Yesterday we drove 75 miles south to Pinellas Park, located just north of Saint Petersburg, to look at different racks for our hard shell kayaks. I love my Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 inflatable kayak and won’t give it up, but Miss Terry is happy with her hard shell Manta Ray. We wanted to check out the Thule Hullavator rooftop kayak racks. We knew that they are expensive, but they are supposed to make loading heavy kayaks much easier.

The Tackle Shack in Pinellas Park is a Thule dealer, and we had a very strange experience there. Owner Andy Levine told us that he would be very happy to take our money, but that he didn’t think the Hullavators would serve us well, and that he could show us a way to load the two Manta Ray kayaks on the roof of our Ford Explorer that even we could do, with our short little legs and my bad back.

Putting a cover over the back of the Explorer to protect the paint, Andy showed us how to lay the kayak on the ground behind the SUV, push it up onto its nose, and over onto the rack on the roof of the Explorer. It looked like an intimidating task, and we weren’t too sure we could do it, but once Andy demonstrated the process, Terry and I tried it, and it worked!

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Then Andy installed a set of the Hullavator racks on the Explorer, and demonstrated to us that due to the height of the Explorer, we would have to lift a kayak well above waist high to get it onto the rack, and then, due to our short legs, it was still a bit of a chore to get the boat up onto the top of the car. Getting it back down again would also require us to stand on a stool to reach the rack easily. We decided that we’d go with the method Andy showed us, and save a lot of money.

How many small business owners do you know that will talk you out of a $1200 sale, and instead spend almost three hours on a hot parking lot showing you how you can do the job without spending all that money? You can bet that if I need anything related to kayaking, or any other water sports, I’ll be picking up the phone to call Andy at the Tackle Shack!

Terry said yesterday that she’s beginning to think that a Sea Eagle Fast Track inflatable kayak from Inflatable Boats 4 Less might be the answer for her down the road too.  That would sure make life easier!

I was born late in my parents’ lives, and all of my siblings passed away quite a while ago. Over time, I lost contact with most of my family, and it had been over 25 years since I had seen any of my older brother Jack’s children. Earlier this year, while doing genealogy research on Ancestry.com, I was able to make contact with them, and we have exchanged e-mails and touched base on Facebook. When I told them we’d be in Florida this winter, they all invited us to come by for a visit.

My nephew Steve lives in Pinellas Park, just a couple of miles from the Tackle Shack, so once we were done there, we stopped by to get reacquainted. Steve called his brother Harold and sister Cheryl, and they came over and we had a very nice little reunion.

We spent about three hours catching up on our lives in the past quarter century (boy, does that sound like a long time!), and had a wonderful time. All too soon it was time to hit the road, because we had a long drive back to the Escapees campground in Bushnell. But after our trip down to Key West in a couple of weeks, we’re going to get together again with Steve, Harold, and Cheryl, and two more of their brothers, as well as some other family members, for a real family reunion. I’m looking forward to it!

Thought For The Day – It took me so long to find what I was looking for that I forgot why I wanted it in the first place!

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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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When I first heard about Apple’s new tablet computer, I have to admit that my first reaction was “So what? I already have a desktop computer, a laptop computer, and a netbook computer. What can the iPad do that they can’t?” Then I saw my first iPad, and my immediate reaction was “I want one!” 

As it turns out, there is not much you can do on an iPad that you can’t do with another type of computer, but there is a lot that I can do with an iPad that I don’t do on my other computers. Things like relaxing on the couch and surfing the web at the same time, or checking my e-mail while visiting the in-laws, or reading USA Today for free while waiting in the van while my wife is in the bank or grocery store.

The iPad comes in two versions, either a WiFi only version, or a 3G model (capable of accessing the internet via AT&T) which also is WiFi capable if you are near a WiFi hotspot. Both versions come with either 16, 32 or 64 gig of storage. I wanted the 64 gig 3G model, because one of my big reasons for wanting an iPad was for internet access away from our motorhome. Getting one proved to be a challenge, because every store I contacted was sold out. I finally put my name on the list to reserve one at the Apple Store in Tucson, and less than a week later it arrived.

