Today is the last day to take advantage of our Two For One Holiday Special. So if you haven’t clicked the link above, there’s still time. You can enter a new subscription to the Gypsy Journal for yourself, or renew your subscription early, and we’ll give someone on your Christmas shopping list a free one year subscription, with a note that it is a gift from you. All you have to do is enter your mailing address, and send me a separate e-mail with the name of the recipient of your gift subscription at editor@gypsyjournal.net and we’ll do the rest. The special ends tonight at midnight, so if you snooze, you lose!

It’s still unbelievably cold here in Fort Lauderdale, but at least the wind has stopped. We’d like to do some sightseeing while were in this area, but between having to get the new issue of the paper finished, and the weather, I don’t know if we’ll do much of anything but stay home and work.

I got an e-mail from my friend Tom Owen down in Key West yesterday, and he said they tied a record low, set in 1952, and that folks on that tropical island are running around in winter coats, gloves, mufflers and longshoreman caps. Tom said that the wind chill was 30 degrees in Key West! We won’t be going to the Florida Keys this year after all!

Speaking of the cold weather, I have been exchanging e-mails with a couple who are staying in their RV, in a relative’s driveway in the upper Midwest, until after the holidays. They wrote to ask for advice because their water lines were frozen, and I suggested that they put a droplight in their utility bay with a 25 watt bulb. That’s what we did when we were stuck in northern Michigan years ago during Terry’s battle with cancer, and it kept it toasty warm in the water bay.

They replied that their son didn’t want them to do that, because it would run up his electric bill. I also suggested they use heat tape on any exposed water lines, but the lady wrote back and said that was an “awful lot of trouble” and asked me if there wasn’t a simpler way to solve the problem. Uh, yeah, there is. Turn the key and get the heck out of there!

My friend Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour spent most of the afternoon yesterday helping me make some changes in our e-mail program, laying the groundwork for migrating our websites to another host, and talking about where we want to go with our online business in the future. The technology is changing on a daily basis, and it is amazing what we can now offer our readers online.

Later in the afternoon, Chris and her hubby Jim treated us to a wonderful seafood dinner at a restaurant called Catfish Deweys,  that is a local landmark. I had the blackened seafood platter and Miss Terry had blackened catfish, and both were excellent. Thanks Jim and Chris!

Bad Nick has been quiet for a while because he has been on strike, protesting the cold weather. But he finally got of his duff yesterday and posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Snappy Comebacks. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – You shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back sometimes.

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Sometimes it sucks to be me. Oh, the life of a hard working fulltime RVing newspaper publisher! Will the grind never end?

Yesterday I slept in until about 10 a.m., which isn’t really sleeping in for me, because that’s about the time I usually wake up. But Miss Terry wasn’t there to snuggle and cuddle up with like she usually is, so I had to just lay there all by myself and drowse off and on for a while before I finally drug myself out of bed.

And just in time, because Terry was busy making me a batch of her delicious crepes, with strawberry jam, for breakfast! I checked my e-mail, then read some of my favorite RV blogs. Greg White had finally posted something, after taking a day off; Dennis Hill was bragging, and deservedly so, about the pork butts he was smoking in Texas; my pals Joe and Marcia Jones are leaving Key West in search of new adventures; Stu and Donna McNicol’s blog had some new pictures of their puppy; and Mike McFall’s had pictures of his cat. Then I popped into Facebook to check in on all of my friends there.

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With all of that done and breakfast finished, we goofed off for several hours, and then decided to get some paddling in on Lake Hancock. We’re getting better at inflating my Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 kayak, but Miss Terry and I both agree that we need to contact Tim at Inflatable Boats 4 Less and order one of their electric pumps to make the job even easier. Even so, in less than 10 minutes the boat was ready to go and I was paddling away from the launch.

We paddled to the south side of the lake, to check out this derelict old sailboat, which somebody apparently pulled up to shore and abandoned. At one time this was somebody’s pride and joy, and now it’s just rotting away. I wonder how it got into this sad condition.

We paddled around the lake for about 90 minutes, crossing over to the far side and back, stopping occasionally to rest and just enjoy the water.

