Life gets in the way while you’re making other plans. We had originally planned on being vendors at the FMCA rally in Albert Lea, Minnesota next week, but decided against that and came over to Indiana to take part in the Heartland Owners Rally at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Goshen today and tomorrow. As it turns out, we’ll miss that event too.

Terry is on her fourth day of antibiotics, but still feeling bad, and Wednesday night it hit me hard too. I woke up feeling like I had been rode hard and put away wet.

I went to see the same nurse practioneer Terry did on Monday, and she said no, it’s not the flu after all, just colds that have turned into really bad sinus, ear, and upper respiratory infections. So now we’re both on a diet of antibiotics and other meds.

I called Jim Beletti, head honcho at the Heartland Rally and expressed our regrets, but told him we are going to skip the rally. We are just not up to vending for eight or nine hours a day and we don’t want to run the risk of making everyone else at the rally sick just to sell some books and subscriptions. We dropped off some door prizes and a few bundles of sample copies of the Gypsy Journal, and hopefully folks will pick them up and read them, which could result in an order or two.

When we stopped at Wally World to get one of my prescriptions filled, we were disappointed to see two RVs, a fifth wheel and a big diesel pusher, with their jacks down on the pavement and the slide room out on the motorhome. We were even more disappointed to see Escapees RV Club stickers on both rigs. It was just after 5 p.m. and the people from the motorhome were crawling into a car to drive away as we saw them.

Folks, this kind of thing does more to hurt us being welcome to park on private business parking lots, and to make us look bad in the eyes of the public, than a lot of RV park owners complaining to city councils that we are taking money out of their pockets. In fact, it gives those same RV park owners more ammunition to use against us. If you are not familiar with the Escapees’ Good Neighbor Policy on overnight parking, check it out at the link provided. It is up to all of us to be good guests so we will be welcomed back again. 

Thought For The Day – Nothing’s impossible for those who don’t have to do it.

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According to a story on RV E-News, Affinity has announced the sale of its Camping World stores nationwide to help ease some of its heavy debt load. I have heard rumors of this before, but to date nothing has happened. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

While newbie’s and weekend campers spend a lot of time prowling their aisles, very few fulltimers I know do much shopping at Camping World, especially after they have been on the road a year or so. Especially if they care about saving money. While it’s true that Camping World Stores often have a large inventory, we have found that we can usually get anything we need online, and even at small Mom and Pop RV stores, for less money.

As a case in point, last winter I was shopping for a Vu Qube portable satellite TV antenna. I found them as much as $75 cheaper at a small RV store in Casa Grande, and another in Tucson, then I did at the Camping World stores in Tucson and Mesa, Arizona.

So I guess if the sale of their Camping World stores helps Affinity, it’s a good thing for them. But I don’t think I’ll be rushing into one of their stores to make a purchase anytime soon, no matter who their corporate parent is.

Terry and I have not gotten much accomplished since we got to Elkhart Saturday, because we both have been feeling under the weather. In fact, I probably spent nearly as much time napping as I did awake yesterday.

But this afternoon we have to go over to the fairgrounds in Goshen to get our booth set up for the Heartland Owners Rally, where we will be vending Thursday and Friday. I’ll also be presenting my Highway History and Back Road Mystery seminar Friday afternoon at the rally.

The fairgrounds is close enough that we won’t be taking the bus to the fairgrounds, just commuting in the van for the two days of the rally.

There are several other RV events scheduled for the fairgrounds this summer, including a Newmar rally we hope to get a booth at. We are still shopping for a diesel pusher to replace our bus conversion, and Newmar is in the top three of the manufacturers we are considering. I’ve always admired their products and their reputation, so it will be interesting to spend some time around a crowd of Newmar owners and listen to their feedback.

Thought For The Day – The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy

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Miss Terry is still feeling pretty bad, so she spent much of yesterday napping and trying to regain her strength. What we first thought was a cold now seems to be a bad sinus infection. If she’s not better soon, I’m going to drag her kicking and screaming to a doctor.

While she was lying down, I worked on some details for our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio. I had two different vendors who wanted to come that I had to send e-mails to expressing regrets because we already have other vendors selling the same products. If you want to attend the rally as a vendor, get in touch with me at editor@gypsyjournal.net to reserve your site soon so you don’t miss out.

Then I reviewed a couple of proposals for new seminars at the rally. One I had to decline, because it was nothing but a sales pitch. We do allow our vendors to present seminars, but we encourage them to give an unbiased overview of the whole topic, not just a description of their products. Since this seminar was titled “Why XYZ Campground Membership Beats The Competition” I had no problem determining that it was not appropriate for the rally. The other seminar, on switching your RV’s old style TV for a new LCD model, looks good, and I think it will be well received. I’m also working on a new seminar for the rally that I think will be fun.

With that done, I went for a walk around the campground, stopping to chat with some folks who are here for the Heartland Owners Rally later this week in Goshen. One of them had a nice old dog, so I was able to get my puppy fix.

