Every fulltime RVer gets asked one question from almost everybody they meet – “What’s your favorite place in the country to visit?’ I always tell people that I don’t have just one favorite. That’s like asking me which one of my kids I love the most. It’s impossible to choose just one.

But I always tell folks that I can tell the one place I don’t like the most – the Rio Grande Valley in Texas! We know a lot of snowbirds who just love the place, and that’s fine for them, but one short visit a couple of years ago convinced us that we never need to go back.

Well, guess what? I’ve found a place I don’t like even more than I don’t like the Valley. That would be most of California between San Diego and San Francisco, with the exception of the area around Morro Bay.

Just like the Valley, I know that there are a lot of people who like this place. There must be, because there sure are a lot of them living here! But it’s just not our cup of tea. Prices are high, the stores are always crowded, traffic seems frantic all the time, and too many drivers have a kamikaze attitude.

I don’t mean to offend our friends from California, but I don’t  think we’ll be in any hurry to return. But that’s the beauty of the RV lifestyle. Everybody can find places they want to spend their time, and not go to places they don’t care for. It would get pretty crowded if we all wanted to go to the sames places, wouldn’t it?

We were getting to the point where we either needed to check into a nudist park, or get some washing done. I was all for the skin and sun option, but Miss Terry is more conservative, so yesterday we found an open coin-op and did a couple of weeks’ backlog of laundry. We also had dinner at Applebee’s and stopped at Kohl’s so Terry could buy some shoes for her son’s upcoming wedding.

There are eight RV sites here at the Gilroy Elks lodge, and when we arrived late Saturday afternoon, the place was almost full. By the time we got back from running around Sunday evening, it was almost empty.

We have decided to cut our California visit short, and instead spend a few days in Salt Lake City, Utah so I can do some genealogy research at the LDS Church Family History Center. We are not Mormons, but anybody can use their facilities and resources to trace their family tree. The collection includes over 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records; 727,000 microfiche; 356,000 books, serials, and other formats; over 4,500 periodicals; and 3,725 electronic resources. Their database contains more than 36 million names that are linked into families, as well as the names of over 600 million deceased people. There must be somebody I’m related to in all of that! I’m not sure where we’ll stay in Salt Lake City yet, as there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of options when it comes to RV parks.

The roads are sure to be busy today with everybody going back home from their long holiday weekend, so we’ll sit tight until Tuesday and then head out. We’re ready to put California in our rear view mirror.

Thought For The Day – Regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take its place.

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We were out of bed earlier than usual yesterday morning and hit the ground running, and didn’t slow down until well past midnight. Sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day.

We’re leaving Elkhart Campground today and driving 150 miles to Muskegon, Michigan for a week to spend some time visiting with my cousin Berni and her husband Rocky. We had several last minute things to get done before we left, not the least of them being laundry.

Elkhart Campground has full hookup pull through 50 amp sites, but the site we prefer has just 50 amp electric and water. That’s not a problem, because we have a large waste holding tank, so we only have to hit the dump station every couple of weeks. But Terry can’t do laundry with our onboard washer and dryer,so I dropped her off at the campground laundry, then ran to the post office to mail out some orders.

Back at the campground, I stopped to check in on Terry, and she was just putting the clothes in the dryer. While she was finishing up the laundry, I checked our propane tanks, and one was empty, so I drove up to the office to have it filled. When we built the bus conversion, we opted for a pair of portable propane tanks instead of a stationary onboard tank, because it makes it easier to refill. Instead of having to drive the bus to a propane station, I just take one of the tanks, as needed.

By then Terry was finished, so we ran to Wal-Mart to pick up some items. A few minutes after we got home, Jack and Paula Conrad, from Arcadia, Florida stopped over to visit. Jack and Paula have a very nice MCI bus conversion, and every year they host a large New Years bus rally in Arcadia.

We had a nice visit, and by the time they left, it was time to unload some of the bundles of papers in the van so we could load our kayaks and bicycles back in, and then reload the papers around them. While we were doing that, longtime Gypsy Journal subscribers Pete and Patty Gioia stopped by to say hello. Pete and Patty are a neat couple that Terry and I both enjoyed meeting, and we look forward to seeing them again in our travels.

With the van finished, there was still laundry to put away, a bed to be made, and blogs to write before we could begin to think about getting to bed.

We have a lot planned in the next few weeks. We’ll spend a week in Muskegon, and then we will return here for a couple of days, and head over to Bowling Green, Ohio to be vendors at the big FMCA rally July 20-23. As soon as the rally is over we’ll be on our way to Traverse City, Michigan for Terry’s annual oncologist checkup. 

August 3-7 will find us vending at the Newmar Kountry Klub Rally in Goshen, Indiana, if the nice lady in charge of the vendors ever sends me the necessary paperwork. I’ve talked to her twice now and each time she was going to e-mail it to me immediately, but I’m still waiting. We’ll have a week or two to catch our breath, and then August 24 – 28 we’ll be back in Goshen to vend at the Carriage Travel Club Grand National Rally.

With those events behind us, we’ll be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania September 13 to 16 for the RV Lifestyle, Education & Safety Clinic held by the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF).

When we lost Gaylord Maxwell last year, Life on Wheels ended, which left a big hole in the education options for RVers. I was delighted when Walter Cannon, the head honcho at RVSEF, called to tell me that he was going to hold the new event, and asked me to present some seminars. If you have been lamenting the fact that you never got to attend a Life on Wheels conference, now is your chance. Several of my fellow Life on Wheels instructors will be participating in the RVSEF program. I hope we see you there.

As soon as we’re finished with the RVSEF educational clinic, we’ll be burning up the highway back to Celina, Ohio for our own Gypsy Gathering rally September 28 to October 2. This will be our second Eastern rally, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I have posted a tentative schedule on the rally page on our website, just scroll down to the bottom of that page and check it out. This is NOT the final schedule, we’ll be adding several other seminars and doing some fine tuning before the rally date, but it will give you an idea of some of the offerings we have in store for you.

After that is all over, and after some appointments at the V.A. hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, we will be more than ready for some downtime.

We plan to head to Florida for a while, and I’m hoping that if I whine and snivel hard enough and long enough about needing a vacation, our pals Tom Owen and Diane Rojewski will invite us back to their houseboat in Key West for a week or three. By then, I’ll be ready for a tropical getaway.

Thought For The Day – I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

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