Yesterday afternoon we had a delicious meal, courtesy of Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School. Dennis and Carol have been here at Elkhart Campground for a couple of days, after a summer RV trip to Alaska, and they invited us over for a cookout. The main course was deep fried halibut cheeks. Did you know that the cheek is the best tasting meat to be found on many fish? I know that now. Yummy!

Bill Joyce and Diane Melde joined us in the feast, and our good friends Ron and Brenda Speidel pulled into the campground about the time Dennis was taking the first round of halibut out of his deep fryer. Dennis told me to invite them to join us too, so as soon as they got their beautiful Winnebago diesel coach parked next to our bus and ran their leveling jacks down and their slides out, they came down.

There was so much food that I think that even though we all stuffed ourselves, there were more leftovers than we actually consumed. Thanks for the delicious meal and for your hospitality, Dennis and Carol!

I have to share this picture with you, which I took in the parking lot of the gun show in Shipshewana. This cool canine was relaxing in the seat of a Stallion, which is a very upscale trike style motorcycle, while his owner was inside shopping for goodies.

The dog seemed friendly as several people stopped to admire him and take his picture, but when one guy decided to check out the bike and got a little too close, the dog let him know that he needed to back off right now! Once he stepped away, it was all doggy smiles again.

I had hoped to get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal finished over the weekend, but between a lot of visitors and a fair amount of goofing off on my part the last few days, I still have a ways to go. But I’ll have it to the printer in time for them to do their thing this week.

The way registrations are coming in, Terry and I think this year’s Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally will be a lot bigger than last year’s event! Every day we get new reservations by mail or coming in online. And we are already starting to see several folks registering for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally next March! We have had some new vendors register for the Ohio rally, as well as several returning who were there last year. Once we get this new issue of the paper out, we’ll be concentrating on all of the final details that have to be handled to have a successful rally. It’s always a lot of work, but it’s always a lot of fun too!

Thought For The Day – Memory is more indelible than ink.

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It seems like every time I turn around, we get news of the passing of someone else we know. I guess that’s what happens as we get older.

Unfortunately, we lost another dear friend yesterday, when Lue Reed passed away in California. We first met Lue over ten years ago in our first month on the road, when we attended Life on Wheels in Moscow, Idaho as students. Lue’s husband Dick Reed, is the founder of the RV Driving School, and we just seemed to click with both of them. Even then Lue was fighting a battle with Alzheimer’s, and though she didn’t always remember our names, she always knew Miss Terry by her pretty long hair.  

Lue was one of those sweet people who never had a bad word to say about anybody, and even if you had never met before, the first time she laid eyes on you, you were friends. I will always remember her gentleness and the smile that never left her face. Rest in peace, dear friend.

For a guy who makes his living with words, I never seem to know the right thing to say to someone at times like this, but Dick, there are a lot of us out here who care about you and share your loss. I hope you can feel all of our arms around you, surrounding you with love.

I spent yesterday doing the same thing I’ll be doing today and tomorrow, working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal to get it ready to take to the printer next week. I think the months are getting shorter, because it seems like I was doing this just a couple of weeks ago.

I may escape from the computer for an hour or two and drive out to Shipshewana to go to a gun show today, and Dennis and Carol Hill, who bought the RV Driving School from Dick Reed a couple of years ago, are due in sometime tomorrow too. They spent most of the summer in Alaska, and Dennis e-mailed me to say they had a hot grill and a big piece of halibut with my name on it, so Sunday I’ll have to drag myself away from my desk again for a cookout. Yeah, I know, it sucks to be me.

Thought For The Day – Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

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Miss Terry has wanted to use her Orion smoker for months now, but we just never seemed to have the time. That all ended yesterday when she smoked up three huge racks of ribs for a cookout with Rocky and Berni Frees.

We got the smoker at Lowes about a year ago, but this was only the second time we used it. We need to do that more often!

Unlike conventional smokers, with this one the charcoal goes into a ring around the outside and into a small holder on the top, while the meat is inside, along with, in this case, some apple juice and some mesquite wood chips for extra flavor. The smoker works on a convection effect.

It took about two hours from the time she lit the fire until Terry took the ribs out of the smoker, and they were just perfect! So tender they fell off the bone and mouth watering delicious. Don’t they look yummy?

And you can tell by the satisfied looks on everybody’s faces that they sure enjoyed their meal. Besides the ribs, Terry also smoked up a pork loin, made beans, her special pico de gallo sauce, and there were some other goodies that nobody had room for. We love coming here to Muskegon to visit with Rocky and Berni, but every time we do, I gain five or ten pounds! Now how in the world does that happen?

We had planned to go kayaking on the Muskegon River after dinner, but we were all so stuffed that we were afraid we’d exceed the boats’ weight ratings, so instead we went back to their house for yet another game of Mexican Train. This was a special game, because we probably won’t have a chance to play with Rocky and Berni again for at least a year, and Berni marked the occasion by winning by a tremendous margin. I’m not sure the rest of us were even in the game by the fourth or fifth round. 

On another subject, I guess some RV dealers haven’t been reading the newspaper, or else they are living in La La Land, because they just don’t seem to know that the market has changed and they can no longer play by the same old rules. Our friends Ron and Brenda Speidel called to give us a lead on a Winnebago Ultimate Advantage for sale at an RV dealer in Ohio.