Being in an RV park that caters to fulltimers and extended time RVers is kind of like being in a small town. Everywhere you go you run into somebody you know. Some of the regulars we see here at Elkhart Campground every year were out and about, and I visited with them. Then I ran into campground owners Bob and Gita Patel, and they welcomed me back for the season.

The local economy may be down, but business seems to be good here at the campground. There are plenty of RVs here, and during the afternoon I watched quite a few more arrive.

One was a nice looking Monaco diesel pusher with a For Sale sign in the window. I asked the owner about it, and while it is a nice coach, he’s upside down and owes about 50% more on it than he can ever hope to get out of it. He’s aware of that, but says he keeps hoping he’ll stumble onto a buyer with more money than common sense. I wished him luck, but that’s not me. I have even less money than I do common sense!

Thought For The Day – Don’t argue with an idiot….they will bring you to their level and then beat you with experience!

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Several people have been confused by when I post the blog, because now that we are in the Midwest, it appears online before midnight out west, with the next day’s date on it. This has come up before, so hopefully I can explain it.

I try to post the blog as close to midnight as I can local time, wherever we happen to be. That means that when we were in Arizona it went online about midnight Mountain time, or 3 a.m. Eastern time. I do the same thing here in Missouri, which means that it goes online about 9 p.m. in California, but with the next day’s date on it. A couple of readers have complained about that.

What can I say? I’m a night owl and do most of my writing at night. I’m too lazy to get up at the crack of dawn to post the blog in time to please the early birds, so I do it the night before.

This area around Mark Twain Lake has a multitude of geocaches just waiting to be found. Yesterday we hunted up a couple of virtual caches, including the neat old Union Covered Bridge, located a few miles from Paris, Missouri. We love covered bridges, but this old timer, built in 1871 and restored in 1967, is in pretty sad shape. There are holes in the sides and it has been closed to vehicle traffic since an overloaded truck broke a supporting beam in 1970. There are only four covered bridges left in Missouri, so I hope they save this wonderful old structure before it is too late.   

I have good news for wannabe RVers looking for ways to make money as they travel! Workamper News, the magazine devoted to helping RVers find jobs, has launched their new Workamper Dreamers Blog to help you make your dreams come true. The blog is aimed at helping you understand the workamping lifestyle and what to expect when you get out here and start looking for jobs that will fit into your mobile lifestyle. Check out the new blog, I think you’ll be impressed.

This is our last day at Ray Behrens Corps of Engineers Campground, and we will spend it touching base with our friends Smokey and Pam Ridgely and Ron and Brenda Speidel, who are working locally. Then it’s time to fire up our old bus and hit the road once again. We have to be in Goshen, Indiana late next week for the Heartland Owners Rally, and we want to get settled in at Elkhart Campground and have time to unwind before that starts.

Except for the poor Verizon cell phone service and the slow National Access air card signal, we really like it here, and we know this is one place we’ll return to again in our travels.

Thought For The Day – Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

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We really needed some down time to catch our breath and rest up after our trip from Arizona and then vending at Escapade. The only problem with down time is that it doesn’t take too much of it before I get bored. As much as I try to shed my Type A habits (and I’m a lot better than I used to be), I am what I am.

Yesterday I spent some time logging in new subscriptions for our new Digital Edition of the Gypsy Journal and watching a small cardinal or scarlet tanager or some other type of red bird that was perched on the driver’s side mirror of our van, attacking its own reflection in the door glass. It would puff up its feathers to make itself seem larger, and then begin pecking at its reflection while wildly flapping its wings. This would last a few seconds and then it would fly away, only to come back a few minutes later and repeat the process over and over again.

While I was doing that, Miss Terry filled some orders that came in, and then we drove fifteen miles or so to Monroe City, Missouri to the post office, and then stopped at store so Terry could get some DayQuil. She is feeling a little better than she did a couple of days ago, but she’s still a bit under the weather.

During the afternoon Ron and Brenda Speidel came over and we visited for an hour or so, and then went out for dinner. We always have fun with this couple wherever we have gotten together with them, from Elkhart Campground in Indiana, to our Eastern Gypsy Gathering in Ohio, to Mission, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley.

The weather report has called for thunderstorms the last two days, and warned that some might be severe, but all we had seen were some clouds until yesterday evening, when it rained for a while. The temperatures have been in the 80s, but today is supposed to be down in the mid-60s. I’m hoping the weather stabilizes soon, because my friend Bob Pinner wants to try out our kayaks to see if that is something he might enjoy. Molly has a sit-in kayak, but Bob is more interested in the sit on top models like we have. With all of this water around us, it would be fun to get some paddling done before we move on.

We plan to leave this area this weekend and head for Indiana. We’ll be vending and I’ll be presenting my Highway History and Back Road Mystery seminar at the Heartland Owners Rally in Goshen next week, and we’re looking forward to getting back to the Elkhart area and seeing our friends Bob and Gita Patel and the rest of the gang at Elkhart Campground.

Thought For The Day – Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon!

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