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.

Today is Miss Terry’s birthday, but I got the present, because I get to spend the day with her! Terry is a very practical lady, so she thinks it’s just another day. But it’s pretty darned special to me.

Some women want jewelry or clothes for their birthday, but when I asked Terry what she wanted, she told me one of the new Dremel Trio power tools. I asked her why she wanted that, since we are done building a bus conversion, and she just looked at me, shook her head, and sighed “There’s always something.” I wonder what that meant?

Yesterday while we were in Flagstaff dropping off the new issue of the Gypsy Journal at the mail service, we stopped at Home Depot to get Terry her new toy, but they were sold out, it being the day after Father’s Day. So I promised Terry a rain check, then took her to one of her favorite places, Barnes & Noble bookstore. Okay, I confess, it’s one of my favorite places too. We can spend hours browsing, and usually spend more than we had planned to, but we justify it by telling ourselves that we don’t drink or smoke, or play golf, or gamble, so we deserve a treat now and then.

I know I have shown you pictures of forest fire smoke two days in a row, but just to put in in perspective, here is one more that Terry took in Flagstaff yesterday. It’s close enough to town that some folks we talked to were getting pretty nervous.

When we left Flagstaff, we stopped at the new Camping World in Bellemont to drop off a bundle of sample papers, then stopped at several RV parks around Williams doing the same. We got a chuckle out of this sign at the KOA. Somebody needs spelling lessons. But what can you expect from people who spell campground with a K?

So what does a charming husband like me do for his special lady on her birthday? He drives her across the Mojave Desert in 100+ degree temperatures! And if that were not enough, tonight I hope to be in Bakersfield, California, where she has her choice of dinner at the Flying J truck stop or the Jack in the Box restaurant next door! Hey, do I know how to treat a girl right or not?

I’m pretty much recovered from my bout with the flu, but my energy level still doesn’t feel quite up to par. It’s about 450 miles from here to Bakersfield, so we have a long day of driving ahead of us. And if we get tired or run into any delays, I have a couple of alternative stops in mind.

We have several readers in Bakersfield who have asked us to stop in for a visit, or invited us to dinner, but this is just a quick overnight stop, since we have to be at the Elks lodge in Oceano Wednesday by mid-day to claim an RV site before somebody else snags it out from under us.

We plan to be in the Oceano/Pismo Beach and Morro Bay area for a few days, then we’ll go up to the Thousand Trails preserve in Morgan Hill for a week or so, where we have arranged tours of a few places to write about for the next issue.

Happy birthday, Terry. I love you with all my heart, my darling.

Thought For The Day – One man all by himself is nothing.  Two people who belong together make a world.

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Christmas morning we were up early again, and it was chilly enough that we really had to force ourselves out from under those warm covers. We really need to break this new habit of getting up so early! Mark and Sue Didelot were getting ready to go to a family Christmas celebration, and we wanted to see them off, and then get on the road to take advantage of the light holiday traffic through Houston.

In spite of the cold, I walked down to the boat launch at White Oak Park to take a couple of photos of the Calcasieu River. I’d love to come back someday and kayak here, but only when it’s a lot warmer! I quickly took my photos and headed back to the motorhome.

We were on the road by 9:15 and enjoyed an easy drive west on Interstate 10, crossing into Texas and sharing the road with only a few cars along the way. I always dread driving through Houston, but this time around it was a piece of cake. There were a handful of cars and a couple of other motorhomes, but not enough to even mention. I don’t think we encountered one eighteen wheeler all day long.

On the west side of Houston we pulled into the Flying J truck stop for fuel, and wondered again who designs their RV islands. Whoever it is, he or she obviously has never driven anything bigger than an SUV! I wanted to get propane, but the only way to do so would have been to pull so far past the fuel island that we would have had to back up to get to it, which is not recommended when towing a dinghy. I decided (again) that we’d wait until we get someplace more convenient to get propane.

Back on the road, it was only another forty miles or so to Columbus and our turnoff. We took State Route 71 north about four miles, turned left on a local road, and arrived at the Colorado River Thousand Trails Preserve about 1:30 p.m. We chose a full hookup RV site with 30 amp electric and got settled in. They have a few 50 amp sites, but none are full hookups, and we wanted to be able to take long showers, and Terry needed to catch up on laundry.

This is our third visit to this particular Thousand Trails campground in three years, and as much as we don’t like falling into ruts, it’s beginning to feel that way. But if you’re going to be in a rut, this is a pretty nice one! The campground is located on the bank of the Colorado River, and pecan trees at many of the campsites give visitors the opportunity to collect enough nuts to make some delicious treats.

A large herd of deer live at the campground, and they have little fear of humans. They graze around the RV sites and pretty much ignore people, unless they get within a few feet of them. I couldn’t resist grabbing my Canon Digital Rebel and getting a few photos of our four legged neighbors.

We really, really need some downtime, and we don’t plan to do much the next couple of days except sleep late, watch TV, cruise the internet, and relax. Lucky me, Miss Terry considers baking peanut butter cookies, pecan pie, and her world famous cinnamon rolls very relaxing!

Thought For The Day – A man has reached middle age when he is cautioned to slow down by his doctor instead of by the police.

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We were so tired Saturday night that we were in bed by 9:30 p.m. and I waited until Sunday morning to post the blog. We had a rainy night, and were wide awake before 7 a.m. Sunday, and on the road before 8 a.m., which was a new record for us.

We passed through Montgomery with only a few cars and trucks to keep us company, and pulled into the Flying J truck stop a few miles south of town to take on fuel, and decided to try their breakfast buffet, which was surprisingly good.

Back on the road, we had an easy run to the Escapees Plantation RV Park in Summerdale. We checked in at the office, where we got a warm welcome, and then were assigned to a site. As we were unhooking the van, Jack Mayer came by to say hello. The battery in our van is getting weak and didn’t want to turn over, so we got out our battery charger and Jack helped us put some juice into the battery to get the van started.

By the time I had backed the motorhome into our RV site and finished hooking up our utilities, several people had come by to say hello and welcome us back, and to commiserate over our recent misfortune. We had pretty much a steady stream of visitors until we went to the Activity Center a little after 5 p.m. for their Chocolate Decadence event, in which for $3 each we had our choice of dozens of chocolate goodies, everything from brownies and cookies, to fudge, and even chocolate covered chicken wings. I passed on the wings, but sure tried to sample as much of the rest as I could. 

Following that, they had the Sunday evening Ice Cream Social. And everybody managed to save enough room for ice cream too. RVers love to eat! It was nice to see so many folks we know, and to be made so welcome. And it is wonderful to be warm again! It was 72 degrees when we arrived at Summerdale!

After I reported in yesterday’s blog that we were spending the night parked behind the Moose lodge in Prattville, Alabama, I got three or four e-mails from people asking if we were not afraid of being victimized again.

We have dry camped all over this country without a problem for years, and though we will exercise more caution in the future and not allow ourselves to become complacent again, the reality is that we could spend another 20 years on the road (which we hope to do), and never have a problem again. Of course, we also realize it could happen again tonight. But, we refuse to live in fear, or to give up our freedom because of what “might” happen.

Keep in mind, too, that our crime did not happen while we were dry camping in some out of the way place. It happened at an established RV repair shop’s camping area, which had 24 hour surveillance cameras, which large signs plainly announced. Crime can and does happen at any time, anywhere. The luck of the draw was that we just happened to be the victims this time around.

Now that we are finally out of the deep freeze up north and getting the inside of our Winnebago back to normal, we are still discovering some other things missing, including the handheld Garmin GPS we use for geocaching, a digital photo frame with pictures of our granddaughters, and Leatherman pocket tool. On the flip side, we found a small digital camera we thought was gone, so that’s a good thing. Life goes on.     

Thought For The Day – Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

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