I’m beginning to feel like I have my very own personal rain cloud hanging over my head, dumping on me every time I turn around. It rained three out of the seven days we were in the Washington D.C. area, two of those days so hard that we couldn’t go out and sightsee. Now we’re at the Chesapeake Bay  Thousand Trails campground near Gloucester, Virginia, and it’s been raining since we got here. Yeah, I know, it’s good for farmers and ducks. But even though I waddle when I walk, I’m neither.

We left Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland yesterday morning at 9 a.m., got on the Beltway and scooted around the west side of the Washington area with moderately light traffic.

To avoid  the normal gridlock on the Beltway, we had planned to take U.S. Highway 301 south out of the D.C. area, but the more I thought about the high, narrow Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, the more I decided that the Beltway traffic wouldn’t be all that bad on a Sunday morning.

Yeah, go ahead, call me a wimp. But I drove the Mackinac Bridge a while back, so I know I can do it if I have to, but why should I, if I can take an alternative route? I kind of feel like President George Bush when he said “I’m President of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” I may not be president, but I’m a demigod in my own mind, and I’m not driving over any more bridges if I can avoid them!

As I said, traffic was light, on the Beltway. There was some road construction, but nothing to slow us down.

We cruised right along, and we made good time to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where we got onto U.S. Highway 17 and followed it for about 75 miles through rolling hill country, with thick forests, passing through a few small communities. For the first 25 miles or so, the road was good two lane, then it opened up to divided four lane highway. There is a lot of history in this part of the country, and we passed one historical marker after another.

It started to rain about 30 minutes before we arrived at the Thousand Trails campground, but let up long enough to allow us to get backed into a full hookup 50 amp RV site and get the rig leveled out and hooked up. Then it really began to come down, and it rained all day, and the rest of the evening.

We covered 161 miles, and were settled into our campsite by 1 p.m. I like this kind of traveling!

Unfortunately, between the rain and a tree that is partially blocking our satellite signal, the TV kept going in and out. Even in the nasty storms last week in College Park, we never lost the signal, so I think the tree is more of the problem than the rain. If it were not so wet, and if we were not already all leveled out and had the slide rooms extended, and if I wasn’t so lazy, I could have moved the motorhome a little bit, since we have a big, roomy site. I may do that once the weather clears up. However, the forecast for today is more of the same, so maybe not. I’ll check my rain cloud and see what it has to say.

Meanwhile, Bad Nick took advantage of the rainy afternoon to write a new Bad Nick Blog titled I Don’t Need Facts, My Mind’s Made Up! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I must be directionally challenged. In spite of the fact that I can read a road map, I have three different computer mapping programs, and two GPS units, yesterday we found ourselves driving north when any RVer with half a brain would be headed south!

Under a gray sky that threatened rain and looked like it really wanted to snow, we left the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio, our home for the last three weeks or so, and drove back to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana. I’d much rather have pointed the nose of our Winnebago motorhome toward Florida, but we have some things we need to get done up north first.

The Winnebago ran fine as we cruised north on Interstate 69 out of Fort Wayne, Indiana and then hooked up with the Indiana Toll Road, which we took into Elkhart. It was fun being able to pass slower moving eighteen wheelers without a second thought, the big Cummins diesel not even running hard to do so.

We stopped at a service plaza for fuel, and on our first full tank of diesel since we got the motorhome, we averaged 7½ miles per gallon. Other Ultimate Advantage owners with the same engine/transmission combo we have that I have talked to have told me that they are getting anywhere from 7¼ to over 9 MPG while towing a dinghy behind them.

Of course, I’d much rather be in the 9+ MPG neighborhood. But, considering the fact that we pull a ¾ ton extended length Ford cargo van behind us, and that I had been pushing the motorhome harder than I normally drive while on our trip to Lexington, Kentucky this week to see how it performed on the hills, I guess I can’t complain.

I still have to learn to drive the new rig. The Allison six speed automatic transmission has an Economy Mode setting that shifts the transmission to overdrive, and for a couple hundred miles of driving on that first tank full of diesel fuel, I had forgotten to use the Economy Mode. I’m sure that once I get into the habit of using it, as well as the cruise control to help me keep my speed down, our mileage will improve a bit.

Elkhart Campground is a lot emptier than it was when we left it in September, and we had our choice of RV sites. Our normal parking space has 50 amp electric and water hookups, but this time we opted for a full hookup 50 amp site so Miss Terry could use the Splendide washer/dryer combo without worrying about filling our gray water tank.

Once we were settled in, we met Ron and Brenda Speidel for dinner. They are back here in Elkhart having a wood floor put in their Winnebago Journey DL, and even though we saw them less than a week ago, it was good to have the chance to meet up again. 

Back at the bus, I posted a new Bad Nick Blog on Health Care Death Squads, and then we settled in for a night of television and relaxing after our busy days before, during, and after our Gypsy Gathering rally.

We’ll be here at least a couple of weeks, while we get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal out, finish up some last minute details, and meet with a couple of different prospective buyers for our MCI bus conversion. If the bus doesn’t sell, we have to winterize it and arrange for storage during the winter, so I’m really hoping one of the folks coming to look at it takes it home with them.

Once that is all done, I plan to start driving south, and not stop until I see girls in bathing suits. Preferably very skimpy bathing suits.

Thought For The Day – Live life. Stop planning and start doing.