couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of “roughing it” and earned himself some pretty bad karma from his neighbors by the time the rally ended.

Even if you always stay at RV parks and never plan on going to an RV rally or plugging into an electrical outlet on the side of some friend or relative’s garage, you should still practice living on limited power, just in case. You never know when some unexpected breakdown will find you parked at a repair shop overnight or for the weekend and all they have is a 15 amp receptacle you can use. 

I’m always amazed at the folks with big coaches who insist they cannot survive on less than 50 amp power. A couple of years ago, at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona, a rather obnoxious and overbearing “gentleman” was giving the poor girl at the ranger station grief because he insisted on being assigned a site with 50 amp electric. She explained to him over and over that there were no 50 amp sites in the campground, only 30 amps, but he was just not having any of that. 

Finally I interrupted and asked him why he felt he must have 50 amps. He looked down at me like I was the village idiot, put his hands on his hips and said, in a very condescending tone of voice, “Because, my good man, I have a 50 amp coach!” (By the way, if someone tells you he has a “coach” instead of an RV, there’s a good bet he’s going to be a jerk!)

I tried to explain to him that with a 30 amp dog bone adapter, he could plug in to the campground’s 30 amp power, and since the weather was very pleasant, he wouldn’t need his air conditioners. I even went so far as to tell him that the campground store had the 30 amp adapters if he didn’t own one.

He looked down at me again and said “Why, thank you, sir! Obviously I’m not as smart as I thought I was!”

Well, you know that Bad Nick wasn’t going to let that one pass, so he replied with a big grin “No, but you’re just as smart as I thought you were!” 

Thought For The Day – I do not intend to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Sometimes the RV lifestyle allows us to not only go to new places, but to return to where we came from. We’re in Bowling Green, Ohio for the FMCA rally, and yesterday afternoon we drove 20 miles up to Toledo, a place with a lot of memories for me.

My father’s work kept us on the move for much of my earliest years, but when I was 13 we returned to our hometown of Toledo, and I lived there until I graduated from high school and went into the Army. I’ve only been back a couple of times since then, the last time almost ten years ago. So it was interesting to wander through the old neighborhood reliving memories from my youth.

South Toledo was a poor part of town, blue collar at best, but I never felt like we did without or were deprived. I had a loving family, good friends, and lots of good times. I would not have traded my teenage years for anything.

Yet, I knew I was not going to live there forever. When I was a teenager, everybody wanted to land a job on the Jeep assembly line or with Libby Owens Glass, or else get on the police force or fire department. A job that would “take care of you.” I didn’t want to be taken care of, thank you very much. I knew I could take care of myself, but it had to be someplace else. The first chance I got to leave, I never looked back. So why now, a lifetime later, do I feel drawn back to those narrow city streets of my youth?

The area certainly hasn’t improved. There are plenty of boarded up storefronts, yet many of the same little corner grocery stores and neighborhood taverns I remember are still open and doing business.   

Here is a picture of me at the duplex house I lived in during high school. When we moved in, we had the upstairs and my buddy Ray Pitzen’s family lived below us. His sister Rachel was my first love and my friends were all jealous because she was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood. Today the old house is vacant and there was an eviction notice taped to the door for the last tenants.

After Ray’s family moved away, a series of neighbors rented the bottom half of the house. One New Year’s Eve my parents and I were standing on our upstairs porch when the neighbor below, who had had a lot too much to drink, came out onto his porch and decided to celebrate by popping off a few rounds with his .38 revolver. The bullets tore through the wood at our feet, narrowly missing us, but a chunk of wood embedded itself in my mother’s leg.

My Dad was a cop at the time, and when he grabbed his gun and handcuffs and ran downstairs, I wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot the man, or arrest him. Dad administered some street justice and then a black and white came and hauled the fool away.

My first job was working at Mr. Tsakos’ corner gas station. I begged my Dad to intercede on my behalf when the old Greek businessman didn’t want to hire a kid, because kids were unreliable. Then a week or two later all of my friends were having fun on summer vacation and I decided I wanted to play too, so I told my Dad I was quitting the job. He told me that I could either go to work every day, as I had promised Mr. Tsakos, or I could spend those eight hours a day in my room (way before a kid’s room had computers and TVs), but I wasn’t going to goof off after he had given his word I’d be on the job. I earned quite a bit of money that summer, and came away with a little bit of work ethic too.

And here’s my old school, Libbey High School. Boy, I couldn’t wait to leave that place! A few years ago there was talk of tearing the old school down, and I was sure glad to see that so far, it has survived budget cuts and consolidation. Now, please don’t tell my daughter this, because I have always told her that I walked eleven miles to school in knee deep snow, barefoot, and that it was uphill both coming and going. But we checked it on our van’s odometer, and it turns out it was just 1.2 miles from my front door to the front door of the school. (And I think I remember a pair of shoes or two, to be honest.)

One of our favorite hangouts was Walbridge Park, on the banks of the wide Maumee River, and across the street from the excellent Toledo Zoo. This was where we came to smoke cigarettes, away from parent’s prying eyes, where we came to “duke it out” to settle teenaged arguments, and where we brought our girlfriends when we had our first cars, to watch the submarine races. (Yes, some of them really did fall for that!) It was also here that my family had a going away picnic for me the day before I boarded an airplane for a ride that eventually ended in a jungle halfway around the world.

Terry and I sat on a bench overlooking the old river and I told her about some of my good times at the park, and the goofy things my pals and I did there. I sure am glad I have her with me to share those memories with, instead of some of the young ladies I steamed up the windows of my old Ford with!

I know I could never live in Toledo again, and I know I made the right decision to leave so long ago to pursue my own path in life. But it was interesting to go back to see the old neighborhood once again.

It was nice to take this trip down memory lane. Thanks for indulging me and coming along for the ride. 

Thought For The Day – It was all so different before everything changed.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally