Back when we were doing the bus conversion thing, we knew several bus nuts who took their coaches to Mexico to have them painted. We never considered it, because even at bargain Mexican prices, we just didn’t feel comfortable taking our MCI into Mexico.

Yes, I know that a lot of RVers, even some of my blog readers, enjoy traveling in Mexico. and sing its praises. That’s fine for them, but it’s not our thing. I’ve seen some Mexican paint jobs that looked pretty good, but I’ve seen some really botched ones too.

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one this bad until yesterday, when we stopped in to visit with Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint. Michele told us that this Country Coach was painted in Mexico, and by the time its owner was back across the border, the paint was blistering and peeling on the bumper.

Soon afterward, the gel coat on the rear cap started bleeding through. All because of a lack of good preparation before they started painting, and shoddy workmanship.

So yes, the owner saved some money by going south of the border to get his coach painted. But like most things in life, you get what you pay for. With the great work Michele and her crew do, for so much less than what other shops charge, I don’t know why anyone would drive all the way to Mexico and take a chance on getting  a paint job like this instead.

Here is one of Michele’s employees buffing a motorhome she is finishing up on. Now that’s a good looking paint job! We keep saving our pennies, and one of these days we may be able to have Michele work her magic on our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage.

Yesterday we dropped off the new issue of the Gypsy Journal at our printer in Allegan, Michigan, and since Greg and Jan White had never been up in that area, they went with us. Jan really liked all of the pretty country scenery and small towns we passed through along the way.

When we left the printer, we drove to Portage, Michigan to have lunch, and browsed in a couple of stores; Gander Mountain for Greg and I, Bed, Bath and Beyond for Miss Terry and Jan, and Barnes and Noble for all of us.

Back at Elkhart Campground, I caught up on e-mail, and checked some of the RV blogs I try to read on a regular basis, then went for a walk around the campground. Or at least I tried to go for a walk.

First I noticed a couple trying to get a small refrigerator into their fifth wheel, and I stopped to give them a hand. Once we had it inside, I resumed my walk, and was stopped by a couple who wanted to talk about their frustrating attempts to have the husband teach the wife how to drive their RV. They both agreed that it wasn’t working, and I strongly suggested that they go talk to Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School. Some couples just don’t seem to be able to work together on things like that, and though the husband didn’t want to spend the money on a driving lesson (which is a great investment, in my opinion), I told him that it was a lot cheaper than a divorce!

I didn’t make it far before another couple called me over to their awning to ask about the seminars at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. They didn’t have internet access to check the schedule at the bottom of the Rally Registration Page on our website, so I tried to remember all of the seminars we have scheduled. But with some 60 different seminars, I couldn’t remember each and every one. They wanted to know about as many as I could remember off the top of my head, and they asked a lot of questions about several of the seminars. I told them that I’d have the finished schedules printed up ahead of time, so they would have time to decide which ones they wanted to attend. Then the husband said, “Oh, we won’t be here. We’re headed for Pennsylvania in a couple of days, and then we’re going to New England to watch the leaves changing. We just wanted to know what we’d be missing.” Huh? I’m straining my brain and slapping bloodthirsty skeeters just so they could do some mental window shopping? I bit my tongue, and wished them a safe trip.

We’ve got a lot to do in the next few days, including picking up the new issue from the printer on Thursday, stuffing all of the envelopes and getting them mailed off,  proofing the design for the rally T-shirts, deciding on the layout of the vendor building, and a lot more. And I’ll probably need a nap or two somewhere along the way!

Thought For The Day – If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.

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All fulltime RVers have experienced it. We will be talking to somebody about our life on the road, and invariably they will ask us where our favorite place in the country is. We always reply that just as we could not choose which one of our children is our favorite, it would be just as impossible to choose just one favorite location. But, we sure can tell you some our least favorite places!

While this list reflects just our impression, and we know RVers that love some of the same places we dislike, here are our Top (or actually Bottom) Ten, in no particular order.

1. The Rio Grande Valley in Texas – Most RVers just refer to it as “The Valley,” a stretch of land that begins down in southwest Texas at Brownsville, and stretches north past Mission. This is a popular snowbird roost, where you can find RV parks in every price range, and with every kind (or lack of) amenity. A lot of people love it, but to us it was just crowded, lacking in scenic beauty, and unappealing in every way. What grass there is was full of thorns that stab your feet, and the general RVer population is so old that people joke that “every time you hear an ambulance siren, another RV site just became available.”  

2. West Texas – Just because you drove north out of the Rio Grande Valley doesn’t mean you’ve entered the land of milk and honey. West Texas is endless miles of boring scenery, road kill, and not much else.

3. Chicago, Illinois – We’ll drive 75 miles out of our way to avoid Interstates 80 and 90 through Chicago, and have, many times. The traffic is always hectic, and it has some of the most aggressive drivers in the world.

4. Utah – How can I dislike an entire state? Well, easy… it is Utah, after all! Yes, there are some beautiful places, such as Zion National Park, but overall, my impression of the Beehive State is pretty negative. I remember a trip to Saint George years ago, when Miss Terry cut her arm on a broken rack in a supermarket. When she went up to the Customer Service counter to get something to contain the bleeding, the manager and his staff were more worried about who was going to pay for the paper towels than they were about the woman bleeding all over their store. Things like that leave a permanent bad taste in my mouth.

5. Southern California – With the possible exception of the coastline at La Jolla, I’d have no problem if we gave the rest of California, south of Pismo Beach, back to Mexico. It truly is the land of quakes and flakes.

6. Montgomery, Alabama – When we visited Montgomery a few years ago to gather some stories for the Gypsy Journal, we were amazed at how consistently rude so many people were. At the Rosa Parks Museum and Dr. Martin Luther King’s house, now a memorial to the Civil Rights movement, the people on duty absolutely refused to allow us to even take the standard tour of their facilities once we told them that we were there to do a feature story for our publication. We managed to get a few stories in Montgomery, but we would have loved to hang around longer and cover all that the city has to offer. But, we kept hitting brick walls at too many of the places we wanted to write about.

7. El Paso, Texas – I lived in El Paso for a short time as a kid, and I didn’t like it then. Time has done nothing to change my mind. Traffic is always terrible, the city has no aesthetic charm, and I would not be comfortable staying anywherin the city overnight. However, if you like truck stops, fast food restaurants, strip clubs, and rundown strip malls, your opinion may be different than mine.

8. Billings, Montana – Even before a local campground owner convinced the city to ban overnight RV parking (a move that was quickly rescinded when RVers from across the nation let the city fathers know that we would all boycott their town), I have not liked Billings. We have stopped there several times, and received anywhere from poor to rude service in restaurants, shops, and even motels when we were traveling without our motorhome.

9. Houston, Texas – This is another big city with nothing to offer except heavy traffic and rude drivers. It’s always a pleasure to be driving away from Houston, instead of toward it, and it’s even better when we can avoid the city all together.     

10. Lewiston, Idaho – While the surrounding area is beautiful, with some of the most impressive scenery in the West, we found Lewiston to be a dumpy little town, with the nauseating smell of the local paper mill permeating the air.

Okay, that’s my list of my 10 Least Favorite Places. What about you? What are some of the places you have visited and are in no hurry to get back to, and why?

While I was working on this list, which I admit some may find to be a bit negative, Bad Nick was on a roll, putting together a fun little Bad Nick Blog post titled I Need Therapy. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Worrying works! 90 percent of the things I worry about never happen.

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Yesterday we had a party to celebrate Terry’s dad’s 80^th birthday. My father-in-law, Pete Weber, is one of the kindest, nicest, and most loving men I have ever known. Pete is a retired Air Force NCO, and even though he won a battle with cancer a few years ago, nothing slows him down.

He still walks several miles a day, he can do 25 pushups before I could even get down on the floor, and he can outwork most men 30 years younger. In fact, a while back Pete didn’t have enough to do, so he got himself a job as a WalMart greeter, working the graveyard shift four nights a week.

But that wasn’t enough of a challenge, so he volunteered to spend two of his nights retrieving shopping carts from the furthest edges of the parking lot! Here’s a picture of the happy birthday boy

Terry’s sisters Dani and Lisa, Lisa’s husband Jim, Dani’s beautiful daughters Lauren and Andrea, and their guys, joined us. Terry’s twin sons, Casey and Cody, and their ladies came down from their homes in Colorado, and her son Shawn and his girlfriend arrived from New Mexico, to help Pete celebrate his special day. Here is a picture of Terry and her dad. Can you tell how much she loves him?

That many people demand a lot of food, so Terry, Lisa, Dani, and their mom, Bess, prepared a feast that included Miss Terry’s delicious barbecued smoked ribs, beef sandwiches, all kinds of side dishes, and a huge chocolate cake that would destroy anybody’s diet. We all ate until we couldn’t eat another bite, and then we ate some more!

It was a great day, and everybody had a good time. We stayed until after 9 p.m., and by then everybody’s eyelids were beginning to droop, especially the Colorado contingent, who had to get up at 3 a.m. yesterday morning to be at the airport in Denver in time for their flight. I know Pete really appreciated having so many of his family with him for his birthday.

Friday I put a picture of the grapefruit tree at our RV site in the blog, and longtime reader Dave Burman thought I might want to see what life was like in his little corner of the world. Dave and his wife Mary are stuck in Frederick, Maryland, waiting for retirement so they can hit the road next year. Dave said he promised Mary that this will never happen again, and that he will drive their Winnebago Journey to Mexico if necessary, but they will be warm next winter!

I don’t blame you, Dave. We were stuck in Traverse City, Michigan during the wintertime years ago, while Miss Terry was battling cancer, and I don’t think I have completely thawed out yet! Our daughter Tiffany and her family live in Show Low, Arizona, only about a three hour drive from here, and I’d love to be up there spoiling my two granddaughters. But, until it warms up and the snow melts in the high country, that just isn’t going to happen.