Miss Terry has the sharpest eyes of anybody I’ve ever known. We can be rolling down the highway at 60 miles per hour, and she’ll point out antelope grazing in a meadow, or a hawk resting on a fence post.

She spotted this osprey perched high in a tree beside the lake, and paddled over to take its picture. With the things she can turn out with her cheap little Olympus point and shoot camera, I think Terry needs to move up to a digital SLR. But the pocket size camera is handy and she always has it with her. A larger camera might end up spending more time in its case, instead of being carried all of the time.

We also saw all of these turkey vultures sitting together. How many can you count?

The sun was sinking low in the sky when we came off the water, and by the time we got the boats dried off and stowed away, and got back to the motorhome, it was starting to get dark. We spent the evening watching TV and cruising the internet.

So there you have it, my hardworking day. Unlike most working folks, I don’t even get Sunday’s off! Yeah, it sucks to be me.

Bad Nick didn’t have it any easier. He worked yesterday too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog installment of the popular Dumb A$$ Report. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg, even if you are half-cracked.

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Yesterday was a much needed lazy day for us, after our week at the RV show. We slept in, then didn’t do much of anything all day long. Terry did a couple of loads of laundry, we checked e-mail, cruised the internet, watched TV, and I napped for a while on the couch. 

We needed to unload our display tables, books and RV guides, and everything else we had used at the RV show from our van and get it all packed back into the bays of our motorhome, but we both seemed to be drained of energy and couldn’t get motivated to get started.

About 5:30 we drove to Hummelstown for dinner with longtime subscribers  Dave and Thelma Middleton, and their friends Gary and Donna Rath, at a place called Hoss’s Steakhouse. The company and conversation were great, but the restaurant seemed to be having an off day. Dave and I ordered our steaks medium rare, and they were very well done, we asked for bread a couple of times and never got it, and when I tried their chocolate pudding for dessert, it tasted sour.

Dave and Thelma felt bad, because they had invited us, but it wasn’t their fault, and they have had good meals there in the past. Maybe the manager was taking a day off or something.

Back at the Thousand Trails campground, I answered a couple of questions from readers who wanted to know about any suggestions I had for an RV park in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and how I felt about using synthetic oil and transmission fluid in a diesel pusher motorhome. I replied to the first one that since we have only visited the Valley once, and were not impressed enough to stay long, I didn’t know enough about it to suggest an RV park for their winter stay; and told the second person that while I don’t have synthetic oil and transmission fluid in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage yet, I plan to switch to both at our next service. I know many RVers who do use both, and report good success with them.

Then we spent the rest of the evening watching television, including the season premiers of two of our favorite shows, Two And A Half Men, and Pawn Stars. They’ve moved The Big Bang Theory to a new night, so we’ll have to wait until Thursday to see its season premier.

And that was about it for our Monday. Like I said, it was a lazy day, and that’s just what we needed.

Thought For The Day – I don’t mind going nowhere as long as it’s an interesting path.

It’s getting close to that time of year again. The leaves are already beginning to turn in some places up north, and before we know it, the snowbirds will start migrating south for the winter.

If you follow the seasons, and will be away from your summer address for the winter, please don’t forget to send us a note or an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net giving us your winter address, so your Gypsy Journal subscription will get to you. Unless you pay for the first class postage upgrade to your subscription, the post office will not forward the paper. 

We spent yesterday printing more of our RV guides and making CDs to stock the inventory at our vendor booth at the Hershey RV Show, where we will be working eleven hours a day for the next few days.

We took a break for a while to visit with Russ and Patty Frady, longtime subscribers who stopped in for a quick visit. Russ took a bundle of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal to pass out at campgrounds in their travels. We appreciate them helping to spread the word.

Did I mention that there are a lot of geese here at the Hershey Thousand Trails campground? They’re everywhere, and while they are pretty, they are filthy, obnoxious critters. As I wrote before, this isn’t a place to walk around barefoot!

I didn’t have space in yesterday’s blog to tell you about our stop at Bird In Hand, another Amish town in Lancaster County. The Old Village Store sells an interesting collection of traditional Amish goods, tourist souvenirs, and antiques.

On the store’s crowded shelves, and upstairs in the antiques showroom, you can find flyswatters, Bag Balm, kitchen tools, Amish hats and shawls, recipe books, toys, and furniture that was old when your grandparents were kids.

You can even buy pumpkins and squash!

A couple of blog readers wrote to ask me what a “chocolate fountain” is, which I mentioned when I wrote about our dinner at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord. Well, it’s just what it sounds like, a fountain of warm melted chocolate cascading down from the top. People skewer strawberries, banana chunks and such, and dip them under the flowing chocolate for a delicious treat. Think of it as a vertical chocolate fondue, if you will.

We were originally scheduled to be a part of the Trade Days at the Hershey RV Show, which were Monday and Tuesday, but we skipped them to go sightseeing. I’m glad we did, because Al Hesselbart, from the RV Hall of Fame Museum, has been there, and he said it was dead. Al said that at one point yesterday afternoon, the vendors were playing frisbee football in the show aisles because they were bored and had not had any customers all day long. I like Al, but Miss Terry’s a lot prettier, and  I’d much rather spend time exploring the back roads with her than staring at him all day long!

Today the show opens to the public, and  I guess you could say that we’re cautiously optimistic. We have worked a lot of RV rallies, but this will be our first experience vending at an RV show, and we’re not sure how it will work out. We’re looking forward to seeing a lot of new people and introducing them to the Gypsy Journal, and hopefully some of them will like what they see well enough to subscribe. It’s going to be an interesting week.

When I took a break from the computer yesterday, Bad Nick  grabbed the keyboard and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Let Them Serve! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

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Fortunately, most RVers we know are pretty mellow people who, aside from a heightened sense of adventure and a love for seeing what’s over the next hill and around the next bend in the road, are pretty much like anybody else you’d encounter anywhere.

Most RVers, especially fulltimers, seem to be pretty tolerant people, and accept everybody for who they are. We’ve sat around campfires where the group included everybody from retired surgeons to former schoolteachers, truck drivers, and mailmen. Nobody cares what you did in your past life, they just want to know where you were yesterday, and where you’re headed next week.

However, every once in a while we run into a snob. Such was the case recently when we had a conversation with somebody who proceeded to let us know that anyone who didn’t own the same type of upscale diesel pusher they did was certainly not on a equal level, and was probably mentally or morally suspect as well.

When talking about our Gypsy Gathering rallies, this person made the comment that they were not comfortable at our event because we let “everybody” in, even people in cheap used RVs, and that you never know what to expect from those kind of people. I was tempted to reply that until recently, Terry and I lived and traveled in a 34 year old homebuilt bus conversion. I guess that means we certainly qualified as those kind of people!

On the other end of the spectrum, I had an e-mail exchange with a fellow who wants to buy a cheap used diesel powered transit or school bus for about $3,000 to $5,000, spend a couple of thousand dollars converting it, and hit the road.

He told me that he doesn’t plan to put in a bed, just get a fold out couch from a thrift store, and that he won’t be adding a bathroom. He plans to spend a week or two at a time in different towns, staying at WalMart stores and truck stops, and that he can use their bathrooms to clean up in, when he needs to.

He went on to tell me that he won’t have to buy fuel, because restaurants are eager to give away their waste vegetable oil, and he can pour it directly into his fuel tank and go on down the road. He figures he could live easily on a couple of hundred dollars a month.

I tried to explain to him the hundred and one reasons why his plan wouldn’t work, from the fact that waste vegetable oil isn’t quite that easy to come by, and that you can’t just pour it in your tank and go, and that living in WalMart parking lots wasn’t exactly RVing. But the response was basically of the mindset of “My mind’s already made up, don’t confuse me with facts.”

So we have a prima donna who pulls up to a dump station and says “Well, ours doesn’t stink,” and somebody who basically wants to be a motorized hobo. Aren’t you glad most of the folks who park next to you at your favorite campground fall somewhere in the middle of these two? I sure am!

Thought For The Day -  Except for ending slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, war has never solved anything.

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