This part of northern Indiana is a stronghold of the Amish people, and wherever you travel around the communities of Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, and the surrounding area, you are likely to see Amish women  in their simple handmade dresses, their heads covered in white kapps, and men wearing black straw hats or stocking caps.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Amish people, including that they will not ride in automobiles, use electricity, or telephones. Drive anywhere around here and you will encounter horse drawn buggies and wagons on the roadways.

But, while they do not drive automobiles, the Amish will ride in them, and they frequently hire a non-Amish driver to take them to restaurants, stores, or other places too far to conveniently reach by buggy.

Drive any Amish back road in this region, and you will see small white structures in some yards that look like an enclosed telephone booth, and that is exactly what they are! Their religion does not permit a telephone in the house, and the “phone haus” is built for function, not comfort. There is no heat or cooling, and usually no chair. This is a place to do business, not sit and gab! If an Amish person advertises something for sale, they will include the telephone number and instructions to “call between 7 and 8 a.m.” or whatever time suits their schedule.

Yesterday, we drove out to Nappanee to visit with our friend Carylye Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Carlyle is a fantastic craftsman who built the desk units in our Winnebago motorhome last year, and he has a fast growing reputation with RVers for top quality custom wood furniture.

The tools in Carlyle’s shop are all powered by electricity, courtesy of a huge 40 KW diesel generator.  So as you can see, while the Amish do avoid many of the “modern” conveniences of our way of life, they have embraced some technology to give them the ability to conduct business.

We have also found it interesting to see Amish buggies lined up at the drive through window at McDonald’s, or to note such goodies as Pepsi and potato chips in their shopping carts at WalMart.

All day yesterday the wind blew hard, with gusts up to 40 miles per hour. If the wind lets up a little bit, we plan to leave Elkhart Campground today and start making our way eastward toward the Hershey (Pennsylvania) Thousand Trails preserve, where we will have a vendor booth at the Hershey RV Show next week.

It’s about 600 miles to our destination, and we’ll do it in two days. I have no idea where we’ll be tonight, but there is always an RV friendly WalMart, a truck stop, or someplace else to get off the road for the night.

Thought For The Day – Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after.

Whether we’re in our motorhome or our van, whenever time allows, we always prefer to travel the two lane back roads wherever we are going. A Denny’s or a Flying J truck stop are pretty much the same, whether they are at an interstate highway exit in Arizona or Tennessee.

But on the back roads you see the real America; the small towns, the neat farmsteads, the old courthouses with their Civil War statues, the fields of corn, and the roadside produce stands. You can’t travel as fast on the back roads as you can on the super highways, but why would you want to, anyway? There’s too much to see along the way.

Yesterday we drove back up to Allegan, Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer. Our route took us up State Route 40, through the small towns of Marcellus, with its handsome old houses and storefronts; and Lawton, where the beautiful old stone railroad depot is now home to an American Legion post.

We passed a lot of farm fields, those roadside produce stands I mentioned above, and several lakes. I’d like to get our kayaks wet up here, and I bet there is some good fishing in these waters too!

I always like driving through the busy little town of Paw Paw, just for the name if nothing else. Paw Paw is the home of the St. Julian Winery, which offers free tours and wine tasting.

The Paw Paw Police (as opposed to the cantaloupe cops), have a neat old 1950s-era police car that we had hoped to get a picture of, but it wasn’t in its usual parking place, so we’ll have to try again one of these days.

We enjoyed the ride up to Allegan so much that, once we loaded the new issue into the van, we drove right back to Elkhart along the same route. (Of course, it’s the shortest and easiest route, so that helped too.

How would you like to spend the morning driving through all that pretty scenery I just showed you, and come back to find this parked next to you? No, the Beverly Hillbillies didn’t get a motorhome and hit the road, that’s my buddy Greg White’s American Eagle. Greg managed to scrape up his bay doors on a boulder or a panhandler, I forget which, so he took them off and our pal Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint is fixing them like new again. In the meantime, I just had to pick on Greg, because you know what they say, you can take the redneck out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the redneck.

I was feeling a bit droopy by the time we got back to Elkhart Campground, so I laid down for a little nap, and woke up when my friend Orv Hazelton called to tell me he and his lovely wife Nancy had arrived and were parked next to us. We went over to check our their beautiful new Allegro four-slide diesel pusher, I fussed over their little mutt Duffy, who is almost acceptable for a wannabe dog, and then the four of us went out to dinner. We haven’t seen Orv and Nancy in quite a while, and it was nice to have some time to visit and catch up.

