I spent most of yesterday working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, making and receiving telephone calls about our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and making plans for future rallies.

I had hoped to be almost done with the new issue by now, but I got lazy and didn’t keep on top of things, so now I have to push a little harder to make our deadline. It’s no big deal, we’re not behind schedule, I just have to knuckle down for a few days.

One call I got was from the manager of the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio, to discuss the dates for our 2011 Eastern rally. That’s a long time from now, but it takes a lot of planning to get things arranged, and venues large enough to handle our size group book well in advance. We didn’t lock anything in yet, but right now we’re looking at either the third or last week of September.

We don’t want to go back to the same place over and over, but it’s not easy to find a venue that has the facilities that we need and that will work within our budget. We had a commitment with the good folks in Celina for three rallies, and we are looking forward to going back to the friendly little town. It’s a very nice fairgrounds, and they really bend over backwards to accommodate our needs. We have never found anybody we can work with as easily.

I also talked for a bit with Daryl Lawrence from Lawrence RV Accessories, and I already have his commitment to be a vendor at the 2011 Eastern rally. We are pleased that so many of our vendors return again and again. That tells us that we must be doing something right.

Daryl and I lamented the fact that it is very hard for vendors to make long range plans, because some RV clubs and organizations don’t seem to be willing to communicate with each other about rally plans, even after they have the dates and locations locked in. I’ve never been able to figure out that thinking. If everybody knows what everybody else is planning, we can work together, rather than planning events with conflicting schedules that only reduce the numbers of attendees and vendors, who can’t be in two places at once. It’s hard enough for vendors to make a profit in this economy as it is, but having to play silly waiting games to find out where and when some of the rallies are going to be held makes it almost impossible.

I also got a telephone call from my daughter Tiffany, to tell me that she and hubby Jim had stopped to check out some Indian petroglyphs on the banks of a dry wash about halfway between Snowflake and Holbrook, some 35 miles north of Show Low. They came around a bend in the wash and spotted a mountain lion feeding on something up ahead. The cougar quickly ran off, but Tiffany said its paw prints were as big as the palm of Jim’s hand up to the second knuckle. And that young man has big hands! They took their clue from the cat and took their leave too, in the opposite direction. Yes folks, some places remain where the West is still wild!

About 4:30 I escaped from my desk long enough for us to drive to Pinetop with Greg and Jan for dinner at the Chuck Wagon Steakhouse, which was a favorite of mine when we lived here. The restaurant is very rustic looking, with an Old West theme that includes an impressive bar, saddles, mounted big game heads, and a chandelier made from elk antlers.  

Greg and I had rib eye steaks, while Miss Terry and Jan choose the petite sirloins. I was pleased to learn that the food and service were both just as good as I remembered.  Greg, Jan, and Terry were all very happy with their meals also. When the waitress came by to inquire if we wanted dessert, we were all too full to say yes.

Back at the Elks campground, I worked some more on the new issue of the paper and then just before dark we decided that dessert wasn’t such a bad idea after all. So we all piled back in Greg and Jan’s truck and went to Dairy Queen!

Thought For The Day – When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

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.

After getting a clean bill of health from my new doctor at the V.A. hospital in Lexington, Kentucky on Monday morning, we returned to the Mercer County Fairgrounds that afternoon to wrap up some business and do some exploring in the area.

We love small towns, and Ohio has many charming little communities to choose from. Greenville, located about 30 miles south of Celina on U.S. Highway 127, is a friendly community with a lot of history, and one of the best small town museums we have ever found.

Midway between the two towns, the small hamlet of North Star consists of a post office, a couple of stores, a farm implement dealer, and a smattering of houses.

But North Star has a special claim to fame; Annie Oakley. America’s most celebrated female marksman was raised here, and learned to handle a rifle shooting small game to help feed her impoverished family. By the time she was seven years old, she was an accomplished hunter and trapper, even selling her excess game to a store in Greenville. A small roadside monument honors the girl sharpshooter at the site of the home she lived in. Annie Oakley is buried in a small cemetery just off Highway 127, a couple of miles from her girlhood home.

