Terry and I have been busy the last couple of days with some projects around the motorhome that we really wanted to get out of the way while we’re sitting still for a while.

One project was building a couple of kayak caddies to make moving our hard shell kayaks from the Explorer to the water’s edge easier. We got the idea from our friends Denny and Cindy Henderson, when we watched how easy it was for them to move their kayaks around.

We made the racks out of PVC, two threaded rods for axles, and some tires we bought at Harbor Freight. Putting them together was easy, and the entire project took about two hours over two days. We could have finished it in one step, except it was late in the day when we started on Thursday, and we had to run to Lowes for some nuts.

Here I am using a power tool! Everybody stand back! We have a couple of electric drills, a power saw, a miter saw, and some other neat goodies left over from our bus conversion days, but my Dremel tool is the only power tool Miss Terry lets me near. And there’s a very good reason for that! I’m the world’s biggest klutz.

Here are the caddies, all finished and ready to use. The upright sections go through the scupper holes in our Manta Ray kayaks, and make it easy to to move them around. Believe me, after a few hours of paddling, lugging a 65 pound kayak back to the truck is a lot of work! You can buy a kayak caddy for anywhere from $60 to $150, but these two cost us about $45 to build.

Of course, if it were up to me, we’d sell those heavy things and get Miss Terry a Sea Eagle inflatable kayak too. Don’t be too surprised if she comes around once she test paddles the model Tim from Inflatable Boats 4 Less has picked out for her!

While we were dragging tools out of the storage bays under our motorhome, we decided it would be a good time to get rid of some stuff we’ve been carrying around for way too long. We were ruthless, and by the time we were finished we had made a big dent in our load, and made a lot of free space in our bays.

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I put some stuff on eBay, mostly books on converting a bus, and there is a “yard sale” tomorrow morning here in the campground. Maybe I can sell some things there. If not, I’ll be listing more on eBay.

Speaking of selling things, the auxiliary brake I mentioned a couple of days ago has been sold and is on its way to the buyer in Oregon.

Somebody asked me how much the base plate connections show on the Explorer, and if it sticks out very far. Not far at all. Here are a couple of pictures of the front end of the Explorer. The guys at Camping Connection did an excellent job on the installation, and I would recommend them to anybody.

Hopefully, today at the yard sale I can unload some of the things I want to see go away, including a battery charger, a brand new electric buffer, two Malone rooftop kayak racks, and some other stuff. I’d much rather sell them, and carry around some nice folding money, than to have to spend time listing them on eBay.

Thought For The Day – It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

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Hey, give me a break! You try coming up with clever blog post headlines every day! It’s hard work!

After reading yesterday’s blog, some readers wanted to know if the new high back seat from Sea Eagle was any improvement for my bad back. Yes, after paddling 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon, I had no back pain at all, and felt great!

Somebody else wrote to ask why we keep deflating the kayak after paddling it, and then re-inflating it the next time we go out, and was it because the Sea Eagle PaddleSki was too heavy to carry inflated in our van. No, the boat only weighs about 40 pounds, and as this photo shows, I can easily drag it out of the water and stand it upright.

The problem is that our van is too tall for Terry and I to get it up there without using a ladder, and the inflated boat is over 14 feet long, so it won’t fit inside our van. Not counting the fact that our two hard kayaks are inside the van, as well as all of the newspapers we carry, and two Trek bicycles. It’s not all that much hassle to inflate and deflate the Sea Eagle, and it will be even less when I order the electric pump from Inflatable Boats 4 Less.

Yesterday morning, Dave Damon, who sells 303 products at RV rallies, came by to visit for a while, and we had a good time swapping lies. Then Terry and I had some running around to do, and drove down to Winter Haven, about 30 miles south of the Thousand Trails campground. 

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I have to be honest, I have never been enamored with Florida, but lately I have been thinking that with all of the water around here, and how much we love paddling and fishing, maybe we should switch our legal domicile to Florida. I could save some money on the cost of a resident fishing license over the much higher fees for a non-resident license. And getting back to Florida to renew our licenses would be easier than South Dakota, given our usual travel routes. 

There are three RV friendly states that seem to be home to most fulltime RVers – Texas, South Dakota, and Florida. There is an excellent mail forwarding service in Green Cove Springs, and the Good Sam Club has a mail forwarding service in Pensacola.

However, while talking to my car insurance company yesterday about another matter, I happened to mention changing domiciles, and was told that the higher cost of car and motorhome insurance in Florida would more than offset any savings on fishing licenses. We saved about a $1,000 a year on insurance when we switched from Texas to South Dakota, and I guess maybe we’ll stay right where we are.

