I spent most of yesterday working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, making and receiving telephone calls about our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and making plans for future rallies.

I had hoped to be almost done with the new issue by now, but I got lazy and didn’t keep on top of things, so now I have to push a little harder to make our deadline. It’s no big deal, we’re not behind schedule, I just have to knuckle down for a few days.

One call I got was from the manager of the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio, to discuss the dates for our 2011 Eastern rally. That’s a long time from now, but it takes a lot of planning to get things arranged, and venues large enough to handle our size group book well in advance. We didn’t lock anything in yet, but right now we’re looking at either the third or last week of September.

We don’t want to go back to the same place over and over, but it’s not easy to find a venue that has the facilities that we need and that will work within our budget. We had a commitment with the good folks in Celina for three rallies, and we are looking forward to going back to the friendly little town. It’s a very nice fairgrounds, and they really bend over backwards to accommodate our needs. We have never found anybody we can work with as easily.

I also talked for a bit with Daryl Lawrence from Lawrence RV Accessories, and I already have his commitment to be a vendor at the 2011 Eastern rally. We are pleased that so many of our vendors return again and again. That tells us that we must be doing something right.

Daryl and I lamented the fact that it is very hard for vendors to make long range plans, because some RV clubs and organizations don’t seem to be willing to communicate with each other about rally plans, even after they have the dates and locations locked in. I’ve never been able to figure out that thinking. If everybody knows what everybody else is planning, we can work together, rather than planning events with conflicting schedules that only reduce the numbers of attendees and vendors, who can’t be in two places at once. It’s hard enough for vendors to make a profit in this economy as it is, but having to play silly waiting games to find out where and when some of the rallies are going to be held makes it almost impossible.

I also got a telephone call from my daughter Tiffany, to tell me that she and hubby Jim had stopped to check out some Indian petroglyphs on the banks of a dry wash about halfway between Snowflake and Holbrook, some 35 miles north of Show Low. They came around a bend in the wash and spotted a mountain lion feeding on something up ahead. The cougar quickly ran off, but Tiffany said its paw prints were as big as the palm of Jim’s hand up to the second knuckle. And that young man has big hands! They took their clue from the cat and took their leave too, in the opposite direction. Yes folks, some places remain where the West is still wild!

About 4:30 I escaped from my desk long enough for us to drive to Pinetop with Greg and Jan for dinner at the Chuck Wagon Steakhouse, which was a favorite of mine when we lived here. The restaurant is very rustic looking, with an Old West theme that includes an impressive bar, saddles, mounted big game heads, and a chandelier made from elk antlers.  

Greg and I had rib eye steaks, while Miss Terry and Jan choose the petite sirloins. I was pleased to learn that the food and service were both just as good as I remembered.  Greg, Jan, and Terry were all very happy with their meals also. When the waitress came by to inquire if we wanted dessert, we were all too full to say yes.

Back at the Elks campground, I worked some more on the new issue of the paper and then just before dark we decided that dessert wasn’t such a bad idea after all. So we all piled back in Greg and Jan’s truck and went to Dairy Queen!

Thought For The Day – When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

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With the Affinity rally over, yesterday morning we said goodbye to several of our vendor friends and made ready to pull out of Albuquerque. We were both more than ready to be somewhere else.

I don’t like cliques. I didn’t like them in high school, and I find them even more childish in people our age. There were several of them in Albuquerque, including a group who took exception to us dumping before we left, even though we were just one rig in a line of vendors doing so.

I try to be a nice guy about 99% of the time, but when my bullsh#& tolerance level gets exceeded, sometimes I get ugly.

So it was when one particular group gave us grief when we tried to dump in not one, but two different spots where other vendors had just done so. Finally Terry said to forget it, we’d wait until we got back to Arizona to dump, and I told her to pull the van up behind the bus so we could hook it up to our Blue Ox tow bar.

As she was maneuvering the van into position, one clown from this clique stalked up and demanded that I move because the bus was parked parallel in front of his and his friends’ RVs. I asked him if he was getting ready to pull out, since his slides were still out and they were all standing around.

“No,” he said, “but there is plenty of room all around here where you could hook up.”

“You’re right,” I told him. “And this is where I’m doing it.”

I guess he didn’t like the look that accompanied my reply, because he returned to his pals and glared at us while we hooked up, did our light check, and I scrolled through my PressurePro readout to check my tire pressures. Normally I turn off the bus while I do this, so I don’t asphyxiate the neighbors with diesel fumes, and normally the entire process goes much faster, but for some reason Bad Nick insisted on taking charge and things took a little longer.

With all of that done, we hit the road and got onto Interstate 40, where we quickly got tied up in a major roadblock just as we started the long westbound climb out of town. It took us about 30 minutes to go ten miles, but eventually we cleared the construction zone that was delaying things, and got up to speed.

Since we would be climbing most of the trip, and it was a pretty warm day, I was concerned how the bus would do. The needle on the temperature gauge was riding at the upper level of our safe zone all of the way, but with our radiator misters on we did fine, and the bus purred right long.

