It figures. We left cold, rainy Alabama and went to Texas, where it was just as cold and rainy. So we left there and came to Arizona, where it was in the 70s, with plenty of sunshine. So guess what the weatherman says we can expect this coming week? Temperatures in the low 60s and up to seven inches of rain by the end of the week!

It’s that darned cloud that hangs over my head. I managed to outrun it for a few days, but it’s caught up with me. Like they say, I can run, but I can’t hide.

After having some of Miss Terry’s delicious homemade bagels for breakfast yesterday morning, we celebrated our anniversary by wandering through the huge Mesa Marketplace indoor swap meet. It took over two hours to see everything, though after the first row or two, it was pretty redundant.

There are a lot of vendors, but most of them seem to get their merchandise from the same wholesalers, because stall after stall had the very same things on display. The same sunglasses, the same clothing, the same CDs, the same kitchenware.

We were looking for a Pegs and Jokers game, having gotten hooked on the game when Ron and Brenda Speidel introduced us to it a few months ago at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally. There were a dozen or more vendors selling Mexican Train and several other games, all the same at every stall, but nobody with Pegs and Jokers.

Terry did wander through a couple of kitchenware booths and found a few things that she’s been looking for. I get bored pretty quick looking at spatulas and sifters, so instead I stood outside and watched the girls go by. But I didn’t complain, because I know an artist like Miss Terry needs the proper tools to create the delicious food she does, and I get to eat it. And besides, some of the girls strolling by were very pretty!

After doing a little more shopping at a couple of other stores, we stopped by Terry’s parents’ house and spent some time visiting with them. Then we went out for dinner to celebrate our anniversary, and talked about all of the good times we’ve had together, and all the good times we look forward to sharing in the years to come.

We appreciate everybody’s e-mails and blog posts congratulating us on our anniversary. You all make us feel very special.

Today is the last decent day we’re supposed to have for a while, and we want to try to install the engine bay fire suppression unit and refrigerator compartment fire extinguisher we got from Mac McCoy at Fire and Life Safety. You’d be amazed at how many diesel coaches are destroyed every year by fires that begin in their engine bays, and in their refrigerator compartments. We want to prevent that from happening to our motorhome!

Thought For The Day – Life may not be the party we hoped for…but while we are here we might as well dance!

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

When we woke up Friday morning it was raining hard and the wind was blowing. Obviously, we were not going to do any traveling in that kind of weather, so we rolled over and snuggled back down under the covers.

The storm hung on all day long. Sometimes the rain pounded down hard, and other times it was just a steady drizzle, but whatever it as doing, it was not conducive to being outside or traveling.

I spent the day getting a lot of things done online, including loading up Carlyle Lehman’s new Focal Wood website. Carlyle is the Amish craftsman who built the custom workstations, bookcase, and dinette table for our Winnebago motorhome.

I stopped out to see Carlyle at his place in Nappanee a few days ago, and he said that ever since I told our readers about him in the blog, and then Ron and Brenda Speidel mentioned him in their Don’t Replace, Refurbish seminar at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally last month, he has been swamped with work. When I was at his place this week, he had three motorhomes there getting things installed. That’s great, because Carlyle does excellent work and I would recommend him to anybody wanting custom RV furniture.

Besides working on Carlyle’s website, I re-entered all of the telephone numbers into my Blackberry Storm that I had lost when I updated its software the other day. Note to self – back up the darned Blackberry!

It was a lazy day, and sometime in the afternoon I decided that a nap was in order. I stretched out on the couch, and had just fallen into a very good dream when the phone rang. It was Greg White, asking if we were up for dinner. We’re always up for dinner, so we piled into their truck and headed for the local Ryan’s Buffet.

It was the first time I had been outside all day, and the entire campground was one huge puddle! In fact, all of Elkhart was one huge puddle! Greg and Jan had braved the weather to drive their pickup down to Decatur, Indiana to tour the American Coach factory, and they said the wind had been strong all the way down and all the way back. We were glad we had decided to stay put and wait for the storm to move on.