Greenville remembers Darke County’s favorite daughter with a statue of Annie Oakley downtown, as well as a two room exhibit in the fabulous Garst Museum.

We have visited many small town museums over the years, and I can’t remember one that impressed us more than the Garst Museum. Besides Annie Oakley, the museum has an extensive exhibit on another local celebrity, Lowell Thomas, one of the best known writers and filmmakers of the 20^th Century. Other exhibits include Native Americans, military history, a re-created small town made up of storefronts from everything from a dentist’s office to a toy store, and an outstanding display of Currier and Ives prints.

Greenville is also the home of the Kitchen Aid company, and visitors can tour their factory on the north side of town. On the town’s main street, the Kitchen Aid Experience Center is housed in an old department store, and visitors can see and try out a nice selection of small appliances, and shop for bargains on mixers, toasters, blenders, and accessories. Being an accomplished chef, Miss Terry loves this place, and whenever we’re in the area she stops in to drool over the goodies.

Besides lots to see and do, Greenville has some of the friendliest people we’ve met anywhere. Everybody we talked to treated us like next door neighbors and friends. When you get away from the big cities and the Interstate highways, and get out on the two lanes roads, you’ll discover the real America, in places like Greenville, where the heart and soul of our country lives.

We had originally planned to cover some stories in eastern Ohio in the next few days, but the weather is not cooperating, so we are undecided about our next move. We need to get back to Elkhart to get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal in production, so we may head in that direction and hit some locations between here and there instead.

We’re enjoying the fact that we don’t have to be anyplace and have no commitments until our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in March! We’re finally getting some of that freedom that the fulltime RV lifestyle is all about!

Quite a few people have written to ask when Bad Nick will be posting a new blog. The little imp has been taking a hiatus while all of the Ohio rally activities were going on, but I have it on good authority that he’ll be posting something any day now, and he’s got lots to say!

Thought For The Day – If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

By yesterday morning there were only a handful of RVs left at the Mercer County Fairgrounds, and several of those left by mid-day. Mike and Elaine Loscher were the first to pull out, headed for Elkhart, Indiana to get some service done on their Winnebago Class A motorhome.

Soon after Mike and Elaine left, Ron Speidel fired up the Caterpillar diesel engine in his Winnebago Journey motorhome, and while Ron and Brenda hooked up the Saturn they tow behind them, Larry and Carolyn Stover stopped to say goodbye before they headed on down the road with their Carriage fifth wheel.

Ron and Brenda have been with us for seven weeks now, first at Elkhart Campground and then at Celina, helping us get settled into our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome, and then in Celina, doing 101 things before, during, and after our Gypsy Gathering rally to make sure it was a success. We couldn’t have done it without them, and we appreciate them more than we can ever say. Now it was time to say goodbye, as they headed off to begin their winter travels. There were lots of hugs and loving words as we said our goodbyes and saw our friends pull out.

Then it was time for Terry and I to take our leave. We had debated leaving the motorhome at the fairgrounds, and driving the van down to Lexington, Kentucky for my annual appointment at the V.A. hospital today. But at the last minute, we decided that we wanted to take our home with us and avoid a night in a hotel. While we were hooking up the van to our Blue Ox tow bar, Ken Barker came over to say goodbye. He and wife Billie were staying over another night at the fairgrounds in their gorgeous 1991 Safari motorhome. We had only met Ken and Billie once before, but we became so close to them this year that we look forward to our next time together.

It’s always sad to say goodbye, and in the fulltime RV lifestyle, we have a lot of goodbyes. But the good news is, we also have a lot of hellos in this lifestyle, and we know we’ll see all of our friends again somewhere down the road.

All that was left was a quick scan of our PressurePro tire monitoring system to make sure our tires were all properly inflated, and we pulled out of the fairgrounds and drove east on State Route 29, hooked up with U.S. Highway 33 and continued east, and in less than a half hour we were on Interstate 75, headed south.

It being Sunday, we chose to stay on Interstate 75 right through Cincinnati, rather than taking the longer I-275 bypass around the city. Traffic was light, and except for several stretches of road construction where we had to slow down to 45 miles per hour, we cruised along just fine. Before we knew it, we were crossing the Ohio River and were in Kentucky.

This was the first test for the Winnebago’s big 350 Cummins diesel engine on a familiar route. There are several hills south of the river, and we’ve taken this route in our old MCI bus conversion many times, towing the van. On a couple of the climbs, we used to have to get over in the right lane and let everybody pass us as the Detroit diesel chugged right along, pushing us up faithfully, if not quickly.

In the Winnebago, we got down to 48 miles per hour on one hill, and that was only because other traffic slowed us down. On the others, I was passing eighteen wheelers, just to see what the big Cummins engine could do. Normally I try to keep my speed between 55 and 62 miles per hour, if I can safely do so without getting run over by speeding trucks, but this trip I ran a bit over that most of the way, just to see how the new rig performed.

We arrived at Kentucky Horse Park Campground, on the north side of Lexington, and backed into the same site we had last year. I hooked up to water and electricity, and said a silent thank you to Daryl Lawrence from Lawrence RV Accessories when I glanced at the Electrical Management System (EMS) he installed at the rally, and saw that everything was fine. I know from experience that not all campground power is reliable, and the EMS in our bus conversion saved us from damage several times in the past.    

This was our fist solo trip in the Winnebago, and I have to say that we were both very pleased with its performance and ride. It has lots of power, holds the road great even in the curves, and is comfortable at every speed we’ll be driving at.  

Thought For The Day – Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem.

Our Gypsy Gathering rally ended yesterday, and in spite of morning rain and afternoon wind, RVs departed the Mercer County Fairgrounds here in Celina, Ohio headed in every direction. The greatest majority of them are headed south.

That’s right, it’s time for the annual snowbird migration. Over the next few weeks, every highway in the United States will be carrying RVers away from the snow and cold weather that will descend on the northern portion of the country in the months ahead.

Some will be headed to Florida, others the Texas Gulf Coast or the Rio Grande Valley, while others will spend their winter in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern California.

Many RVers have a favorite campground they return to every year to spend the winter among friends, while others (Terry and I included), prefer to wander around from place to place during the winter months, stopping here and there for a few days or weeks at a time.

Our current plans (which are always chiseled in Jell-o) call for us to start the winter in Florida, where we will spend some time in Key West, and the rest just aimlessly exploring. I’m sure we’ll show up at the Escapees Sumter Oaks campground near Bushnell, and the Thousand Trails Peace River preserve in Wauchula. Our pals Jim and Chris Guld say this is one of their favorite kayaking places. We spent three weeks in Crystal River a few years ago, and may go back and see if we can spot a manatee or two.

When we leave Florida, we’d like to stop at the Escapees Plantation RV park in Summerdale, Alabama. We have always enjoyed the Alabama Gulf Coast, and we’re ready for a return visit.

We have to be in Yuma, Arizona for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in March, so we’ll probably start heading west in late January or early February to give us plenty of time to get there without being rushed, and to have some time to spend with our family there before we get too wrapped up in rally activities.

So where do you plan to spend the winter? Are you a snowbird who goes to one place and stays put, or do you flitter about like Terry and I do?

Speaking of our rallies, we have some news to share on that front. We have set the date and location for our 2010 Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. It will be August 30 to September 2 at Elkhart Campground, in Elkhart, Indiana.

We chose these dates and location for a couple of reasons. One frequent comment on our rally feedback forms is that many attendees want full hookups with either 30 or 50 amp electricity. At Elkhart Campground we will have both partial and full hookup sites, with attendees’ choice of 30 or 50 amp power available.  This will also place rally attendees and vendors in the area in time for the Escapees Escapade rally in Goshen, Indiana two weeks later.

We have also made a change in our vendor policy for future rallies. In the past we have limited vendors to only one vendor per type of product at each rally, but starting with Yuma, we will be allowing competing vendors to register, as long as they are not selling the same name brand products.

For example, if a vendor is selling Brand A dry wash products, we will also admit a vendor selling Brand B dry wash products. This has been a frequent demand by rally attendees to give them more shopping options, and after talking to the vendors at this rally, they say they think it’s a good policy change. We do too.

Thought For The Day – I’m a walking storeroom of facts, I’ve just lost the key to the door!