This is our dream rig, although this particular unit was only a 38 footer and we really want a 40 foot model, and it only had a 300 horsepower diesel engine, and we have decided that we really need at least 330 horsepower with the size of the van we tow. Plus, it was about $5,000 higher than two different Ultimate Advantages we had looked at before, that were a year or two newer. But you never know, so I called anyway to see if it might be something we could live with.

The first thing out of the salesman’s mouth once I told him which rig I was interested in was “Are you going to buy today?” I told him no, since I was about 400 miles away, but that if the unit sounded like it might be able to fit our needs, we’d be interested in taking a look at it.

“Well, unless you’re prepared to give me a deposit by credit card, there’s no use wasting my time or yours,” he told me. “The used RV market has gone crazy in the last year or so and we can’t keep them on the lot. Every unit we have moves in 24 to 48 hours.”

I told him that I never gave my credit card out over the telephone, and that if the unit sounded good, we were a short day’s drive away. Then I asked a couple of questions about it’s equipment, and again he told me that he had too many customers waiting in line to buy it to waste time with someone who was not prepared to make a commitment right then.

I happen to know that this particular motorhome has sat on the same lot for over a year. I also don’t like clowns who think I just fell off the turnip truck, so I ended the call, and possibly a chance for him to sell an RV. Even if that particular coach did not meet our needs, they may well have had something else we’d have fallen in love with. I guess we’ll never know.

Thought For The Day – Even people who believe everything is predestined look before they cross the street.

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Several blog readers have written to ask what the status is on the Winnebago motorhome we looked at earlier this week. Thank you for your interest, but unfortunately, it’s not going to happen at this time. Our private financing fell through, so we’re back to square one. We’re very disappointed, but I guess it’s just not our time yet.

Yesterday we drove down to Sedalia to check things out before going into Escapade on Saturday morning. There are already a bunch of Escapees there who arrived early for pre-rally events or to work on the rally staff. We saw several people we know, including Dee Holt, our longtime friends Ron and Jerrie Lea Hopf, and Art and Caroline Fennell.

Sedalia seems like a nice town, with a population of about 20,000 people. We noted several of our favorite restaurants, so we know we’ll have plenty of places to get together for dinner with all of our RVing friends while we’re in town.

Here’s a heads up for anyone coming into Sedalia from Interstate 70 via U.S. Highway 65. Just as you come into town there is construction on a bridge and the road is down to just one ten foot wide lane, with traffic alternating in crossing. It’s only a short distance, but be aware that there may be delays with all of the RVs coming into town.

Back at the Higginsville Fairgrounds, my buddy Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour spent some time helping me with some internet issues. I am always amazed at how much this attorney-turned-geek knows about computers and the internet. She makes tasks that mystify me seem easy.

Later on Chris’ husband Jim threw some chicken and sausage on the grill, Miss Terry whipped up some goodies, and we had a nice little cookout. We enjoyed sitting at one of the picnic tables next to the walking path here at the fairgrounds, having our meal and visiting.

We’ve had an interesting experience not once, but twice lately. People who have picked up a copy of the Gypsy Journal somewhere or read the blog have noticed the names of old friends they have lost contact with mentioned, and contacted me to see if it was the same person. Both times it was, and I have forwarded on their messages and e-mail reunions have taken place. How cool is that?

Thought For The Day – Good fellows are a dime a dozen, but a true leader is priceless.

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Yesterday was a day to enjoy the company of good friends.

While Terry and her mom ran some errands in preparation for her sister Dani’s birthday dinner on Monday, I picked up our friend Ann Pruitt at an RV park in Mesa and drove her to Scottsdale to retrieve her car.

We first met Ann when she was a student at Life on Wheels a few years ago, and we both hit it off with her right away. Besides the fact that Ann is a real sweetheart, and darned pretty too, it didn’t hurt that she has a great dog named Curlie Sue that I love to visit with. For us, having a pet while we fulltime doesn’t work very well, so I have loaner dogs all over the country that I go play with when I need my puppy fix.

Back at the bus in Apache Junction, I did some work on my websites while Terry made up a batch of her signature pico de gallo salsa and her guacamole, which is always a hit. Then we drove a couple of miles to Sunrise Resort, where our pals Ed and Alice Allard have a park model trailer. When he heard that we’d be in the area, Ed had promised to throw some burgers on the grill, and you know me… if there’s a free meal involved, I’ll be there!

We first met Ed and Alice early in our fulltiming days, and we’ve enjoyed crossing their path all over the country. Sometimes our meetings have been planned, while other times it was pure whimsy that put us in the same place at the same time. Whatever the reason, whenever we get together, it’s always a lot of fun.

Our mutual friends Terry and Terri Michael, owners of Country Roads RV Park in Lake Delton, Wisconsin, are staying at the RV park next door to Sunrise Resort, and they joined us for dinner.

It’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen Terry and Terri, and though we have stopped at their RV park a time or two when we were passing through on our way to Life on Wheels in Idaho, they were away both times and we missed them. So it was nice to have an opportunity to visit.

If you ever visit the Midwest playground of Wisconsin Dells, make sure to stay at Country Roads. We’ve sent a lot of people there over the years, and they have never been disappointed. Those folks make you feel right at home. It’s one of our favorite RV parks in the entire country, and we hope to get back again this summer in our travels through the area.

Thought For The Day - History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstance.

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