I am no fan of AT&T, and I really wish the iPad was available on the Verizon network, but so far there is no verifiable indication that will happen anytime soon. So it is what it is. AT&T offers two different monthly pricing plans for the iPad, either 250 MB for $14.99 or $29.99 for unlimited data. You can change your plan at any time, but forget the cheaper plan. It’s a joke. I signed up for it, and in less than 24 hours I was at my limit, with no movies or music downloaded, just web surfing and checking e-mail. 

I was disappointed to discover that my iPad would not work with our Cradlepoint MBR1000 router right out of the box. So much for Apple’s “just turn it on and it works, first time, every time” reputation. I called the Apple Store, and they asked me to bring it in to see if they could figure it out. As it turns out, there is a setting on the Cradlepoint that I need to change, which the Apple tech assures me will remedy the problem. Since I switched to the unlimited plan, the conflict with my router is no big hassle, so I’ll wait and have one of my tech buddies talk me through changing the router’s settings, so I don’t mess up and lose Miss Terry’s WiFi access in the process. On AT&T, here in Apache Junction, the iPad works quickly, and I have no complaints.

UPDATE: After I originally posted this blog, my friend Greg White talked me through resetting the router, and now the iPad works fine on WiFi.

The first thing one has to understand about the iPad is that it is not a replacement to a computer, if you need all of the things a computer can do. I see it as a supplement. If I am at my desk, I may pop onto Facebook to see what’s happening, or answer an e-mail, or look around the internet, but to me, my desk is where I work, so I find myself feeling guilty if I goof off too much, and before long I’m writing a blog or a story for the next issue of the Gypsy Journal. With the iPad, I can park myself on the couch and play.

So if an iPad isn’t a computer, what is it? Well, it’s a great e-book reader, for one thing. I had an Amazon Kindle, and though I loved the concept, most of what I wanted it for were reference books. I discovered that photographs and charts look terrible, and are hard to see on a Kindle. On the iPad, they look great. I was also thrilled to learn that, besides Apple’s online book store, there is a free Kindle app, and once I downloaded it, all of the books I had purchased for my Kindle were still in my Amazon library, and I downloaded them to the iPad. Cool!

Being a career newspaper man, I am a news junkie. So I love the free USA Today app, which allows me to read my newspaper on the iPad. I can also read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and a ton of magazines on it.

The iPad comes with a great street map, and the 3G model has a GPS chip built in. I can view maps in traditional street view, or Google satellite view, and the GPS feature allows me to find local businesses wherever I am. When I click on a business, I get the address, phone number, and other info, along with turn by turn directions.

We love music, and our iPod has thousands of songs on it. I can download those same songs to my iPad, and buy more from the iTunes Store.

For gaming, the graphics are fantastic, but I doubt that I’ll be playing games in the iPad. I have also seen movies on iPads on display at stores, and the picture is great. There is a Netflix app that allows you to download all the movies you could ever want to watch.

I could go on and on about all you can do with an iPad, but you can get most of that info online with a quick Goggle search. So instead, I’ll tell you a little about the features I like and don’t like, from a user standpoint.

First, the iPad is heavier than a Kindle, and your hands get tired pretty quickly if you are holding it like a paperback book. But if I prop it up on my chest while laying down, or on my stomach while sitting in a chair, it’s fine. (I knew I grew that stomach for something!) In the van, I prop it on the steering wheel and again, no problems.

I have heard that because the iPad doesn’t support Flash, some websites will not load right, or won’t come up at all. So far that has not been a problem, and I have been able to access and view every website I wanted to, including my own websites, the Escapees forum, Ancestry.com and many others. I can also follow links in websites with no problem

The glossy screen is also a fingerprint magnet, and in direct sunlight, the screen will give a lot of glare. There are screen protectors one can buy to remedy those problems.