Today the rain is supposed to be over, but the wind may hang on. We would really like to get on the road, and we probably will unless it’s just too windy. But just as I said in yesterday’s blog, there is no place we have to be anytime soon, so we have the luxury of staying or going, whichever seems best.

Thought For The Day – Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

We spent much of yesterday running around Celina getting things set up for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally. There are always a few dozen last minute things to be handled that we can’t do until we get to town.

I checked in at the fairgrounds office and touched base with the manager to see if there were any changes from last year that we didn’t know about. Except for adding over 30 new electric hookups with 30 and 50 amp service, and finishing the inside of the Junior Fair Building, where our vendors will be housed, there were no surprises.

It is so much nicer to work with these folks in Ohio, compared to the jerks at the fairgrounds in Casa Grande, Arizona, where we held our Western Gypsy Gathering rallies the last three years. There we had to fight for everything, even if it was in our contract and set up months ahead of time, and everybody had a bad attitude. Here, they bend over backwards to accommodate us, and could not be friendlier. 

With that chore done, we stopped at the post office to tell them we were back in town, and to expect an influx of General Delivery mail in the next week or so. Most fulltime RVers use a mail forwarding service to handle their mail, and when they land someplace, they usually have it sent to the local post office General Delivery address.

Then we called on the local Domino’s Pizza to give them a heads up that we’ll be ordering about 75 pizzas next week for our pizza party. Small franchises need time to get the dough and other supplies ordered well ahead of time so they don’t run short when a special event creates a huge order like ours. It always amazes me that Domino’s, both here and in Casa Grande, are able to get everything delivered on time and piping hot.

Our next stop was the Wal-Mart bakery, where we pre-ordered dozens of boxes of donuts for morning coffee and donuts at the rally. Folks always line up for their morning dose of caffeine and sugar!

Back at the fairgrounds, Ron Speidel and I gave the parking situation a look, and with the addition of the new electric sites, we can handle everybody coming in for the rally easily.  

Last year after folks heard so many good reports on the Geeks on Tour Computer Boot Camp, they had so many people asking for a repeat that Jim and Chris Guld stayed around after the rally and held a second one. They are not able to do that this year, so if you want to learn more about your computer and how to get the most out of it, sign up now. They still have room left to accommodate you.

There is one final thing I have to cover about the rally. While Terry and I are animal lovers, we also have to place some restrictions on animals at our rallies. While you are welcome to bring your pets, they must be on a leash at all times, and must be accompanied by an owner when outside of your RV. Except for service dogs, no animals can be in the vendor area, or in any fairgrounds building.

Yesterday I made a lady mad because she insisted that her dog was a beloved family member, and she took it with her everywhere. She said if her dog was not welcome at the seminars and evening entertainment, she was not coming. I told her that I was sorry, but it’s non-negotiable.

I wish we did not have to take this hard line, but our insurance company is adamant on the dog policy, and I can understand why, based on some of the things we have seen at rallies in the past.

Thought For The Day – If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Yesterday we took our first short trip in our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, and we love it!

The motorhome has so much storage that getting ready to hit the road was a simple matter of pushing a button to stow the automatic satellite TV dish, pulling in the slides and retracting the leveling jacks, and then unhooking the water and electric connections. After a quick scan of all of our tires with our PressurePro tire monitoring system, I fired up the big Cummins diesel engine and pulled out of our regular RV site at Elkhart Campground.

With our bus conversion, we would have to carry Terry’s big Kitchen Aid commercial mixer and some other stuff back to the bedroom, and used a collection of assorted sized bungee cords to lash everything down. Not because they would fall over, the bus has an incredibly smooth ride, but because we didn’t want anything turning into a missile if we got into an accident.

After a stop at the campground’s propane station to fill our tank, we hooked up the van to our tow bar and were ready to go. Ron and Brenda Speidel, in their Winnebago Journey, and Ken and Billie Barker, in their beautiful older Safari motorhome, were already hooked up and waiting to go.