Today we’re going back to Terry’s parents’ house to enjoy some more family time, and I bet there are plenty of leftovers we’ll have to wade through. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!

Thought For The Day – Birthdays are good for you; the more you have the longer you live.

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Isn’t it wonderful to be living in the greatest country in the world? We may have our recessions and our corrupt politicians, and our inept lawmakers, but compared to the rest of the world, we’re pretty darned fortunate. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how many people are trying to slip into Brazil, or France, or Mexico, or Japan to live! No, they all want to come here, because this really is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

If you have never traveled outside of this great land of ours, you really don’t have any idea what life is like for the great majority of people in the world. We are free to come and go as we want without requiring special permission, we can work at whatever career we choose, and we can voice our opinion, right or wrong, without fear of retribution from the government.

Every day I get e-mails from people telling me how terrible President Obama is, how he is going to turn our country into a giant cesspool, and on and on, ad nauseum. I find these messages foolish and boring and I delete 99% of them without opening them. Not because I am a Democrat (I’m not) or because I’m a Liberal (I’m not), but because I grew up in the country, and I can recognize the smell of bulls%#$ no matter what political flavor it carries.

But no matter what your politics are, think about this for a moment. We live in a nation where you can send out messages criticizing the government and the President, and not have to worry that storm troopers are going to kick in your door tonight. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

I said above that I am not a Democrat or a Liberal, but neither am I a Republican or a Conservative. I don’t blindly follow any political party, because that is not what this country is all about. It is about each of us being able to make our own decisions, not having somebody make them for us.

I am an American, and a patriot, and I don’t and won’t apologize for either. I stop what I’m doing and hold my hand over my heart when the National Anthem is played. I still get choked up when I see Old Glory snapping proudly in the breeze. My eyes tear up when I see news stories about our brave military men and women being welcomed home after a tour of duty overseas, and I say a silent prayer for those still in harm’s way.

I come from a long line of men who fought for America, and I respect the sacrifices generations of Americans have made to keep us free. I love my country, even if I don’t always agree with the direction our leaders sometimes take.

Happy Birthday, America. For 233 years, we have set the standard that the rest of the world aspires to be.

Thought For The Day – Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

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Everywhere you turn in the last week somebody is talking about the latest crisis. This time it’s the swine flu pandemic. Oops, that’s the H1N1 Influenza A outbreak. Somebody apparently decided that we can’t call it swine flu, because pigs (or pig farmers) were getting upset.

Somebody e-mailed to ask me if we were still going to the Escapees Club Escapade rally next month. They have decided not to go, because they are concerned about being in large groups of people with this new disease going around. Give me a break!

What about the grocery store, or WalMart? Are you just going to lock yourself inside your house until the “crisis” passes? But remember, as soon as this one is over, there will be a brand new doom and gloom prediction to fret over.

People just need something to talk and worry about between our regularly scheduled media crisis of the moment! The talking heads can’t come onto your TV screen and say “Nothing bad is happening today. Things look pretty good.” What fun would that be?

The World Health Organization (WHO) had reported only a couple  hundred worldwide confirmed cases of this new flu worldwide by Thursday afternoon. A couple hundred people out of the nearly seven billion folks walking around on this planet! I think my odds are pretty good of surviving.

Yeah, the flu spreads fast. But every news report I have heard yet says if you start to feel symptoms, DO NOT go to the emergency room, because it’s probably a minor illness. So we have this major pandemic, but it’s not serious enough to seek medical attention for. Huh?

Yes, several people have died from the flu in Mexico. But let’s remember that a LOT of people die in Mexico every week from things that are no more than a minor inconvenience here. No matter how politically incorrect it is to say, Mexico is a Third World country. That’s why its citizens keep sneaking under the fence to get here!

More people have died in drug violence along the border lately than the flu will ever get near. In Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican border city of 1.5 million people across from El Paso, Texas, five deaths a day in January and February were attributed to drug violence. And that violence is spreading rapidly in the United States. Last year alone, Phoenix, Arizona reported 366 kidnappings related to drug activity. But how many of us are staying away from El Paso or Phoenix?

I refuse to live my life in a bubble, just because some over-coiffed pretty face on a TV screen says there is a new crisis.

As RVers, we have enough to worry about already. Every minute we’re on the highway, some fool is pointing tons of metal at us going 70 miles an hour. Worry about that!

Even off the interstate highway, we can still get ourselves into trouble, as this picture my daughter took Wednesday proves. Somebody was pulling this fifth wheel into a lot on White Mountain Boulevard in Lakeside, Arizona and didn’t think about their rear overhang, apparently. We drove by the scene a couple of hours later, and there were some serious gouge marks in the pavement!

It reminded me of the time I got our bus high centered in Bremerton, Washington a few years back. (Okay, okay, Miss Terry reminded me of it!). But I don’t see any news bulletins about the dangers of doing really, really dumb things when driving or pulling an RV!

Thought For The Day – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

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