My good friend Al Hesselbart, historian for the RV Hall of Fame Museum in Elkhart, Indiana, is part of the support committee that is working to reorganize the Angel Bus project.

Angel Bus is patterned after the Angel Flight program, in which volunteer private pilots use their airplanes to transport medical patients to facilities for surgery, chemotherapy, dialysis, and other treatments. Angel Bus started back in 2000, with bus conversion owners providing transportation for patients with serious medical problems and their family members that needed to get a hospital or treatment facility a distance from their home. Unfortunately, the program ended after the death of founder Bill Conner.

Recently, Mercy Medical Airlift (MMA), a 30 year old charity that is the parent organization of Angel Flight, has taken on the Angel Bus project and is working to develop a network of volunteer motorhome owners who will provide transportation to those with medical needs and no easy way to get to a treatment facility, or back to their homes after treatment. Besides the Angel Flight project, which conducts an average of 2,000 missions a year, MMA also provides up to 8,000 airline tickets a year to patients and their families.

The Angel Bus Support Group is made up of volunteers who are working to spread the word about the Angel Bus project. They hope to enlist volunteers for the group, and to help organize Angel Bus chapters of national RV associations. An Angel Bus Chapter has been formed in the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA), and it is hoped that similar groups will be formed among the Escapees RV Club and the Good Sam Club.

Angel Bus volunteer drivers are only asked to provide transportation for a patient and his or her assistant or family member. Volunteers are not expected to provide  food or medical assistance. Most patients, including all children, are accompanied by an assistant and/or parent. Volunteers are briefed on each mission before committing to it, and can refuse any mission for any reason. Mission trips are usually under 500 miles, and longer trips are usually handled with a relay of volunteers. Typically, an Angel Bus volunteer will be assigned one mission a year, unless they volunteer for more.  Angel Bus is a 501(C)(3) charity, and all expenses incurred on a mission are tax deductible.

If you are looking for a way to contribute something to society, this could be a perfect project for either fulltime RVers, or anybody with an RV who wants to help somebody in need. Angel Bus missions are something that almost all of us could provide to those in need, especially fulltimers who are not usually tied to a tight schedule, and have the freedom to travel at will.  

I thought the original Angel Bus project conceived by Bill Conner was a great idea, and I’m pleased that it is being resurrected and will operate under the experienced direction of MMA. Visit the Angel Bus website to learn more about this excellent project.

Thought For The Day – Learn as if you will live forever; live as if you will die tomorrow.

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Yesterday was a weird weather day. When we woke up we had about an inch of snow covering everything, but at least the wind from the day before had stopped. We left for Flagstaff about noon, and bucked a headwind most of the way, but nothing the van couldn’t handle.

About fifteen miles east of Flagstaff it began to snow hard, and within minutes it was sticking to the windshield and starting to cover the roadway. Near Winona, Miss Terry spotted several elk on a hillside, but the best I could do was a quick glance because driving was becoming a challenge.

Once we got to the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper, who does our printing when we’re in Arizona, it was nearly a whiteout, and the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. It was so nasty that we pulled the van inside their pressroom to load up the new issue.

We had to make a couple of quick stops before we left town, and when we got back on Interstate 40 eastbound we were both wondering if we could make it safely back to Show Low.  The road was covered in snow, and more was coming down! We knew that we had at least fifteen miles of this, if not more, depending how far east the storm had moved.

Then, miraculously, in less than a mile after getting on the interstate, the snow suddenly stopped and we were driving in sunshine so bright that we could see the shadows of the cars around us! We had dry roads and no wind all the way home. Like I said, weird weather.

In a blog a few days ago, I wrote about Two Guns, once a famous Route 66 icon. Just a few miles west of Two Guns is another reminder of the good old days, the Twin Arrows Trading Post. Long abandoned, the historic trading post has been fading away and is looking pretty forlorn, and the two huge arrows that were a Route 66 landmark had about disintegrated.

I’m happy to report that the arrows have been refurbished and are looking good today, and the news is that the old trading post will be restored, as part of a project that will include an Navajo Indian casino on the other side of Interstate 40. It’s good to see a part of history coming back to life.

I’m afraid I have some bad news to report. Any RVer who has been to a Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally surely knows Henry Gartner, aka Flakey the Magic Clown. For years Flakey has been a fixture at RV rallies, where he rides around on his motorized cart and performs magic tricks for the crowds. We received word yesterday that Henry’s beloved wife Kathy passed away Wednesday in Ohio. We always enjoyed visiting with Kathy and Henry, and we extend our condolences to Henry at this terrible time. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Miss Terry will be busy the next few days stuffing envelopes, so we can get the new issue back to the mail service in Flagstaff on Monday. Since the weather report is for more cold weather the next few days, it’s just as well. We’re happy to stay snug and warm inside our cozy home on wheels until good weather returns. Assuming it ever does!

Meanwhile, Bad Nick posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Obama Bashing Gone Too Far. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

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The bad weather that had been predicted rolled into central Arizona right on schedule, with cold, a gloomy sky, and rain. Monday was a gray day in more ways than one for me.

I got an e-mail first thing in the morning that one of my oldest and dearest childhood friends, Dan Connell, had passed away Friday in our old hometown of Toledo, Ohio. I’ve known Dan since I was thirteen, and could not begin to count all of the adventures and misadventures we had together. The news took me by surprise and really broke my heart. Dan went through a bout of colon cancer a few years ago, and seemed to come through it okay. But a few weeks ago his cancer came back, and he went fast.

Terry and I stopped to visit Dan and his special lady, Patty, while we were in Ohio for the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Bowling Green, in July At that time he said the doctors had told him he was completely cancer free, and he felt great. We had a good time sitting on his back porch swapping stories of all the silliness we got into as youngsters, and reliving those carefree days from so long ago, when we were ten feet tall and bulletproof.

I’ve lost a lot of friends in my life, and it always hurts, but Dan’s passing has really hit me hard. When you lose friends that you meet as adults, you miss them, but you don’t have that long history of growing up together that you do with childhood friends. And it reminds you that you, too, have to make that final last journey someday. It also reaffirmed for me that life holds no guarantees, and if you love somebody, you should not allow one day to go by without telling them so. Don’t let petty spats, words said in anger, or just the everyday pace of life keep you from doing that. Tomorrow may be too late.

About mid-day yesterday, longtime readers John and Karen Knoll stopped by to visit, and to pay for their registration to our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma. John and Karen are spending the winter at Meridian RV Resort, and they keep telling us how nice it is. We’ll have to stop in and check it out one of these days.

All afternoon the sky got darker, and the temperature continued to drop. It sprinkled off and on, and during the evening it started to rain steadily. It looks like we’re in store for the same all week long. Like I said, a gray start to a gray week.

Thought For The Day – Do it now, there might not be a later.

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Boy, there sure are a lot of RVs here on the campus of Bowling Green State University for the FMCA! The last official word I had was 2500 family coaches, plus a couple hundred vendors, staff, and volunteers’ RVs, not to mention several dozen new motorhomes on display by dealers and manufacturers.

The FMCA brought a crowd to this little college town, and the merchants are sure happy about that! Everywhere you go the restaurants and stores are full of RVers.

We have a booth in the indoor vendor area, where we’ll be introducing people to the Gypsy Journal and the various books and booklets we have to offer. The indoor market area is open today through Thursday, and this grand soiree winds up Friday and we’ll all head for every point on the compass.

That is if it doesn’t rain. We are parked on a very rutted grass field that could well turn into a real problem if we get a lot of rain and it gets soft. And since the weather reports are for scattered thunderstorms all week, we’re hoping for the best. Obviously a lot of heavy vehicles have been here before us, because the grass is so rutted it shakes the fillings out of your teeth just driving across it at a snail’s pace.

The vendor area has a ton of offerings; everything from sewer hoses to campground memberships, to RV furniture and awnings, and whatever else your little heart could desire and your pocketbook can afford. We have had the opportunity to visit with many of our vendor friends, and we’re hoping to entice a few more of them into coming to our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally in late September.

We’ve only done one of the huge FMCA International rallies before, many years ago, though we have vended at many of their smaller regional rallies with limited success. So we’re hoping for the best.

Once we had our vendor booth ready to go and spent some time visiting with other vendors yesterday, we drove back to Toledo to look up one of my best friends from high school, Dan Connell. It’s been about nine years since I had seen Dan, and it was great to see my old pal. I know Miss Terry and Dan’s pretty lady Patty must have gotten tired of us reliving every single teenage prank and bit of mischief we ever got into together, especially since I’m sure we had the same conversation the last time we got together, but some of those stories just needed retelling.

I also get to meet Dan’s son Steve. The one and only time I saw him, Steve was less than a week old, and he is a grown man now. He sure grew up to be a fine young man, and it was heartwarming to see the bond he shares with his Dad. We hope to get back up to Toledo to see Dan and Patty before we leave the area.

By the time we got back to Bowling Green and grabbed a bite to eat, there was just time to write the blog post and answer a few e-mails before bedtime. We are not morning people, so being bright eyed and bushy tailed to start meeting and greeting the public at 8 a.m. is a real chore.

Thought For The Day – I gave up jogging for health reasons. My thighs kept rubbing together and setting my shorts on fire.

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The world has lost a legend. Yesterday, broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite died at age 92.

Long before cable television, CNN, and the internet, the world tuned in to CBS News every evening to hear the venerable Cronkite tell us what was going on in the world, and he gave us the news of some of the most important moments in American history, from the Apollo 11 moon landing, to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first time I ever heard about the Vietnam War was from Walter Cronkite. I remember asking my parents where Vietnam was and if I would have to go there and fight. My mother assured me that the war would be over long before I was old enough to have to go, but my father, a World War II veteran, just looked worried and didn’t say anything. In the next few years I watched my older cousins go off to fight in Vietnam, and then my turn came. By then Walter Cronkite had already told America that we were mired in a stalemate in Vietnam, and public opinion had turned against the war. If “Uncle Walter” said so, we knew it was true. Because as he told us every night, “And that’s the way it is.”

Rest in peace, Mr. Cronkite. The evening news has not been the same since you left.

On another note, we can’t figure out what happened, but a lot of people that were not due to renew their subscriptions yet received renewal notices with the new issue of the Gypsy Journal. The gremlins were apparently creating havoc with our mailing list and they sure have caused a lot of confusion.

You can check your renewal date by reading the top line of the address block on your envelope. It will have a two digit number, as well as possibly some initials. That two digit number is the issue your subscription expires with. For example, the current issue is Number 61, so if that two digit number on your address block is 66, you still have five issues left on your subscription.

If you received an unexpected renewal notice and your address block still shows you are current, please disregard the notice you received and please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

We received confirmation yesterday afternoon that we will be able to get a last minute vendor booth at the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Bowling Green, Ohio next week. So we’ll leave Elkhart Campground Sunday morning and make the 150 mile drive to Bowling Green State University, where the rally is being held, and get our booth set up and ready to do business.

That means today will be busy as Terry does the laundry, I print booklets to sell at the rally, and we do all of the last minute chores needed before we take off. FMCA rallies have never been very successful events for us in terms of sales, but we hope to be able to make a few sales and introduce some folks to the Gypsy Journal. Wish us luck!

Thought For The Day – I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

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