One of the greatest things about the RV lifestyle are the many wonderful friends we have made. As with most fulltime RVers, many times we find that these friendships are deeper and more fulfilling than those we had with folks back in our old lives, living in sticks and bricks.

Like our lifestyle itself, RV friendships are different than other relationships we may have had in the past. Sometimes we only see our RVing friends once or twice a year, depending on where our travels take us. But we keep in contact with e-mail, on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, by reading their blogs, and through the RV grapevine.

There are times when we will make plans to meet up with fellow RVers someplace for a day or a week, and other times when the meetings are more serendipitous. We have pulled into and discovered friends we have not seen in months parked in the site next to us, and we have stopped for lunch at a highway rest area and found friends parked there doing the same thing. Once, in Indiana, we were at a fuel stop on the Indiana Toll Road when our friends John and Margie Conda happed to pull up to the fuel island next to us. Things like this happen so often that we’re not even surprised when they do anymore.

Yesterday, we had lunch with two of our very special RV friends, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy. They have a lot at the Escapees co-op in Benson, about 35 miles south of Tucson, and when they learned that we were going to be here for a few days, they called and suggested we meet for lunch.

We decided on Mimi’s Cafe at Wilmot and Broadway, on the east side of Tucson, because it is closer to Benson than the Mimi’s on the north side of town near Tucson Mall, and only a mile or so from my cousin Beverly’s apartment.

We met at 1 p.m. and had a wonderful lunch as we talked about our different adventures since we last crossed paths, compared notes on family relationships, and solved most of the problems of the world. Before we knew it, our luncheon had stretched out for three hours, and our friends had to get on the road to get back to Benson. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

Here is a picture of Jerry, Suzy, and Miss Terry outside the restaurant just before we parted company.

I asked Jerry and Suzy if they would take a bundle of Gypsy Journals to the Escapee park for us, and they were happy to oblige. Whenever we can pass a bundle of sample papers on to RVing friends to distribute in their travels, it helps us spread the word about our efforts. Many times when we receive a new subscription order, it includes a note saying that they picked up a copy of the paper at such and such RV park, someplace where we’ve never been.

After we left Mimi’s, we stopped at Jo-ann Fabrics so Terry could pick up some yarn she needed for a project, and then we went to Beverly’s place, where I spent the next three hours trying to delete cookies and spyware in an effort to speed up her laptop computer, which has slowed down to slightly less than snail speed.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I called another RVing friend, my pal Greg White, and asked for suggestions, since Greg made his living resolving computer issues for folks. He suggested some things to try and clean the laptop out, but I wasn’t making much headway. Since Beverly has a medical appointment on our side of town today, we didn’t want to keep her up too late while I struggled with the laptop, so we called it a night and headed home. I’ll take another shot at her computer today or Saturday.

Back at Tra-Tel RV Park, we watched some TV, answered a few e-mails and I wrote my blog post before we headed for bed.

Today, after Beverly’s doctor appointment, we are getting together for lunch with two more of my cousins, Vivian and Sharon, who also live here in Tucson.

Bad Nick is not nearly as much a social butterfly as I am, so he spent yesterday writing a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Did He Push Humpty Off The Wall Too? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.

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After waiting way too long, due to last minute details we needed to get done, and then bad weather, yesterday we finally hit the road and gave our bad case of hitch itch a mighty scratch!

After a week of gloomy sky, wind, and rain, Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, with no wind. A perfect day for traveling! Miss Terry stowed away the things inside the motorhome that needed to be secured so they didn’t become a deadly missile in the event of an accident, while I unhooked our water, electric, and sewer connection from the campground’s utility pedestal. Then we hooked up our Blue Ox tow bar, I disengaged the van’s driveshaft disconnect, and turned on the SMI auxiliary brake.

While we were doing that, Gypsy Journal subscriber Herb Staffenski came by to purchase several of our books. It was nice to meet Herb and his wife Anke, and they hope to join us at our Arizona Gypsy Gathering in Yuma, in March.

After running the slides in and pulling up our HWH leveling jacks, we said our goodbyes to Greg and Jan White, and I thanked Greg again for all of his help over the last couple of weeks. It was nice to have the time to get to know this fun couple better, and we look forward to many more good times together in the future.

After a quick scan of our PressurePro tire monitoring system, we pulled out of Elkhart Campground a little after 11:00 a.m., got on the Indiana Toll Road and headed east about 50 miles to the junction with Interstate 69, which we followed south to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and then got on U.S. Highway 30 eastbound, a nice divided four lane highway with little traffic.

We crossed into Ohio and continued east past Van Wert, and eventually came to Interstate 75, and took it south to Dayton. There was a lot more traffic on the superslab, and in Dayton we ran into a long stretch of road construction, with narrow lanes and concrete barriers instead of shoulders. I was glad to leave the interstate again and get onto U. S. Highway 35, another nice four lane limited access road that carried us 140 miles southeast through farmlands and rolling hills to Gallipolis, on the Ohio River.

I said in the blog a few days ago that an ideal driving day in an RV is 250 to 300 miles, but that sometimes when the traveling is good, we find ourselves going past that. And so it was yesterday. By the time we pulled into the Wal-Mart Super Center in Gallipolis and tucked ourselves into the far edge of the parking lot for the night, it was twilight and we had covered 387 miles. We had a bad case of hitch itch, and it just needed to be scratched!

After I wrote about their diesel engine monitoring systems for PC based computers a while back, and included a link to Norm Payne’s excellent article  on the Silverleaf Electronics moitoring system, the nice folks at Silverleaf loaned me one of their VMSpc cables to evaluate and review, and I had hooked it up to a small Acer netbook computer before we hit the road for this trip. The cable plugs into the data port under our RV’s dash, and the Silverleaf program monitors dozens of engine functions with digital displays that you can customize for your own needs.

According to the Silverleaf, we averaged 8.1 miles per gallon yesterday, most of it with the cruise control set at 63 miles per hour, though there were a few times when I was up around 66 or 67 MPH to keep up with the traffic flow.

The more I drive our Winnebago, the more I like it. Even towing our ¾ ton Ford van, the Cummins 350 horsepower engine had no problems coming up a few rather steep hills, down here in southern Ohio, at 60 or 65 miles per hour. I’m impressed!   

Today we’ll cross into West Virginia and continue our trek into new territory to explore and new adventures to discover. 

Thought For The Day – If you do what you enjoy and don’t harm other people, you’re living a beautiful life.

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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.

Yesterday we took our first short trip in our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, and we love it!

The motorhome has so much storage that getting ready to hit the road was a simple matter of pushing a button to stow the automatic satellite TV dish, pulling in the slides and retracting the leveling jacks, and then unhooking the water and electric connections. After a quick scan of all of our tires with our PressurePro tire monitoring system, I fired up the big Cummins diesel engine and pulled out of our regular RV site at Elkhart Campground.

With our bus conversion, we would have to carry Terry’s big Kitchen Aid commercial mixer and some other stuff back to the bedroom, and used a collection of assorted sized bungee cords to lash everything down. Not because they would fall over, the bus has an incredibly smooth ride, but because we didn’t want anything turning into a missile if we got into an accident.

After a stop at the campground’s propane station to fill our tank, we hooked up the van to our tow bar and were ready to go. Ron and Brenda Speidel, in their Winnebago Journey, and Ken and Billie Barker, in their beautiful older Safari motorhome, were already hooked up and waiting to go.

The most direct route to Fort Wayne, Indiana would have been down U.S. Highway 33 from Goshen, but we took the longer (but faster) route east on the Indiana Toll Road to Interstate 69 and south to Fort Wayne. It added 20 miles to the trip, but because we didn’t have any stop and go traffic in the small towns along the way, we made better time. Besides, I wanted to see how the Winnebago handled on the open highway.

I’m happy to say that it handles just fine, with lots of power and a very smooth ride. Passing trucks didn’t affect us at all, and we had plenty of oomph when I wanted to pass a slower moving vehicle. The motorhome didn’t even seem to notice the heavy van it was pulling.

From Fort Wayne, we traveled east on U.S. Highway 30, a great divided four lane highway. We crossed into Ohio, and before long we were in Van Wert. We stopped at the Murphy USA at the Wal-Mart in Van Wert for fuel, which is not one of my favorite places, but both Ron and I were lower on fuel than we were comfortable with.  

With our fuel tanks topped off, we took U.S. Highway 127 south another 25 miles to Celina. We pulled into the Mercer County Fairgrounds with 163 miles behind us, and even more pleased with the motorhome than we were the day we bought it.

We did have quite a problem getting leveled, mostly because of the site we pulled in to. Finally, after running the jacks up and down half a dozen times, Ron had me pull a few feet forward, which allowed us to get into a position where our HWH jacks could get us level.

With the motorhome leveled out and hooked up to water, electric, and sewer, we were all famished and more than ready for dinner. While in Celina last year for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, we had discovered the China Wok Buffet and enjoyed it so much we went back a couple of times. If anything, it was even better this year, and we all abused our diets and our waistlines.

Tomorrow we’ll be hard at work on pre-rally details. It’s going to be a busy week!

Thought For The Day – Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

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We all knew it was coming. I warned you. Well, the day has finally come. Bad Nick has his own blog! It went live Tuesday at www.BadNickBlog.com and I officially disavow anything the little munchkin does from here on out. Miss Terry was worried that I might offend somebody, but I reminded her that it’s not me at the wheel of this new blog, it’s Bad Nick. And we all know how he can be.

I reminded her of the days when I published small town newspapers, when if I didn’t get a half dozen or more calls from irate readers when the new issue hit the streets, I didn’t feel like I had done my job well.

This new blog has absolutely nothing to do with the RV lifestyle. It’s just a soapbox for sounding off about topics that don’t fit in the RV blog. Some political commentary, some common sense, some observations on life in general, and a touch of nonsense now and then. Check it out and leave a comment and let Bad Nick know what you think. 

Okay, on to other things; Monday night we moved our Select Comfort airbed over to the new rig and spent our first night in our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome. That sure was nice!

Because we have an open bedroom/bathroom floor plan, except for the water closet, the bedroom really feels roomy. A couple of issues came up – we noticed right away the difference in sound levels between our bus conversion and the Winnebago. We put so much insulation into the bus that it is very quiet inside. Elkhart Campground is less than a mile, as the crow flies, from the Indiana Toll Road, and in the Winnebago we noticed a lot more traffic noise.

The other thing is that the bed in the new rig is in the slide, and Terry’s side of the bed is to the rear, and is accessed by two carpeted steps that lead up to the cedar lined closet. In the middle of the night she got up to go to the bathroom, and coming back to bed she forgot about the steps and stubbed her toes when she walked into them. I don’t think she’ll do that too many times before she remembers!

As it turns out, the Carriage rally has been a total bust in terms of sales. Every day they load folks up in busses or form car pools and go off to tour something, leaving us vendors twiddling our thumbs and staring at each other across the vacant aisles. In my Highway History and Back Road Mastery seminar yesterday afternoon, I had a total of three people in the audience. That’s a long way from the 250 or more people I have presented it to at other venues!

There is no use in both of us sitting there being bored when so much needs done here, so Miss Terry is going to stay at the campground today and start moving some stuff over to the Winnebago and getting it arranged the way she wants it. I’m not sure which one of us comes out better on that deal.

Thought For The Day – You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

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