Back at the motorhome, I had a long list of e-mails to answer, and an even longer list of forwarded junk, myths, and garbage that I just deleted without opening. I don’t mind a good joke now and then, and I’m guilty of forwarding one from time to time to a select group of twisted, sick people on my e-mail list.

But I really get tired of all of the stupid dire warnings of doom, the warm fuzzy stuff that is supposed to bring tears to my eyes, and the nonsense that anybody with half a brain cell could glance at and know is pure BS. I’m about to ban four or five folks from my inbox because they send me the same old junk over and over. I don’t need it, I don’t want it, and I don’t have time for it.

I also had an e-mail from a couple who have a fifteen year old gas powered Class C motorhome that they want to try fulltiming in this winter, before they spend big bucks on their dream rig. But they had heard from a couple of “experts” that “most” RV parks won’t let you in if your RV is more than 10 years old. These same experts had warned them that if they showed up anywhere in a rig that old, nobody would want to associate with them. They were worried that it was going to be a long, lonely winter.

I would be willing to bet that these “experts” are either RV salespeople trying to hustle them into a purchase, or else elitist jerks whom we could all do well without. For years we traveled in a 1976 homebuilt bus conversion, and we were never turned away anywhere we went, and we have never had a shortage of friendly neighbors in any campground from border to border and coast to coast.

Yes, there are a few RV “resorts” that have, and exercise, the ten year rule, but those are usually not the kind of places where I’d want to hang out anyway.  And as for being shunned due to the age of their RV, it just doesn’t happen most places. Sure, there is the occasional snob, just like anywhere in life. But overall, fulltime and extended travel RVers are some of the friendliest, most open and accepting people you’ll find anywhere. They don’t care what you drive, or what you do or did for a living. All they care about is if you’re friendly, if you have a couple of good campfire stories to tell, and if you want to ride along with them to the nearest buffet, or do you want them to ride with you!

Thought For The Day -  A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when memory fails.

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Sometimes it sucks to be me. Oh, the life of a hard working fulltime RVing newspaper publisher! Will the grind never end?

Yesterday I slept in until about 10 a.m., which isn’t really sleeping in for me, because that’s about the time I usually wake up. But Miss Terry wasn’t there to snuggle and cuddle up with like she usually is, so I had to just lay there all by myself and drowse off and on for a while before I finally drug myself out of bed.

And just in time, because Terry was busy making me a batch of her delicious crepes, with strawberry jam, for breakfast! I checked my e-mail, then read some of my favorite RV blogs. Greg White had finally posted something, after taking a day off; Dennis Hill was bragging, and deservedly so, about the pork butts he was smoking in Texas; my pals Joe and Marcia Jones are leaving Key West in search of new adventures; Stu and Donna McNicol’s blog had some new pictures of their puppy; and Mike McFall’s had pictures of his cat. Then I popped into Facebook to check in on all of my friends there.

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With all of that done and breakfast finished, we goofed off for several hours, and then decided to get some paddling in on Lake Hancock. We’re getting better at inflating my Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 kayak, but Miss Terry and I both agree that we need to contact Tim at Inflatable Boats 4 Less and order one of their electric pumps to make the job even easier. Even so, in less than 10 minutes the boat was ready to go and I was paddling away from the launch.

We paddled to the south side of the lake, to check out this derelict old sailboat, which somebody apparently pulled up to shore and abandoned. At one time this was somebody’s pride and joy, and now it’s just rotting away. I wonder how it got into this sad condition.

We paddled around the lake for about 90 minutes, crossing over to the far side and back, stopping occasionally to rest and just enjoy the water.

Miss Terry has the sharpest eyes of anybody I’ve ever known. We can be rolling down the highway at 60 miles per hour, and she’ll point out antelope grazing in a meadow, or a hawk resting on a fence post.

She spotted this osprey perched high in a tree beside the lake, and paddled over to take its picture. With the things she can turn out with her cheap little Olympus point and shoot camera, I think Terry needs to move up to a digital SLR. But the pocket size camera is handy and she always has it with her. A larger camera might end up spending more time in its case, instead of being carried all of the time.

We also saw all of these turkey vultures sitting together. How many can you count?

The sun was sinking low in the sky when we came off the water, and by the time we got the boats dried off and stowed away, and got back to the motorhome, it was starting to get dark. We spent the evening watching TV and cruising the internet.

So there you have it, my hardworking day. Unlike most working folks, I don’t even get Sunday’s off! Yeah, it sucks to be me.

Bad Nick didn’t have it any easier. He worked yesterday too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog installment of the popular Dumb A$$ Report. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg, even if you are half-cracked.

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Yesterday I took a break from working on the new issue so we could go to the post office and mail out some orders, and drive into Gloucester Courthouse to touch base with the newspaper that is supposed to print the new issue of the Gypsy Journal later this week. As it turns out, both were wasted trips.

I had forgotten that yesterday was Columbus Day, and the post office was closed. Oops. Then we drove another 8 miles to the newspaper office, only to discover that the fellow we needed to talk to had taken the day off to go fishing. I guess I should have called ahead. 

But the trip wasn’t a total waste. A few days ago, our friend Linda Spindle told us about the Ware Neck Produce Market in Gloucester Courthouse, which also carries excellent fresh seafood. Since we were there, we stopped and Miss Terry picked up some fresh picked crab meat and some scallops. Can you guess what we had for dinner? Delicious! I enjoy dining out, but I have to say that nobody cooks scallops like Miss Terry does. Then again, no matter what’s on the menu, her culinary skills are pretty darned hard to beat. I keep nagging her to do a cookbook and/or a cooking blog, but so far she’s not convinced.

I was talking to Tiffany Ingram at Passport America in Long Beach, Mississippi yesterday, and she told me that they just created a new free app for Droid phones. I downloaded it, and it’s really nifty. It shows all of their affiliate campgrounds, along with contact information, rates, and directions. That’s going to come in really handy. They also have a free app for iPhones.

Speaking of apps, a while back my iPad went on the fritz and had to be replaced. Unfortunately, in the process I lost my apps for Escapees RV parks and a really good one called State Lines, that I used a lot. I can’t seem to find them in my backup files, so if you are the producer of either app and are reading this, help! I really miss your applications.

Even with the time we lost yesterday running around, I’m still on schedule with the paper and things are looking good. I just wish we could have actually talked to the newspaper’s production foreman face to face. Any time we use a new printer, there can be unexpected surprises.

We use different newspapers around the country to do our printing, and I really wish we could find one shop to do it every issue, but then shipping it to us wherever we are becomes an issue, since in addition to the papers for our subscribers, we print several thousand extra each time around to distribute at RV parks, RV rallies, and to give to our readers to pass out in their travels.

That’s one of the things that has held us back in taking a trip to Alaska. When we make that trip, we want to do it right, and spend at least three months. We don’t want to go all the way up there, and then have to rush back to the Lower 48 to get an issue printed, and getting the job done up there is prohibitively expensive. I’m working on a couple of possible solutions to that problem, since going to Alaska has been a dream for both of us since before we bought our first RV.

Thought For The Day – Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

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Yesterday was another day of plugging away at the new issue of the paper, so there’s not a lot to talk about on that end of things. I’ve got 13 pages to go, so barring any unforeseen delays, we’re on schedule.

The Thousand Trails campground was pretty full over the weekend, but by Sunday afternoon, a lot of people had pulled out, most of them weekend campers headed back to their regular lives. Whenever we see people headed back to lives that include workday schedules, mowing lawns, and all of those responsibilities, we really appreciate our fulltime RV lifestyle.

Sometimes we have a hectic schedule of RV rallies, printing deadlines, and such, but overall we’ve got it darned good, and we know it. It seemed like we were on the go pretty much nonstop all summer, and we are looking forward to a much slower paced winter.

If all goes well with getting the new issue of the Gypsy Journal printed this week, we plan to leave here on Saturday and drive to Lexington, Kentucky, where I have my annual medical checkup at the V.A. hospital, and we’ll get the new issue mailed out while we’re there.

I am seriously considering transferring to the Tucson V.A. hospital for my annual checkups and medical care. I started out in Lexington because my dear friend Nancy Hazelton was my primary care provider there, and she helped me get my routine stuff done every year in a timely manner, to accommodate our traveling schedule. Now that Nancy has retired and become a fulltimer herself, with her hubby Orv, I have a new doctor, who is excellent. But the scheduling seems to be a little more difficult. Plus, the only RV park in Lexington is the Kentucky Horse Park, which is a bit spendy if we have to be in town for any length of time.  

We lived in Arizona before we became fulltimers, and have family all over the state, including Tucson. There are plenty of RV parks there to choose from, and since we’re there every year, it just makes more sense. I’ve heard some good reports on the Tucson V.A. hospital, so when we’re out west this winter, I plan to stop in and check things out.

Once we are done in Lexington we’ll head south, and we plan to spend some time in Florida this winter. We’d like to get back down to Key West. I have some nephews and a niece in the St. Petersburg area I want to look up, and we always enjoy spending a couple of weeks at the Escapee park in Bushnell. And somewhere along the way, we want to get our kayaks wet. It’s been over a year since we’ve had them in the water.

We don’t have a set schedule, and we don’t want one. We have to be in Yuma, Arizona for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering in early March, and between now and then, we plan to take it one day at a time.

What are your winter plans? Are you headed for a favorite snowbird hangout? Are you also playing it by ear? Or are you still stuck with a working schedule and facing a cold winter at home?

Thought For The Day – Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

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