When we got back to the campground, I wanted to take a little walk, and then go inside and get caught up on e-mail from the day. But before I could, a series of folks stopped by to introduce themselves, say hello, ask about the rally, and to  talk about my Bad Nick Blog posts. I’m afraid I can’t remember everybody’s name, but they included Phyllis Schell,  and subscribers Gary and Elaine Regelman. My apologies to those whose names I missed, but my brain capacity is a bit exceeded right now.

I finally managed to get in a couple of laps around the campground, stopped to visit with some folks along the way, and got back to the Winnebago in time to check out the new series Hardcore Pawn on True TV. We managed about 20 minutes of the half hour episode and changed channels. It’s obviously an attempt to cash in on the popularity of A&E’s Pawn Stars, but we both felt that it pretty much sucked. We won’t waste any time on it.

Thought For The Day – If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.

Yesterday we wrapped up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, our 68th issue. That’s a lot of travel stories!

Today we will take it to our printer in Michigan, and they will give everything a once over, print it on Wednesday afternoon, and we’ll pick it up Thursday morning. But we’re not done yet, we still have to stuff all of the envelopes and get everything in the mail. And when we get that all done, we still have an RV rally to put on!

My buddy Greg White hasn’t been sitting on his duff either! Yesterday he started calling on local businesses, collecting door prizes for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. There is no way we could hold a rally without all of our hardworking volunteers, and we really appreciate them!

While Miss Terry was doing the final proofing for the new issue yesterday, our pals Bob and Molly Pinner, and Mark and Dortha Hall stopped in to say hello. Bob and Molly are busy working on the upcoming Escapees RV Club Escapade rally, which will be held in Goshen, Indiana, a couple of weeks after our event. This is a learning experience for Bob and Molly, who will be the directors of next year’s Escapade, and we know that they will do a great job.

The weather has cooled off very nicely here in Elkhart. It was pretty hot the last week, but a cooler trend is starting, and yesterday it was very nice. I went for a little walk around the campground just before dark, or at least I tried to. But I ran into Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School and a whole crowd of other ne’er-do-wells that included Denny Orr, Mark Hall, Frank Hinman, Bob Pinner, and some other folks who I tried not be be recognized associating with in public.

They obviously needed adult supervision, so I hung around for a while, and I’m not sure if that didn’t just add to the problem! Finally the neighbors got tired of listening to us, so they sent out a horde of mosquitoes with orders to either chase us off or eat us alive. When I left at a trot, I think I saw them circling Frank for the kill, but by then it was every man for himself! 

There are already a lot of folks here for the rally, and more seem to be arriving every day.  We hope to have some time to visit with everybody before the rally starts.

Somebody who was looking at the rally seminar schedule on our website said that we have too many seminars, and it makes it hard to decide which ones to attend, or to have any downtime to relax and socialize.  When it comes to seminars at an RV rally, we believe that more is better, and we work hard to have plenty of choices for everybody. But we don’t take attendance at the seminars, so if you want to just hang out at one of the tables we’ll have set up just for visiting with your friends, that’s fine too.  Some people come to an RV rally to learn, and others come to see their old friends and make new ones. Whatever makes you happy.

We have had feedback comments that we should repeat the seminars at least twice at every rally, so if somebody misses one, they can catch it the second time around. But that would drastically cut down on the number and variety of seminars we could offer. There’s an old saying that says “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Our rallies keep on growing, and people keep coming back year after year, so I guess we must be doing something right.

Thought For The Day – The past is the past. Leave it there.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

We have been having a lot of fun here in Muskegon, Michigan with Berni and Rocky Frees. It is amazing how we can be apart from those two for a year, and the minute we get back together, the fun picks back up right where we left off.

Yesterday they both had to work, so Terry and I hung around the motorhome most of the day, filling a couple of orders, doing paperwork, and answering e-mails. With our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally coming up fast, we are getting a lot of registrations in.  There is still plenty of time to get yours in too, if you want to come and join in all the fun.