I like the touch screen, and being able to make type and photos larger whenever I need to. For these old eyes, that’s a real plus. I am also very impressed with the iPad’s battery life. Apple claims 9+ hours of constant use on the 3G models, and 10 hours on the WiFi only models. I have found that to be true so far. I charged the unit up when I brought it home, and have about 40% of battery power left 36 hours later.

The speaker is so so at best, and while there is a jack for earphones, I don’t know how much I’ll use the music feature, since I can just slip my much smaller, lighter iPod into my shirt when I go for a walk.

I downloaded the free Weather Bug app, and I am very impressed with it. The graphics are excellent, and the GPS tells Weather Bug my location for up to the minute local weather info. One reader e-mailed me that they found its live weather radar very handy a few days ago when they were on the road and dodging thunderstorms and tornados in Oklahoma.

Other standard iPad features I really like are the notepad and calendar. Yes, I have both on my Blackberry, but my eyes older really need a bigger screen.  I also appreciate the fact that, unlike a laptop computer, the iPad does not get hot, no matter how long you use it.

There are other features, and thousands of apps that I am looking forward to exploring further, but based on what I have seen so far, I am even more impressed with the iPad than I was at first glance. I see it becoming my primary tool for media consumption, information access, and  web surfing. Like an American Express card, I won’t leave home without it.

So, is the iPad the newest must have gadget for every RVer? I don’t know, but it sure meets the needs of this RVer, and I’m glad I have it!

Thought For The Day – Suburbia: Where they cut down all the trees, and then name streets after them.

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One of the greatest things about the RV lifestyle are the many wonderful friends we have made. As with most fulltime RVers, many times we find that these friendships are deeper and more fulfilling than those we had with folks back in our old lives, living in sticks and bricks.

Like our lifestyle itself, RV friendships are different than other relationships we may have had in the past. Sometimes we only see our RVing friends once or twice a year, depending on where our travels take us. But we keep in contact with e-mail, on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, by reading their blogs, and through the RV grapevine.

There are times when we will make plans to meet up with fellow RVers someplace for a day or a week, and other times when the meetings are more serendipitous. We have pulled into and discovered friends we have not seen in months parked in the site next to us, and we have stopped for lunch at a highway rest area and found friends parked there doing the same thing. Once, in Indiana, we were at a fuel stop on the Indiana Toll Road when our friends John and Margie Conda happed to pull up to the fuel island next to us. Things like this happen so often that we’re not even surprised when they do anymore.

Yesterday, we had lunch with two of our very special RV friends, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy. They have a lot at the Escapees co-op in Benson, about 35 miles south of Tucson, and when they learned that we were going to be here for a few days, they called and suggested we meet for lunch.

We decided on Mimi’s Cafe at Wilmot and Broadway, on the east side of Tucson, because it is closer to Benson than the Mimi’s on the north side of town near Tucson Mall, and only a mile or so from my cousin Beverly’s apartment.

We met at 1 p.m. and had a wonderful lunch as we talked about our different adventures since we last crossed paths, compared notes on family relationships, and solved most of the problems of the world. Before we knew it, our luncheon had stretched out for three hours, and our friends had to get on the road to get back to Benson. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

Here is a picture of Jerry, Suzy, and Miss Terry outside the restaurant just before we parted company.

I asked Jerry and Suzy if they would take a bundle of Gypsy Journals to the Escapee park for us, and they were happy to oblige. Whenever we can pass a bundle of sample papers on to RVing friends to distribute in their travels, it helps us spread the word about our efforts. Many times when we receive a new subscription order, it includes a note saying that they picked up a copy of the paper at such and such RV park, someplace where we’ve never been.

After we left Mimi’s, we stopped at Jo-ann Fabrics so Terry could pick up some yarn she needed for a project, and then we went to Beverly’s place, where I spent the next three hours trying to delete cookies and spyware in an effort to speed up her laptop computer, which has slowed down to slightly less than snail speed.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I called another RVing friend, my pal Greg White, and asked for suggestions, since Greg made his living resolving computer issues for folks. He suggested some things to try and clean the laptop out, but I wasn’t making much headway. Since Beverly has a medical appointment on our side of town today, we didn’t want to keep her up too late while I struggled with the laptop, so we called it a night and headed home. I’ll take another shot at her computer today or Saturday.

Back at Tra-Tel RV Park, we watched some TV, answered a few e-mails and I wrote my blog post before we headed for bed.

Today, after Beverly’s doctor appointment, we are getting together for lunch with two more of my cousins, Vivian and Sharon, who also live here in Tucson.

Bad Nick is not nearly as much a social butterfly as I am, so he spent yesterday writing a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Did He Push Humpty Off The Wall Too? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.

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For the last couple of weeks we have been spending a lot of time with friends from Florida to Alabama, and we have had a wonderful time with them. We love being with our family and friends whenever we can, but from time to time, we need an “us” day, and yesterday was the day.

An “us” day is a day we spend together doing anything from working to sightseeing, all by ourselves. A day to enjoy each others’ company, and to remember why we are best friends as well as husband and wife.

We seldom get to bed before 1 or 2 a.m., which means that we don’t usually wake up until about 9 a.m., and are seldom ready to greet the world before 10. Yesterday morning we lay in bed snuggling and talking, making silly jokes, and planning our day. About 10 a.m. somebody knocked on the door, but we were not dressed yet and ignored it. An unspoken rule among RVers is that if the curtains are pulled over the windshield and door, it means do not disturb. We don’t feel rude about not going to the door if we haven’t opened the curtains yet, though we occasionally offend someone by not doing so.

Once we were dressed, Miss Terry made a delicious brunch of French Toast, and we spent an hour or two checking e-mail, our favorite blogs, and reading the news online. We have come to rely on blogs, and in my case Facebook, to keep track of what our RVing friends are up to, wherever they are traveling around the country.

About 1 p.m. we drove down to Gulf Shores, where we stopped at several RV parks there, and in Foley, dropping off sample bundles of the Gypsy Journal. Ever since we started publishing the Gypsy Journal, leaving sample papers has been an important part of our marketing plan. Besides the papers we drop off wherever we are traveling, many of our readers will take a bundle or two from us and distribute them where they are going. It’s like the ripple effect when you drop a pebble into a pool of water, giving us a much greater reach than we could achieve ourselves.

While we were out, we spotted a store called Old Time Pottery that a couple of people have recommended to us. It’s a large place, carrying everything from kitchenware to linens to, of course, pottery. Miss Terry found two or three items she has been looking for, and since one of them was a pan to make me a sheet cake in, I didn’t complain too much about having to spend time shopping in such a “girly” store.

After a quick stop at a Winn-Dixie grocery store for a couple of things, we made it back to Rainbow Plantation just in time for the 4 p.m. social hour. After chatting with some folks there for a while, we went back to the motorhome, checked e-mail again, and then about 6 p.m. we went back out for dinner, at a little place called the Shrimp Basket, in Foley.

We discovered this restaurant on an earlier trip to this area several years ago, and were delighted to find that the food is just as good. In fact, this was our second visit in six days! I had the blackened fish and shrimp combo, while Miss Terry had the crawfish platter, which had both fried crawfish tails and crawfish etoufee over rice. It was all delicious!

It had turned really cold while we were in the restaurant, and as soon as Terry started the engine on our van, I flipped the heater to high. Back at our motorhome, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing with TV and the internet, before it was time to go back to bed and snuggle. The perfect ending to a perfect “us” day!

Thought For The Day – If you are not sure where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

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