We passed through beautiful high desert country with mesas on both sides of the highway, and passed Indian communities that date back to long before the first Europeans ever set foot in North America. We may have taken their land, but the Native Americans are getting their revenge with a long string of casinos stretched along I-40 like a necklace sparkling with slot machines and neon signs promising riches untold to the lucky ones who hit it big.  

Somewhere in western New Mexico a pickup truck pulling a fifth wheel passed us and pulled into our lane, and we laughed when we saw his sewer hose trailing out of its bumper storage space. I tried to call him on the CD radio, but didn’t get an answer, and he was moving too fast for us to catch him. But thanks to the zoom lens on her camera, Miss Terry managed to get several pictures.

We eventually crossed into Arizona, and planned to stop at the State Welcome Center for a stretch break and a quick snack, but every parking space was filled with RVs. I wonder how many were also at the Affinity rally.

In Holbrook we got onto State Route 77 and made the 50 mile run to Show Low, pulling into the same campsite at Show Low Lake Campground that we had vacated when we went to Albuquerque. The trip took us five hours, which is a good day of driving.

My daughter Tiffany’s birthday was last week while we were in Albuquerque, so once we had the bus parked and unpacked a bit, we met Tiffany and her family at a restaurant for a belated birthday dinner.

By the time we got back to the bus it was dark and we were pretty well worn out. But we’re not done yet, today we’ll drive the van to Flagstaff to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer. Then Terry will be busy stuffing envelopes for the next few days to get them ready to mail. Our life is never dull.

Thought For The Day – People who don’t have a life of their own spend a lot of time criticizing those who do.

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As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, I wasn’t sure if we could get out of Show Low Campground because the weekend storm had made the roads so soft. But with very high winds predicted for today, we decided to give it a try.

Dee, the new campground manager, and I walked over the soft patches, and he suggested that if I kept well to the left side, where it was a bit firmer, he thought I could make it.

So after Miss Terry did the final proofing of the new issue of the Gypsy Journal and I made the necessary corrections, I fired the bus up and unplugged the electric cable, while Terry quickly secured things inside. Then I gave our PressurePro system a quick scan to be sure our tires were properly inflated, and we made ready to pull out.

As I approached the soft section of roadway, I did as Dee suggested and kept well to the left, made a running start at it and sailed right through. At one spot I felt the right rear wheels trying to bog down, but I maintained steady pressure on the throttle and got through just fine. After a quick stop at the dump station to empty our waste tank, I filled our fresh water tank and pulled out of the campground.

My daughter Tiffany had come over to see us off, and she rode in the passenger seat for the short distance I had to go to a place where Terry could pull the van up behind us to hook it up. I don’t know what I did, maybe it was the huge windshield right in front of her, or sitting so high off the ground, but when I swung into the parking area at the lake to hook up, the poor kid turned green and about lost her cookies.

Speaking of Tiffany, my little girl turns 27 today, and I really wish we could have been there to help her celebrate. Happy birthday, Tiffany. No father in the world could love a daughter as much as I do you, or be more proud than I am of you. You’re a wonderful young woman, and every minute I spend with you is a treasure I hold deep in my heart.

We were on the road at 1:30 p.m. and had a good run north to Holbrook, where we got on Interstate 40 and scooted east past the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, where brilliantly colored sandstone formations delight the eye.

Just before we crossed into New Mexico, a beautiful 1947 Cadillac cruised past us. I wondered if it was somebody exploring old Route 66 in a classic car, and I recalled the trips Terry and I had taken over the Mother Road in our vintage Corvette years ago.

We had that rarest of all phenomena for RVers, a tailwind, that hopefully helped our fuel mileage just a tiny bit, as we passed Gallup and Grants, and several Indian casinos stretched out along Interstate 40. We stopped at the Dancing Eagle Casino for fuel, and recalled a night we spend boondocking in their parking lot a couple of years ago.

We’re not much into gambling, but in our travels, we have spent the night in several Indian casino parking lots across the country. We appreciate the free boondocking opportunity, if they have a truck stop the fuel is usually cheaper, and we’ve found that their buffets are a good place to have dinner after a long day on the road.

We made it into Albuquerque about 6:30 and pulled onto the State Fairgrounds, where our pals Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety, and Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum greeted us. As soon as we were parked and had the van unhooked, the four of us headed to the local Golden Corral for dinner. We’ll be helping Al and Mac out at their booths at The Rally for the next few days.

This is Affinity’s big annual soiree, and we’ve never attended one of their events. Affinity is to the RV world what Wal-Mart is to the retail world, less the benefit of free overnight parking. They seem to have their fingers in every pie in the industry, and we’re interested to see how the rally goes.

One final thing before I sign off. I got an e-mail from a lady whose husband is an RV technician in Nixa, Missouri, asking me if I thought RVers these days are keeping present RVs and maintaining them to conserve their money, or taking advantage of the current soft market to upgrade to a new (or newer) unit. I asked about this in a couple of my seminars at recent rallies, and the greatest majority, almost unanimously, said they are hanging onto what they have and investing in maintenance and upkeep. How about you? Post a comment below and let us know your thoughts on this.

Thought For The Day – Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

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