I wrapped up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal late in the afternoon yesterday, Miss Terry got it proofed, and today we’ll send it over to our printer for final tweaking and printing. If all goes according to plan and if the angels are smiling on us, we’ll get it back and mailed by the end of the year. Still late, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.

With the paper finished, we needed a break, so we went out to Foley to a Chinese buffet for dinner, and by the time we got back to the campground it was cold! I am so tired of being cold, I just want to be someplace where we can sleep with the windows open, and not have to shiver every time we step out the door.

Back at the motorhome, I wrote a blog entry about my thoughts on some of the electronic gadgets I’ve experimented with over the last few months and my impressions looking back, then decided I didn’t really want to post it, and saved it for a day when I’m running late and have nothing to write about. Writers call that “banking” stories – saving a few in reserve for when they have a deadline and their brain turns to pudding and they need to fill a column or blog quickly. I don’t believe in such a thing as writer’s block, because I can always find something to write about. As I wrote in an article on my Publishing4Profit website, writer’s block is a crock. Anyone who has made their living in the daily or weekly newspaper business will tell you that. But sometimes it’s nice to have that extra cushion, just in case I get lazy, if nothing else.

I’ve been looking at our trip west, and though the easiest route would be to get on Interstate 10 and take it all the way into Arizona, I really don’t like that route. I-10 across Texas is long, boring, and we’ve done it too many times. I mean, how many dead armadillo, coyote, and deer can you stand to look at?

If the weather cooperates we may go up to Livingston, Texas for a couple of days, and then take U.S. Highways through Waco, Gatesville, Goldwaithe, Brownwood, Ballinger, and San Angelo before we eventually hook up with I-10 somewhere in west Texas. There are a couple of stories up in that area I’d like to stop and research for future issues of the paper. But as always, we never know exactly where we’ll be and which route we’ll take until after we’ve been there.

We may find something that catches our interest, and hang out somewhere or take a side trip along the way, and we may just as easily fall into “go fast” mode and just decide to get there and get settled in. We don’t have to be anyplace until early February, when we’ll be in Apache Junction, Arizona to help Terry’s parents celebrate their birthdays. That’s the great thing about the fulltime RV lifestyle, we have plenty of options and the freedom to exercise them at our whim. 

Thought For The Day – The future will be either what you make it to be or what you allow it to be.

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I got an e-mail from a lady yesterday that told me she was heartbroken because they had just lost their beloved eight month old Jack Russell terrier when a coyote came into their campsite in northern California and made off with it.

She said her husband had yelled and thrown rocks at the coyote, but it just ran off with their puppy in its jaws, a sight that would haunt them forever. She said the campground hosts had warned them about coyotes, but they never dreamed that they would be so bold as to snatch their puppy while they were sitting outside in their lawn chairs.

We have seen this happen before in campgrounds. At the Verde Valley Thousand Trails preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona a couple of years ago, a couple put two little Shih Tzu dogs outside their fifth wheel in a fenced enclosure about eighteen inches high, and the local coyotes walked right into their campsite, jumped into the pen and grabbed the dogs.

While I’m very sorry for their loss, they have to understand that to the coyotes, these weren’t pets, they were just lunch, and their owners delivered it right into the predators’ living room.

You can’t blame the coyotes (or bobcats, foxes, and occasional mountain lions). They are just doing what comes natural to them, preying on something lower on the food chain. We brought our RVs and our pets into their territory and made them easy to devour. It happens all over the country, though it happens most often in the west. However, coyotes can be found from the deserts of Arizona to the forests of Michigan, and no matter where they come from, they have one thing in common; they all appreciate an easy meal.

And those are not the only critters that are standing in line to eat your critters. Bill Graves, in his America’s Outback column in this month’s Trailer Life magazine, writes about Central Florida, where the locals say the favorite food for the alligators in the region is small dogs. Eagles, hawks, owls, and even feral dogs will not hesitate to snatch small pets given half a chance. It’s all about survival of the fittest.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid the great outdoors and confine your RV stays to urban campgrounds. Especially since I have personally seen coyotes in city parks in downtown Seattle and Portland. Just use some common sense.  

If you love your pets, do not leave them unattended outside at any time, whether tied up or in a pen. And as the folks who lost their puppy yesterday can attest, even being outside with them is no guarantee of safety for your pets. Wild predators are fast, smart, and ruthless when it comes to filling their stomachs. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Or in this case, a Fifi or a Mr. Rags.

Thought For The Day – You have to at least try to live your dream if you want it to come true.

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