I guess we’ve finally made the big time. There is at least one You Tube video of our Hoosier Honey beauty contest online. Check it out, and you’ll get a chuckle or two! Just don’t let your kids see it. Not because it’s dirty, but because if they realize how much fun us old farts are having, they might think we’ve lost our collective minds, and try to put us in a home somewhere!

Yesterday was another busy day at the Gypsy Journal rally at Elkhart Campground. We are running five one hour class sessions a day, with four different seminars offered in each session. That’s a lot to choose from! I presented two different seminars yesterday, Cemetery Stories, which tells some of the tales of lost love, mystery, and even humor, that we have found in burying grounds from coast to coast; and 100 Miles From Here, in which I demonstrate how RVers can find all kinds of interesting places to visit, and things to do within a 100 mile circle, from anywhere in the United States. It’s a perfect example of day trip adventures away from the RV park.

I also sat in on Roger Marble’s Genealogy 101 – Breaking Through Your Brick Walls seminar, and caught the second half of the Kayaking For Beginners seminar presented by Matt Streib, owner of Fluid Fun Canoe and Kayak Sales in nearby Bristol, Indiana. Our rally attendees all seem to appreciate having the opportunity to attend seminars on both RV and non-RV related topics.

At 7 p.m., it was time for our evening entertainment, a concert by the McKinney Washtub Two.

It was a fun filled show, with old songs some of us didn’t even know that we had forgotten, and favorites we all sang along to, interspersed with some comedy songs, jokes, and just an old fashioned good time.

Husband and wife team Whitt and Judy McKinney make music on everything from guitar and mandolin, to washboards, spoons, a flute, and even a kazoo!

They made a lot of new friends and fans with their performance, as was proved when we passed the hat for donations to reward them for their show. We are looking forward to having Whitt and Judy at another of our events in the future.

I was surprised during one of the sing along parts of the show when I realized that the beautiful voice I heard beside me was my good buddy Greg White. Among all of Greg’s other talents, he’s a great singer too! Is there anything that man can’t do?

When the concert ended, we chatted with folks for a while, and then Greg and Jan drove us to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was after 9 p.m., but during rally week we just can’t get away any earlier. Fortunately, we have so many good friends like Greg and Jan, Mike and Elaine Loscher, Donna and Stu McNichol, and others too many to list, that look out for us and make sure we don’t forget to eat, because we’re so worn out at the end of the day.

Tomorrow is our last full day of the rally. We’ll kick it off with coffee and donuts, courtesy of Explorer Insurance and MorRyde RV Suspensions. I’ll be doing two more seminars today, The Reluctant RVer, which helps new and wannabe fulltimers get over their second thoughts and last minute cold feet; and Laugh Your Way Across The USA, which is brand new, and will be just a collection of the funny and goofy things that have happened to us as fulltime RVers, or that we’ve seen along the way. 

It’s been a busy, fun week, and it’s not over yet!

Thought For The Day – The most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”

I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend finalizing things for our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Elkhart, Indiana. Can you believe that it’s less than a month away? It seems like we were just wrapping up our Western rally in Yuma, and here we are halfway across the country getting ready to do it all over again!

Yesterday, I e-mailed info letters out to all of the rally participants whom I have e-mail addresses for. We had several that bounced, even though we checked their addresses against their original reservations. So if you have registered for the rally and didn’t get a letter, it’s either because we have a bad e-mail address for you, or none at all. Please send me a quick e-mail and I’ll get a letter off to you.

Of course, no project is perfect, especially if I have anything to do with it. I had the wrong starting dates for the rally on the first letter I sent out. The rally starts on Monday, August 30 and ends on Friday, September 3rd. If your letter has an incorrect date, my apologies.

I talked to Gita Patel at Elkhart Campground yesterday. They have been busy upgrading a lot of their RV sites to 50 amp full hookups, but they are not sure the job will be completely done before the rally. So at this time, all we have left for sites that we can guarantee, are 30 amp water and electric, and a handful of 20 amp water and electric. If you register and more full hookup sites become available, we can upgrade you once you arrive at the rally, if you wish. But again, there is no guarantee.

Camping for the rally is for four nights, from Monday, August 30 to Thursday, September 2. You can arrive early or stay later if you wish, but those arrangements have to be made directly with Elkhart Campground at (574) 264-2914.  They will not take your reservation for the rally dates, that is handled through us. But for before or after the rally, they will be happy to reserve a site for you.

I also arranged for our entertainment for Wednesday night after the pizza party. Whitt and Judy McKinney, who perform as the McKinney Washtub Two, come highly recommended by several people we know, including Larry and Melissa Beahm of One More Time music, who have performed at our last two Eastern rallies. I think it’s going to be a fun show. Check out the Music Page on their website for sound clips of some of their original songs.

I talked to my buddy Greg White, who pulled into Elkhart Campground yesterday. Greg said the place is really busy, and quite a few folks are already there just waiting for the rally to begin. We’re really looking forward to seeing Greg and his pretty wife Jan again, because like I said, Jan is really pretty, and because I have a lot of projects for Greg to work on.

We also spent a couple of hours last night filling orders that came in with our last mail delivery, or from our website. I’ll be making a post office run this morning to get them in the mail.

It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s only going to get busier as we get closer to the rally dates!

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

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!