We had a lot to get done yesterday, and accomplished very little of it. Some days are just like that, I guess.

We had quite a bit of stuff that we had been carrying around in the van that we decided had to go away, so I loaded it into the Explorer to drop off at a Goodwill or Salvation Army. It’s amazing what you discover that you had forgotten you own!

A little after noon we drove back to the car dealer in Winter Haven, where we bought the Explorer, to pick up the the SMI auxiliary brake that they had agreed to disconnect from the van, and to drop off the van’s title, which we had forgotten the day before. Along the way, we stopped at a Salvation Army store and unloaded the items we had to donate.

We had noticed a squealing noise coming from the Explorer, that I suspected was a fan belt or something like that. It wasn’t a big deal, just irritating. So I asked their service department to take a look, and they decided that a serpentine belt and a pulley were glazed, which was causing the noise.

Check Out Our Holiday Subscription Special Offer!

They pulled the vehicle into the shop to change them, and said it would take  a couple of hours to get the parts and do the job. Okay, we were there, they were paying for it under warranty, so we’d get it out of the way.

Well, we all know that no job ever gets done in the time allocated, right? The two hours stretched out to almost three before they were done, but they did a good job. This was supposed to be a quick trip, so I had not taken my iPad with me, so I spent the time reading old magazines about topics I had no interest in, while Miss Terry, always better prepared, had a book to read.

We needed to find a Fed Ex drop box to send the loan paperwork back to Alliant Credit Union, and we thought we had seen one in a shopping center we would pass on the way out of town. As it turned out, we were wrong, so we stopped at a hotel to ask if they knew of one nearby. They didn’t.

Again, if I had my iPad, I could have gone online and found one quickly, but we figured we’d pass a Staples or Office Depot, which usually does Fed Ex shipping. No such luck.

Miss Terry was driving, so I got online with my Droid Incredible and looked up Fed Ex, called them, and they gave me the location of the nearest Fed Ex drop box. Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? I entered the address into our Garmin GPS, which directed us a mile north, only to then tell us to make a U-turn and drive two miles back south to the drop box! Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?

Eventually we found the drop box, deposited the envelope, and headed back to the Thousand Trails campground. We stopped along the way for a bite to eat, made a stop at Lowes, and got back to our motorhome just after dark.

We’re due to leave here tomorrow, and we still have to pack the Explorer, get our hard kayaks onto the roof, and get some other chores done. All the stuff we had planned to accomplish yesterday!

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Well, it took a while, some trial and error, and my blood pressure was in the stratosphere for a couple of days, but it was worth it. Well, it was worth it to me. Miss Terry had to live with the grouchy bear I become when I get too stressed out from dealing with thieves and idiots, and I’m not sure she’d agree that anything is worth that! But, it all came together, and yesterday we resolved the issue with towing the Ford Explorer, and took delivery of it.

Actually, we already had it, because the folks at Dodge Chrysler Jeep of Winter Haven allowed me to keep it overnight Wednesday while we tried to figure out a way to get it set up to tow behind our motorhome.

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the Explorer requires a Neutral Tow Kit, which is basically an LED light that plugs in under the dashboard, and a simple computer procedure from a Ford dealer to set up the transfer case for towing. However, the company that made the kit for Ford has gone out of business, and a dealer in Oregon bought up every kit available and was charging $375 plus $30 shipping, for an item that originally retailed for about $30. What a rip off!

A lot of internet research, and repeated phone calls to my two most reliable technical guys, Greg White and Ron Speidel, confirmed my belief that any LED light would complete the circuit and work. Thanks for all of your help and patience with my repeated phone calls, guys.

Check Out Our Holiday Subscription Special Offer!

The next step was finding a Ford dealer that would “flash” the computer for me. Jarrett Gordon Ford, in Davenport, Florida was willing to try it, and it worked like a charm! A $2 LED light beats the heck out of over $400 to accomplish the same thing!

Once we knew that we could tow the Explorer, the next job was to unload our Ford van so we could drop it off at the dealer as our trade in, and do the paperwork. Do you have any idea how much stuff you can cram into an extended length Ford cargo van? A lot! We are going to have to get ruthless about what to keep and what to dispose of, because while the Explorer will carry the newspapers we take to RV parks and rallies, and our kayaks on a roof rack, it’s no cargo van.

What it is is a very nice ride, maybe the nicest we’ve ever owned. The previous owner was a Ford executive who special ordered the Explorer as his retirement present, and it has every option that was available that year. Leather interior, power seats, power windows and door locks, power sunroof, zoned climate control, molded in running boards, and more than I can remember. These pictures are from the dealer’s web site, and are not great, but hopefully they will give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s tan with a tan interior.

In fact, I was driving it home and playing around with all of the buttons and knobs, and suddenly I started feeling uncomfortably hot, even though the air conditioner was on. I told Miss Terry later that if I had been a woman, I would have sworn I was having a massive hot flash. As it turns out, I had turned on the seat heater, an option I never hope to be in cold enough weather to need!

The base plate for towing the Explorer is on order, and it will be a couple of weeks before we get it installed. In the meantime, I’ll drive the motorhome and Terry will drive the Explorer for the little bit of running around we’ll be doing between now and then.

