Friday morning we were up early again, serving coffee and donuts to our rally attendees, saying goodbye, and wishing them a safe trip to wherever they are headed next. There were lots of hugs as RVers wished us well, congratulated us on a great rally experience, and promised to see us somewhere down the road.

By noon, most of the RVs had departed from the Yuma Fairgrounds, usually after making a stop at the dump station on their way out, to empty their gray and black tanks. The place sure looked empty after being filled with motorhomes, fifth wheels, and travel trailers for two weeks, first for the Arizona Good Sam rally and then our Western Gypsy Gathering rally.

We waited until everybody else had pulled out before we made our trip to the dump station, and then we parked in the same back corner of the fairgrounds where we had been before the rally. As soon as we were situated, an installer from Redlands Truck & RV started installing a set of Koni shock absorbers on our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. Our motorhome rides pretty good already, but the new Koni shocks should make it even better. Thanks Keith Shumaker and crew, for your great service! Redlands was one of our rally vendors, and I was really impressed with them, as were many rally attendees who kept them busy with installations.

Once Rob, the Redlands mechanic, was finished with our rig, Terry and I, Greg and Jan White, and Mike and Elaine Loscher went to an early dinner at Chretin’s, a wonderful Mexican restaurant that Miss Terry pronounced one of the best she has been to in our travels around the country. That’s saying a lot! We had a pleasant meal, just unwinding, rehashing the rally events, comparing notes on what we did right, what we did wrong, and how we can make it better next year.

Back at the fairgrounds, we said our goodbyes to Mike and Elaine, who are leaving early today, bade Greg and Jan goodnight, and headed inside for a quiet evening just trying to let the kinks and aches seep out of our bodies.

We were in bed much earlier than usual, turning off our cell phones and vowing not to open the curtains today until at least noon!

It’s been a busy week, a great rally, and we’re sure glad it’s over! Thanks to everybody who came, and especially to our hardworking volunteers!

Thought For The Day – Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

We have enjoyed our week in Muskegon, Michigan but sadly, it’s time to leave and get on down the road. But we sure have had a wonderful time in this friendly lakeside community.

We stayed at Fisherman’s Landing, a city owned marina and campground, where our back-in RV site had a concrete pad with picnic table, water and 30 amp electric, and a dump station, all for $25 a night. Actually two of those nights were only $12.50, with our Passport America discount, which is good for two nights in any 30 day period. The campground has 70 RV sites, and is located on a lake that connects to the Muskegon River. We did not need them in our self-contained bus conversion, but Fisherman’s Landing also has restrooms with showers and flush toilets.

How friendly is Muskegon? When we returned to our bus late last night after spending our last evening with my cousin Berni and her husband Rocky, we found a business card stuck in our door from city commissioner Steven Wisneski, along with a stack of goodies he had left for us that included two folding chairs in cloth bags, and two goodie bags packed with gifts like water bottles, can cozies, and keychain flashlights, along with a big collection of brochures about local attractions. You can bet we’ll be returning to Muskegon again! It’s one of our favorite places to visit, and I can certainly understand why Rocky and Berni chose this area to live in when they stopped fulltiming.

The city and surrounding area have a lot to offer visitors, from fishing and water sports, to neat museums, great restaurants (we ate out six of the seven nights we were in town, at a different  restaurant each time, and never had a bad meal), a wonderful farmer’s market, and some of the nicest people we have met anywhere.

And the fun doesn’t stop at the end of summer! The Muskegon area is a year round playground, with a winter sports complex, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and ice fishing. At least Rocky tells me so. I hope to be in Key West by the time the first snow falls!

I wrote in yesterday’s blog that we hoped to do some more paddling before we left town, so yesterday after Berni and Rocky got off work we put our kayaks in the Muskegon River and paddled for a couple of hours. This time we were smart and paddled upriver against the current starting out, while we were still fresh, and allowed the current to carry us back to our launch point when we were done.

We poked into a couple of channels that led off the river and up into some small islands. At one point the channel we were paddling wasn’t more than a few feet wide, and the water under us was choked with weeds. Our kayaks did fine, but a regular boat would have had a hard time of it.

I was in the lead, and as I rounded one bend in the waterway a beaver or muskrat swam across and disappeared into the cattails on the bank as I approached, and soon after that I drifted around another curve and startled three great blue heron, who took flight at my intrusion into their little sanctuary.

Now that’s why we love kayaking! You can have your motor boats and jet skis. We much prefer the slower, quiet ride that allows us to get up close and personal with Mother Nature. As much as I love our life on the open road, I have to admit that I am just a little bit jealous of Rocky and Berni for having this wonderful place only a minute or two from their front door.

We’re heading back to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana today, and we’ll be there for a few days before we head over to Bowling Green, Ohio for the FMCA rally, if they have an open vendor booth for us. It’s been a fun mini-vacation.

Thought For The Day – Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We have a Campground Reviews section on our website, but I thought I’d share our Top 10 Favorite Campgrounds and why we feel that way, and see how they compare to yours.

1. Elkhart Campground, Elkhart, Indiana – Every year when we pull into Elkhart Campground, we feel like we have arrived back home. We know most of the regulars and see many people we know passing through every year. The campground is huge, and our regular site has 50 amp electric and water, and we usually don’t have anyone parked on top of us. Owners Bob and Gita Patel have become very good friends, and they have allowed us to work on several upgrade projects on the bus while we have stayed there.

2. Sumter Oaks, Bushnell, Florida – We always get a friendly welcome at this Escapee park, we love the huge live oak trees that shade the park, as well as the indoor pool and opportunity to see so many of our Escapee friends.

3. Rainbow Plantation, Summerdale, Alabama – This is another favorite Escapee park with us. The sites are huge, there is a lot to see and do on and around the Gulf Coast, and we enjoy the laid back feel of the area.

4. Tra-Tel RV Park, Tucson, Arizona – There is nothing fancy about Tra-Tel, the spaces are a bit tight, but we usually spend a month there every year. Everybody is very friendly, they always make us feel welcome, and we have family in Tucson we enjoy visiting.

5. Country Roads RV Park, Lake Delton, Wisconsin – Owners Terry and Terri Michael are good friends of ours and whenever we visit their campground we feel like we are part of the family. The park is very clean and has every amenity we could ever want or need.

6. Thousand Trails Colorado River Preserve, Columbus, Texas – This membership park has over 125 full and partial hookup sites, an activity center, pool, hot tub, and lots of wide open spaces. A huge herd of deer live here also and are frequent visitors to the campsites. We spend a lot of time just enjoying the wildlife.

7. Thousand Trails Verde Valley Preserve, Camp Verde, Arizona – This membership campground has 265 full hookup sites, beautiful views, and is convenient to everything in central Arizona. Since the campground sits down in a bowl, we are glad we have our Wilson Trucker antenna and booster to get good air card coverage there.

8. Toad Suck Ferry Corps of Engineers Campground, Conway, Arkansas – Don’t let the name fool you, this is a wonderful campground located right on the Arkansas River. From our site we watched riverboats push barges through the lock and dam.  Our site had 50 amp electric & water, a central dump station, and did I mention the great views?

9. Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground, Monroe City, Missouri - We have never been to a Corps of Engineers campground we have not liked, but this is a favorite. Huge spaces, some with full hookups, very clean, and it is situated on Mark Twain Lake.  The only drawback was very slow air card service.  

10. Turkey Creek RV Village, Hollister, Missouri - This Escapees Club RV park is our favorite place to stay when visiting Branson. The park has 68 full hookup sites, clean rest rooms, a laundry, club house, and a beautiful setting on Lake Taneycomo. Turkey Creek is just minutes from all the attractions of Branson, yet laid back and peaceful.

So there we are, our own Top 10. What about you? What are some of your favorite campgrounds, and why?

Thought For The Day – Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Quite a few readers have written to tell me that they took their military DD 214 (discharge) to a Verizon company store, as I suggested in a recent blog, and indeed are now receiving 15% off their Verizon bill. Pretty cool! Who can’t appreciate saving a few dollars every month? I think it’s very nice of Verizon to honor our nation’s veterans in this way.

Another blog reader who likes to save money sent me a link to a neat website where she has found some great bargains, www.woot.com. I checked it out, and I can tell you that I’m going to be a regular. The website sells one item per day, and once that item is sold out, that’s it. No back orders, no rain checks, buy them when you see them, because there are no more.

Some of the merchandise is weird, and some is really neat. Yesterday’s item was a two pack of digital emergency roadside flares for just $9.99. Some previous deals included refurbished Asus EeePC 900 Netbook computers for $149.99 + $5 shipping; New Pentax 10MP digital cameras, for $79.99 + $5 shipping; and a two-pack of Vector FM and NOAA Weather Alert Radios with built-in flashlights for $19.99 + $5 shipping. These may not be the latest technology, but what a deal! And the folks at Woot seem to be honest; one item offered recently was billed as the “World’s Crappiest Projector.”

We plan to leave Show Low in about a week and head for Escapade in Sedalia, Missouri. The original plan was to stay here at Show Low Lake Campground until we leave, but now it looks like we’ll move over to the Elks lodge today. We like our site here, even though it just has a 30 amp electric hookup, with water bibs scattered around, and a dump station.

Dee and Diane, the new campground hosts are very nice people and we have enjoyed getting to know them, but Recreation Resource Management (RRM), which runs the campground for the city, seems to be staffed by airheads. When I tried to pay for another week yesterday, the new workamper on duty told me I could not pay for the week here at the campground, which we have been doing up until now. Instead I needed to call RRM’s toll free reservation number. When I did, I was told there would be a $9 charge for a reservation, since I was making it over the phone. Huh? Didn’t I just try to pay in person?

I explained that I did not need a reservation, I was already on the site and had been there two weeks. The girl said that was impossible, the computer showed the site as already occupied. Uh, yeah, that would be me occupying the site! That message didn’t seem to transmit, even though I tried to explain it several times. Then she said I could pay for a week, but since I didn’t have a reservation, I might have to move if somebody reserved the site.

Again I say, “huh?” If I’m in the site and have paid for a week, how can it be reserved by someone else after the fact? But apparently, even if I pay for a week, if I don’t pay the $9 reservation fee, I don’t really have the site, I’m just in it, and I can be told to move if somebody else reserves it. Folks, we really need to add some chlorine to the gene pool!

For the same $15 a night this site costs us with my Golden Access discount, we can move three miles to the Elks lodge, which has full hookups. And I won’t get a headache from dealing with space cadets.

Thought For The Day – The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally