It was another chilly day here at the Orlando Thousand Trails campground, so we spent most of the day at home. The bad news is that being stuck inside too long really gives me cabin fever. But, the good news is that we’re getting a lot of things accomplished.

Yesterday I found a mail service in Orlando and made arrangements for them to handle sending out the new issue of the Gypsy Journal that is somewhere on a truck between Michigan and Florida, making it’s way south. We should have the papers in a couple of days, and then we’ll get them mailed out. Between the holiday printing schedule, which is always a hassle, bad weather, and problems with new production equipment at the printer’s, we’re running late. But as I wrote a few days ago, every December we run into something to delay us, no matter how hard we try to plan ahead.

Once that was taken care of, I uploaded the new digital issue of the paper, and sent e-mail notifications to all of our digital subscribers.

Meanwhile, Miss Terry has been busy sorting cabinets and drawers and piling stuff up on the counter. I asked her what she was up to and she said it was early spring cleaning, and anything that wasn’t useful was just taking up space and adding weight to the motorhome going to the dumpster. I was very quiet the rest of the day, just trying not to get noticed.

We have some changes coming for the new year. My pal Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour has been working on moving us to a new web server, and making some changes in our blog format.  We’ll be taking it live in the next few days, but here’s a sneak peak at the new blog format. Look it over and let me know what you think.

At first glance, it looks very similar to the present blog, but the comments will be easier to post and access, the new format automatically displays links to related blog posts, the links in the left column to the rest of our website are more contemporary, and best of all, it won’t be on the Yahoo servers, which have given us so much grief over the years. Chris still has some tweaking to do, but I think it’s a big improvement.

You may notice that there is a tab at the top to Miss Terry’s Kitchen. Don’t get too excited, Terry isn’t ready to commit to a cooking blog yet, but if we push her far enough out on that limb, she may have to. Or, she may just break that limb off and beat me with it!

In the afternoon, Denny and Cindy Henderson came by to pick us up, and we went to dinner at a nice restaurant called Oakwood Smokehouse and Grill in Clermont. Denny and I had the rib platter, Terry had chopped barbecued pork, and Cindy had a burger. Everything was delicious. At one time we were fans of Sonny’s Barbecue, which has locations all over the Southeast, but on our last few visits, we were disappointed in the food.  Given the chance, I’d opt for Oakwood Smokehouse any time.

Back at the campground, I unhooked our water hose so it would not freeze overnight, then came inside and got some writing done before it was time to go to bed.

Bad Nick did some writing too, and posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.

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The RV world lost an icon yesterday, when Joe Peterson, co-founder of the Escapees RV Club, passed away. I have been privileged to meet Joe many times over the years at Escapades and other RV events, and he was always a cheerful, friendly, outgoing gentleman.

When Joe and his lovely wife Kay founded the Escapees, way back in 1978, they had no idea what they had started. Over the years they nurtured and guided their little organization until it grew into one of the largest, and in my opinion the very best, RV clubs around. The legacy Joe has left is something the rest of us will enjoy and benefit from for years to come.

This is a loss for all of us, but a double hit for the family; I’m told that Joe’s son-in-law, Bud Carr, also lost his father just a week or so ago. Please keep them in your prayers.  

We had visitors yesterday! Jim and Dee Walter, who are staying at an RV park a couple of miles up the road, stopped in to say hello. We had a good time talking about the RV lifestyle, sharing a joke or two, and comparing our favorite apps on our Droid smart phones.

After Jim and Dee left, Terry and I drove a mile or so south of the campground to Pioneer Park, a county park that includes a small museum, campground, and boat launch on the Peace River. Here are a couple of pictures, one upriver and one downriver. If we get a chance to paddle our kayaks while we’re here, I think we’ll use the launch at Pioneer Park, because the one at our campground is much steeper and looks like it would be harder to use.

We booked two weeks here at Peace River, and while the campground is okay, the town doesn’t have much to offer. Yesterday we had dinner at the Panda Chinese buffet, and it being a small town, we didn’t have high expectations. As it turned out, we were still disappointed! If we could change our stay and get back into the Orlando Thousand Trails, we’d leave and head back up that way. There’s a lot more to do and see in that area. We’d like to get some paddling in while we’re here, but the weather report for next week is looking pretty grim, so I don’t know if we’ll get to do that or not.   

I mentioned smart phone apps above,and if you have an iPhone or iPad, you might be interested in a brand new app that the nice folks at Technomadia just brought out, called Coverage?. This is a simple app that lets you see where you can expect to get 3G and roaming signals in the continental U.S. for AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. Yes, you can go online to the different carriers’ websites and get the same info, but Coverage? allows you to do so offline, wherever you happen to be.

These are the same folks who put out the excellent State Lines app, which no RVer should be without. Check out Coverages?, I think you’ll find it useful. They also publish an e-book titled Answers to the Common Excuses not to Travel Full-Time that I have heard good things about. I need to order a copy and check it out.

One final thought on technical things before I close. I have been having  e-mail problems for quite a while now. Sometimes e-mails never get to me,  other times they show up, but disappear from the server before I can read them, or ones I have saved for future reference go missing. 

While we were in Fort Lauderdale last week, Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour, switched me over to G-mail, but since our websites are still hosted on Yahoo for the time being, our e-mail first goes through the Yahoo servers, and that is where we seem to have the problem. So if you e-mailed me and I didn’t get back to you, please try again. Also, I lost some e-mails from folks who asked us to stop by while we were in their area, and I had no way to re-contact them. My apologies.

Bad Nick has been busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Armed Citizens Fighting Back. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Why be difficult, when with a little bit of effort you can be impossible?

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The old saying “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” dates back to the story of the Trojan Horse, when the Greeks besieged the city of Troy during the Trojan War. According to legend, after a long siege, the Greeks built a huge wooden horse, and concealed a small force of their best soldiers inside. Then they boarded their ships and sailed away.

The besieged Trojans thought that they had outlasted their enemies, and opened the gates to the city and pulled the horse inside as a victory trophy. That night, after the Trojans all went to sleep, the Greeks hidden inside the horse force crept out and opened the city gates to the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back, under cover of night. The Greek army entered and seized the city of Troy, ending the war.

The purpose of this history lesson is to tell you that while you might want to avoid Greeks bearing gifts, Geeks bearing gifts are something else altogether!

Yesterday evening Jim and Chris Guld, from Geeks on Tour, showed up at our door with grilled lobsters that Jim had caught while scuba diving just off the beach, here in Fort Lauderdale. Those things were huge!

Jim and Chris supplied the main entree, and Miss Terry filled out the menu with wild rice pilaf, stir fried mixed vegetables, and fresh sliced Heirloom tomatoes. Everything was delicious, and I guarantee you nobody went hungry!

After dinner we sat around visiting for a couple of hours, and Chris showed me a trick or two with G-mail, Windows Live Writer, and Microsoft Streets & Trips. And, of course, we swapped a lie or two, and solved a good number of the world’s problems in the process.

It’s been wonderful having this one on one (or actually two on two) time with Jim and Chris, away from all of the hustle and bustle of an RV rally. Thanks for all your time, help, and especially your friendship, Jim and Chris! It’s been a lot of fun!

Since the weather is supposed to cool back down next week, we have scrubbed our original plans to go to the Keys, and instead, today we’re leaving Fort Lauderdale and are traveling to the Peace River NACO preserve in Wauchula, Florida.

We’ll hang out there until we get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal back from the printer and mailed off, and hopefully we’ll get in some kayaking on the Peace River, if the weather cooperates during our stay.

We’ve only got a few weeks left in Florida before we have to start west to get ready for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma March 7-11. During that time, we want to get back to Pinellas Park for a family gathering, and we’d love to spend a few days around Crystal River, and maybe at Cedar Key, if we can.

Bad Nick has been busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Blame Your Parents, Not Us. check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you have changed.

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Today is our last day in Fort Lauderdale, and it sure has been a fast week! Between bad weather and getting the new issue of the Gypsy Journal wrapped up, we haven’t gotten to see much during our stay.

But last night Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour took us for a quick tour of some of the city’s highlights when we went out to dinner, and it is obvious that they have a lot of affection for the place. Chris went to high school here, and Jim lived here from 1985 until they went on the road a few years ago. Since Chris’ mom and Jim’s dad and son both live here, they spend a lot of time here at Paradise Island RV Resort.

We drove along the waterfront, where we saw the lights of huge ships making their way down the coast, and stopped to walk on the beach for a few minutes. Since it was dark, we didn’t get to see a lot, but anytime I’m on a beach, I’m a happy camper! We had a very nice dinner at an outside table at a restaurant called Coconuts. On our way in, we stopped to check out this huge pot of paella, a concoction that included saffron rice, lobster, crab, scallops, shrimp, onions, peppers, and assorted vegetables. It looked delicious, but at $26 a serving, we all decided we weren’t quite that hungry! Jim and I had blackened mahi sandwiches, while the ladies had fish tacos, and we finished off with delicious key lime pie. Yummy! While we ate, we watched large boats cruising up the Inland Waterway, and smaller boats coming and going as people stopped at the restaurant’s dock. One of the waitresses took this picture of the four of us at our table. Don’t we look well fed and happy? The restaurant is located right next door to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, which honors the achievements of famous swimmers, divers, water polo players, synchronized swimmers, and people involved in life saving activities. Did you know that the late radio and television personality Art Linkletter was  a world-class swimmer, or that if it weren’t for a bad bout of poison oak, he would have participated in the 1932 Olympic Trials. A college backstroke champion, Linkletter might well have earned a spot on the US Olympic swimming team. I wonder what direction the famed humorist’s life might have taken, if it weren’t for a bad rash?

We had a good time visiting with Jim and Chris at dinner. Besides being the world’s best mobile computer geeks, they are also accomplished kayakers and scuba divers. Miss Terry has always wanted to learn how to dive, which I had hoped she could do this winter. I think hearing all of Jim and Chris’s stories of their underwater adventures really whetted her appetite to try it!

Even though we didn’t get to play tourist very much, we did get some things accomplished in our time here, or rather, I should say, Chris got some things accomplished for me. Over time we will be moving all of our websites off the Yahoo servers, and she has a lot of the groundwork done for that. She also helped me with an ongoing problem I’ve been having with e-mail messages disappearing after I open them, or not getting to me at all, another problem that seems to have its origins with Yahoo. Thanks Chris, I really appreciate all of your help.

Thought For The Day – Why is the man you hire to invest all of your money called a broker?

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I got a call from my daughter Tiffany the other day, telling me that her grandfather, Jim Zipf, had passed away. Even though I had not seen the man in almost 25 years, and even though Tiffany’s mother and I had parted company long, long ago, I was still sorry to hear the news. I always liked Jim, and we got along very well.

Tiffany and I were talking about families, and how she has now lost all of her grandparents, her aunts and uncles on my side of the family, and other people she loved. I hated to tell her that as she gets older, it will happen again and again. We never know when our own, or somebody else’s time on this earth will end.

One of the things I love about the RV lifestyle is that it gives me the freedom to visit family and friends in every corner of the country. Since we hit the road over twelve years ago, I have been able to reestablish relationships with cousins I had not heard from in years, high school and Army buddies I had lost contact with, and recently, my nephews and a niece, right here in Florida, that I had not seen in over 25 years. It is amazing that so much time can pass, yet with many of these people, we have been able to pick up right where we left off, and the connection is still just as strong.

In one case, I’m glad I did, because I was able to visit with one of my best friends from high school several times before he died suddenly earlier this year. Like I said, we never know.

The RV lifestyle also has allowed Terry and I to see places and do things that we had only dreamed of before. How many people can say that they have paddled their kayaks in the Florida Keys, or ate fresh lobster in Maine, or watched the leaves turning on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or been serenaded to sleep by coyotes in the Arizona desert?  How many have been able to walk the hallowed ground at Arlington, or roamed the narrow streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans? Many RVers have done all that and more in the same year!

Sometimes I burn Miss Terry out, because I want to be going and doing all of the time, and once in a while she needs some down time to recharge her batteries. I need that too, but I have known so many people who were always going to do something “someday” and never made it, because their calendar ran out before “someday” arrived.

I know that we need to stop and smell the roses now and then, but there are so many new adventures and old favorite places waiting for me just around the next bend in the road and over the next hill. I want to get to them all while I still can!

Thought For The Day – Making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life’.

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