By the way, if you are a fulltime RVer who is having trouble obtaining financing on an RV or tow vehicle because the bean counters at your bank don’t understand our lifestyle, call my friend Eileen Gilmore at Alliant Credit Union at (773) 462-2200, extension 3621, and tell her I sent you. Eileen will go the extra mile for you. She handled the purchase of our motorhome last year, and the Explorer now, and she has always been great to work with.

While I was busy with all of the details of the Explorer purchase, Bad Nick stayed out of the line of fire, and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Coloring Outside The Lines. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Adversity introduces a man to himself.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Our old hometown of Show Low, here in Arizona’s White Mountains, was first settled by Mormon pioneers, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) still has a strong influence on the community. However, not everybody here is a member of the church, and I guess the owner of this Jeep wanted to be sure folks knew it.

In our RV travels around the country, we have seen hundreds of funny business signs, and even more bumper stickers, vanity license plates, and signs on vehicles that have had us laughing out loud. If you do much traveling, I’m sure you have too. Here are some we just couldn’t resist taking a picture of, and a few that our readers have sent us from all across the nation.

I think we camped next to these folks at least once.

When we spent a few weeks down on the Texas Gulf Coast a couple of years ago, we spotted this mural on the side of a home built RV.  I wanted to peek!

Some of the funniest vehicle signs we have seen have been on septic tank pumper trucks.  One of our readers sent the top one from California. I’m not sure which administration was in power at the time, but does it really matter?

We took this one in Indiana last summer, while staying at Elkhart Campground.

I think I may have been married to this lady at one time.

And to this one too!

My buddy, Jim Gass, sent me this picture, and when I showed it to Miss Terry, she made me sell my motorcycle.

Now this is a girl with a Bad Nick sense of humor!

We slept in yesterday, and then ran into town to do some banking, drop off some orders at the post office, and then popped in to see my daughter Tiffany for a while. Son-in-law Jim is working two jobs to make ends meet in this troubled economy, and we have not had much time to visit with him since we’ve been in town. We did get to chat for a few minutes when he came home from one job, but it was obvious that he was worn out, and we urged him to get a couple of hours sleep before he headed to his night job.  I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for Jim, and I’m glad my daughter is married to such a hard worker who gives so much of himself for his family, but I worry about the young man.

After we left Tiffany’s place, we stopped for an early dinner, and then came back to Juniper Ridge RV Resort. It was warmer than it has been all week, and the wind wasn’t blowing much, so Miss Terry took the opportunity to cut my hair and trim my beard. I’m glad she did, because I was sure getting shaggy!

Then it was a quiet evening, doing some work on the computer, watching TV, and just relaxing with my best friend. Life is good!

Well, at least I had a quiet evening. Bad Nick was busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled So What Should We Do? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Those who don’t beat their plowshares into swords will be ruled by those who do.

I believe in karma; the concept that whatever we do has an affect on our future. Simplified, it means what goes around, comes around. While karma is a tenet of the Hindu and Buddhist religions, I really think it applies to all of us.

We saw a good example of that yesterday. Elkhart Campground has a resident population of little ground squirrels or chipmunks or some sort of cute little critters, and we have enjoyed watching them pop up out of their holes and scamper around.

Yesterday, a couple in a fifth wheel pulled in next to Ron and Brenda Speidel’s Winnebago Journey motorhome, and the man managed to drop his keys right down one of the little ground squirrel holes. They fell down a good twelve to eighteen inches, and the hole was much too small to stick his hand into to retrieve them.

Miss Terry, our own little MacGyver, came to the rescue, digging into her stock of tools and gadgets to come up with one of those little metal claws on a flexible shaft, but it was too short to reach the keys. No problem, she also had a magnetic rod used to retrieve nuts and bolts that fall into inaccessible places. They taped that to the claw, and the fellow was able to get his keys back. (I’d have grabbed a shovel and dug them out, but apparently remodeling ground squirrel homes requires a different college degree than I have.)

Okay, so Terry built us up a little good karma there. It wasn’t but a couple of hours later that Ron noticed that somehow we had lost one of the safety pins that is used to attach our Blue Ox tow bar to our van. Since we planned on leaving for the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio today to get set up for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, that was not a good thing.

Al Hesselbart, from the RV Hall of Fame Museum was visiting, and even though it was after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, we jumped in his Jeep and went looking for any place that might still be open where I could get a replacement pin.

Dan’s Service Center, just a few blocks from the campground, closes at noon on Saturday, but I suggested we drive by, in the hope that somebody might be there who could help us out. Sure enough, owner Dan Miller was there washing his motorhome, and he took us into the shop and rummaged around until he found a replacement pin. That was karma coming back to reward us for Terry’s good deed earlier in the day.

Of course, you can only push karma so far. Just to be safe, I bought two pins, so I’ll be prepared the next time I lose one.

We’re leaving Elkhart this morning, traveling the 140 miles or so to Celina. This will be our first trip in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it handles on the open road.

While I’m on the road, Bad Nick didn’t want you to get bored, so he has a new Bad Nick Blog entry titled The Bad Guy Bus.

Thought For The Day – The main reason that Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally