I believe in karma; the concept that whatever we do has an affect on our future. Simplified, it means what goes around, comes around. While karma is a tenet of the Hindu and Buddhist religions, I really think it applies to all of us.

We saw a good example of that yesterday. Elkhart Campground has a resident population of little ground squirrels or chipmunks or some sort of cute little critters, and we have enjoyed watching them pop up out of their holes and scamper around.

Yesterday, a couple in a fifth wheel pulled in next to Ron and Brenda Speidel’s Winnebago Journey motorhome, and the man managed to drop his keys right down one of the little ground squirrel holes. They fell down a good twelve to eighteen inches, and the hole was much too small to stick his hand into to retrieve them.

Miss Terry, our own little MacGyver, came to the rescue, digging into her stock of tools and gadgets to come up with one of those little metal claws on a flexible shaft, but it was too short to reach the keys. No problem, she also had a magnetic rod used to retrieve nuts and bolts that fall into inaccessible places. They taped that to the claw, and the fellow was able to get his keys back. (I’d have grabbed a shovel and dug them out, but apparently remodeling ground squirrel homes requires a different college degree than I have.)

Okay, so Terry built us up a little good karma there. It wasn’t but a couple of hours later that Ron noticed that somehow we had lost one of the safety pins that is used to attach our Blue Ox tow bar to our van. Since we planned on leaving for the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio today to get set up for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, that was not a good thing.

Al Hesselbart, from the RV Hall of Fame Museum was visiting, and even though it was after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, we jumped in his Jeep and went looking for any place that might still be open where I could get a replacement pin.

Dan’s Service Center, just a few blocks from the campground, closes at noon on Saturday, but I suggested we drive by, in the hope that somebody might be there who could help us out. Sure enough, owner Dan Miller was there washing his motorhome, and he took us into the shop and rummaged around until he found a replacement pin. That was karma coming back to reward us for Terry’s good deed earlier in the day.

Of course, you can only push karma so far. Just to be safe, I bought two pins, so I’ll be prepared the next time I lose one.

We’re leaving Elkhart this morning, traveling the 140 miles or so to Celina. This will be our first trip in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it handles on the open road.

While I’m on the road, Bad Nick didn’t want you to get bored, so he has a new Bad Nick Blog entry titled The Bad Guy Bus.

Thought For The Day – The main reason that Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

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As most of my regular blog readers know, we have been looking for an RV to replace our faithful old MCI bus conversion. We have lived in the bus for 8 years and loved it, but our needs have changed and we needed something different.

Our criteria was a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher, with at least a 330 horsepower engine, and a living room slide. As many of you know, I have long been a critic of many production RVs, but I have always said that there are a handful of manufacturers whose RVs we would be comfortable owning. If we had been shopping for a fifth wheel, our search would have begun and ended with Heartland. Unfortunately, they don’t make motorized RVs, only towables.

Of the production model diesel pushers, our top three manufacturers of choice were (in no particular order) Allegro, Winnebago, and Newmar. 

We did a lot of internet research, and looked at a lot of used RVs over the past six months, and almost bought a couple, but either we couldn’t quite get together on the price, or we couldn’t arrange the financing in time and someone snatched them out from under us.

Of all the rigs we looked at, the ones that really stuck out in our minds were the Winnebago Ultimate series, which was the top of the Winnebago line from 1998 to 2004, but every one we saw was out of our price range.

In early June we drove past a car dealer’s lot in Goshen, Indiana, and at the last minute out of the corner of my eye, I  spotted a beautiful 2002 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. We made a quick U-turn and checked it out, and though it was everything we wanted in a new home on wheels, we knew it was out of our price range. We looked at a couple of other RVs since then, but our minds kept going back to the Winnebago, and after a couple of visits and calls to the dealership, we were finally able to get them to negotiate a price we could live with.

Our goods friends Ron and Brenda Speidel are longtime Winnebago owners, and they are even on the company’s Consumer Research Panel, so they know their Winnebago’s. Added to that, Ron is one of the most technical guys I know, and he has always wanted an Ultimate Advantage, so we asked them to go with us to check the rig out.

I told Ron I wanted him to go over it with a fine tooth comb, with the mindset that Brenda wanted to buy it, and his job was to talk her out of it. After crawling over, under, around, and through every square inch of the rig, Ron had just one thing to say – “If you don’t buy it, I will.”

So yesterday we took delivery of our new home on wheels, and we are ecstatic! It has two slides, a 350 horsepower Cummins turbo diesel engine, six speed Allison automatic transmission, 7500 watt Onan Quiet Diesel generator, and every option we could ever want or need. Things like an automatic satellite TV dish on the roof, four door Norcold refrigerator, central vacuum system, and more. The rig has been babied, only 33,000 miles on it, all service done at the Cummins/Onan dealer here in Elkhart, and it lived inside a heated garage all its life.

It drives like a dream, and has more power than I know what to do with. In fact, when we were driving back to Elkhart Campground from the dealership, Ron and Brenda were following us, and had to call Terry on the cell phone to tell her to tell me to slow down. I thought I was doing about 35 and it was closer to 55!

We have the new motorhome parked next to the bus, and can’t wait to start moving in. Unfortunately, today we have to drive to Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer, and then it will take several days to get it stuffed into envelopes and mailed out. And next week, we are supposed to be vending at the Carriage rally in Goshen, Indiana. But maybe we’ll at least sneak next door and just go sit in our new motorhome and grin at each other for a while.  

Thought For The Day – When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

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