The most direct route to Fort Wayne, Indiana would have been down U.S. Highway 33 from Goshen, but we took the longer (but faster) route east on the Indiana Toll Road to Interstate 69 and south to Fort Wayne. It added 20 miles to the trip, but because we didn’t have any stop and go traffic in the small towns along the way, we made better time. Besides, I wanted to see how the Winnebago handled on the open highway.

I’m happy to say that it handles just fine, with lots of power and a very smooth ride. Passing trucks didn’t affect us at all, and we had plenty of oomph when I wanted to pass a slower moving vehicle. The motorhome didn’t even seem to notice the heavy van it was pulling.

From Fort Wayne, we traveled east on U.S. Highway 30, a great divided four lane highway. We crossed into Ohio, and before long we were in Van Wert. We stopped at the Murphy USA at the Wal-Mart in Van Wert for fuel, which is not one of my favorite places, but both Ron and I were lower on fuel than we were comfortable with.  

With our fuel tanks topped off, we took U.S. Highway 127 south another 25 miles to Celina. We pulled into the Mercer County Fairgrounds with 163 miles behind us, and even more pleased with the motorhome than we were the day we bought it.

We did have quite a problem getting leveled, mostly because of the site we pulled in to. Finally, after running the jacks up and down half a dozen times, Ron had me pull a few feet forward, which allowed us to get into a position where our HWH jacks could get us level.

With the motorhome leveled out and hooked up to water, electric, and sewer, we were all famished and more than ready for dinner. While in Celina last year for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, we had discovered the China Wok Buffet and enjoyed it so much we went back a couple of times. If anything, it was even better this year, and we all abused our diets and our waistlines.

Tomorrow we’ll be hard at work on pre-rally details. It’s going to be a busy week!

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

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

I believe in karma; the concept that whatever we do has an affect on our future. Simplified, it means what goes around, comes around. While karma is a tenet of the Hindu and Buddhist religions, I really think it applies to all of us.

We saw a good example of that yesterday. Elkhart Campground has a resident population of little ground squirrels or chipmunks or some sort of cute little critters, and we have enjoyed watching them pop up out of their holes and scamper around.

Yesterday, a couple in a fifth wheel pulled in next to Ron and Brenda Speidel’s Winnebago Journey motorhome, and the man managed to drop his keys right down one of the little ground squirrel holes. They fell down a good twelve to eighteen inches, and the hole was much too small to stick his hand into to retrieve them.

Miss Terry, our own little MacGyver, came to the rescue, digging into her stock of tools and gadgets to come up with one of those little metal claws on a flexible shaft, but it was too short to reach the keys. No problem, she also had a magnetic rod used to retrieve nuts and bolts that fall into inaccessible places. They taped that to the claw, and the fellow was able to get his keys back. (I’d have grabbed a shovel and dug them out, but apparently remodeling ground squirrel homes requires a different college degree than I have.)

Okay, so Terry built us up a little good karma there. It wasn’t but a couple of hours later that Ron noticed that somehow we had lost one of the safety pins that is used to attach our Blue Ox tow bar to our van. Since we planned on leaving for the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio today to get set up for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, that was not a good thing.

Al Hesselbart, from the RV Hall of Fame Museum was visiting, and even though it was after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, we jumped in his Jeep and went looking for any place that might still be open where I could get a replacement pin.

Dan’s Service Center, just a few blocks from the campground, closes at noon on Saturday, but I suggested we drive by, in the hope that somebody might be there who could help us out. Sure enough, owner Dan Miller was there washing his motorhome, and he took us into the shop and rummaged around until he found a replacement pin. That was karma coming back to reward us for Terry’s good deed earlier in the day.

Of course, you can only push karma so far. Just to be safe, I bought two pins, so I’ll be prepared the next time I lose one.

We’re leaving Elkhart this morning, traveling the 140 miles or so to Celina. This will be our first trip in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it handles on the open road.

While I’m on the road, Bad Nick didn’t want you to get bored, so he has a new Bad Nick Blog entry titled The Bad Guy Bus.

Thought For The Day – The main reason that Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally