Several readers have written to ask why we didn’t visit Colonial Williamsburg during our recent trip to Virginia, suggesting that it would be a good story for the Gypsy Journal. We have also had e-mails from readers in the last couple of weeks wanting to know why we didn’t tour this place or that place during our week in Washington D.C., and asking how we choose which places to write about.

Several factors play into it, including our personal interests, the time we have available, whether or not we have covered something similar in a recent issue, and whether or not the attraction, museum, or whatever will give us complimentary admissions, and a media kit to help us develop a story.

We have no interest in theme parks, so you’ll probably never read a feature about Dollywood, Disneyland, or Silver Dollar City in the paper or the blog. Besides which, those places have been done to death. When possible, we prefer the lesser known attractions and places to visit. That’s not to say we don’t hit some major stops along the way – in the new issue of the Gypsy Journal we have stories on the National Holocaust Museum, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Newseum, and the American Indian Museum, to name a few.

Terry and I love history, and we could easily fill every issue with just stories about this famous Revolutionary War or Civil War battlefield, that old fort, and those historic homes. But not everybody is a history nut, so we have to try and temper our interests and include different kinds of stories to make the Gypsy Journal meet a wide variety of interests.

Some readers wanted to know why we didn’t tour the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum while we were in Washington. Well, first of all, we just didn’t have the time. And, we have done stories in the past on the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida; the Pima Air Museum in Tucson; and the Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas. Not to mention a couple of rocket museums along the way. 

We also have a policy of not paying to tour an attraction that we are then going to write about and give thousands of dollars worth of free publicity to. We visit a lot of places in the course of a year, and paying $15, $20, or more each for the two of us to get into all of them would not fit into our budget. We’d have loved to have visited Colonial Williamsburg and included a feature story for the paper, but they declined to supply us with media passes, or even a media kit to work with. Hopefully we can work something out with them the next time we’re in that area.

This may sound like we’re looking for a handout, but that’s not the case at all. Every publication, indeed every business, has a budget that they work within.  When we work together with an attraction, we both win. We feel that we give the places we write about a lot of excellent exposure, and judging by the feedback we get from them, they do too.  If an attraction or museum won’t provide us  media passes, and we don’t have a deep enough interest or desire to pay to see it, we’ll look for someplace else to write about.

There is never a shortage of places for us to discover, and the good news is that if we don’t got to some attraction this time around, we have a great excuse to go back again someday!

Thought For The Day – Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.

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We spent Wednesday night dry camping in the designated RV parking area at the Route 66 Casino, and thought we might have a problem with our Onan 5500 generator.

We fired it up to run our rooftop air conditioner and all was going along fine, with the generator putting out 123 volts according to the meter on our Progressive Industries EMS system. Suddenly the voltage dropped to 104 volts and the EMS cut out, as it is designed to do in low voltage situations. We turned off the air conditioner and the reading was still 104 volts. With the EMS not engaged, which allows no power to come through, and thus no load on the genset, we were still reading 104 volts.

I let the generator sit for about an hour and fired it up, and it was putting out 123 volts again. But soon it did the same thing, dropping to 104 volts and staying. The AC was not on this time, and all we were using was 9 amps according to the EMS. We had last used the genset about three weeks ago and it was working fine then.

Yesterday morning we left the casino about 9:30 a.m., after waiting for rush hour traffic in Albuquerque to calm down, and headed east on Interstate 40. I think rush hour is actually 24/7 in Albuquerque, and construction zones with lane closures are just a fact of life there, but we managed to thread our way through it all and began to long uphill climb out of the valley. We were in the right hand lane, radiator misters going and moving slow, but we made it okay.

Terry fired the generator up again and we ran the rooftop air conditioner for about four hours with no problems, so I guess the gremlins who were causing problems the night before were taking the day off.

We traveled 190 miles to Tucumcari, where we left the interstate and took U.S. Highway 54 northeast. Add the depressing little town of Logan, New Mexico to your list of places to avoid. There were signs posted  all along the highway through the rundown downtown (what there is of it) saying “No Overnight Parking” and one sad looking RV park next to the railroad tracks. As we were coming into town a group of about nine young men were in an altercation alongside the road that looked like it was going to get violent very quickly.

We crossed into Texas, and tried to hold our breath as we drove past the huge cattle feeding operations near Dalhart. I like the aroma of beef sizzling on the grill a lot more than I do when it’s on the hoof in the muck.

I was looking forward to passing through Hooker, Oklahoma, home of the Hooker Horny Toads ball team. The last time we visited Hooker, I got a giggle out of the sign in front of a building identified as the Hooker Chamber of Commerce. I had no idea they were that organized!

There was a lot of road construction in Hooker, and one sign I really wanted to stop and get a picture of said “We’re building a better Hooker for you” but there was no place to pull over. I wonder if they take custom orders…..?

Before long we crossed into Kansas at Liberal, home of the fantastic Mid-America Air Museum, which we did a feature on a few years ago. Liberal is also home of the Dorothy’s House Museum and an annual Wizard of Oz celebration.

I knew that one of my ex-wives was back in Arizona, but that left one still unaccounted for, so I kept a sharp eye out for witches until we were out of town. One can’t be too careful.

A half hour or so after we left Liberal, we came to Meade, home of the Dalton Gang Hideout, which we will visit tomorrow. We are parked for the night in the Meade city park, which allows free RV parking. There are a few water bibs scattered about, and the park has a dump station. We are sharing the park with a couple from South Dakota in a small fifth wheel, who stopped by to say hello, and a tiny Toyota camper from California.

We covered 456 miles yesterday, which was more than we had planned to drive, but it was a good day, the bus was running smooth, and traffic was light, so we just kept on rolling. It’s good to be back on the road again!

Thought For The Day – No one ever achieved worthwhile success who did not find themselves with at least one foot hanging over the brink of failure.

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