In the afternoon I laid down on the couch for a short nap, and Terry woke me up a little after 5 so we could go over to Rocky and Berni’s. It’s the weekend, and Fisherman’s Landing Campground is starting to get busy. We noticed several RVs that had pulled in during the day, as well as a group of tent campers down at the far end of our lane. Hopefully they won’t be as loud and obnoxious as the tent campers who have partied here on the weekends during our past visits.

We left the van at Rocky and Berni’s and took their car to a great restaurant called Hobo’s Tavern.  We ate there once before, on a previous trip to Muskegon, and it was just as great as we remembered. I had an exceptionally tender and delicious New York strip streak, while Terry had a burrito plate with red chili sauce. We both really enjoyed our meals, and from the comments Berni made about her steak, and Rocky his half rack of ribs, they were pleased too.

Back at their place, we introduced them to a fun game we learned at our Eastern rally in Celina, Ohio last fall, called Pegs and Jokers. We had looked all over for a game of our own, and couldn’t find one, so our pal Ron Speidel made us one in the craft shop at the RV park where they stayed in Mission, Texas last winter. And then our good friends Mike and Elaine Loscher also gave us a second game, so now we have two, when we once had none! Isn’t it great having good friends who are also generous, and love you too?

On the two previous nights we had played Mexican Train, with me winning one game and Berni the other, so we needed to break that tie. Unfortunately, Rocky had to get up very early Friday morning, so by 10:30 or so, he was really beginning to droop. We stopped the game, and will probably have to pick it up tonight, just because Berni was ahead by a good margin at that point. I suggested that maybe we should start a brand new game from scratch today, but poor Berni has so few victories in her life that she insisted we continue the one we already had going. Boy, some people!

Back at the campground, even more RVs and tents had arrived, and campfire smoke filled the air. When we left, the sites on either side of us were empty, and when we returned, there was a motorhome on one side, and a popup tent trailer on the other.

We’re not sure if we’ll leave here Sunday to go on down to Elkhart, or wait until Monday morning. We’re having a lot of fun, but we also have a lot of work to get done.

Thought For The Day – When in doubt, mumble.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Today is our last day in Traverse City. Time sure goes fast when you’re having fun! It seems like we just rolled in yesterday.

This afternoon, Terry has her annual checkup with her oncologist, and we’re looking forward to getting that behind us for another year. Terry has been cancer free for ten years now, and every day is a blessing. But she still gets very nervous and uptight before her annual appointment. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if you tried to put me on an airplane headed back for the jungle. I wish I could make it easier for her, but all I can do is hold her, encourage her, and let her know that she is not alone.

There is so much to see and do around here that I wish we had more time. But we have to get down to Elkhart to start getting things set up for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. If you haven’t visited this part of northern Michigan yet, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.

Speaking of the rally, sometimes I feel like no matter what I do, I get into trouble. I had a couple of comments on yesterday’s blog from people who were upset because we have run out of full hookup RV sites, and two or three more e-mails from others who are mad at me because they waited to register, or expected to arrive at the rally without a registration, and still get a full hookup site.

I opened registration for the Eastern Rally April 10, and we immediately had several people register. And since then, almost four months ago, I have had a registration link in the blog and on our website, an ad in the printed edition of the Gypsy Journal, and constant updates on the rally, with warnings that the 50 amp full hookup sites were limited. So why am I the bad guy? Whatever happened to that old saying, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”?

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the folks at Elkhart Campground are scurrying to finish upgrading sites to make more 50 amp full hookups available. If they are able to get the job completed, folks can upgrade to them if they wish.

But trust me, you really can live for four days on a 30 amp site. We are currently living quite comfortable on a 20 amp circuit while parked in my cousin’s driveway. Terry makes her coffee every morning, my computer and wireless router are on all day long, and she has even done several loads of laundry! It’s all about energy management.

We’re in a hurry to get to Elkhart to get started on things there, but on our way south we plan to stop in Muskegon, Michigan to spend a couple of days with Berni and Rocky Frees. It’s been way too long since we had time with them, and we need a fix of the brand of pure insanity that only they can provide.

Bad Nick has been way too quiet for way too long, and when he gets that way, I get nervous. God only knows what goes on in his twisted mind. But he’s back with a brand new Bad Nick Blog post titled Screw You, WalMart. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Love your children enough to teach them self discipline, good manners, respect, and consideration for others.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!