Yesterday was a weird weather day. When we woke up we had about an inch of snow covering everything, but at least the wind from the day before had stopped. We left for Flagstaff about noon, and bucked a headwind most of the way, but nothing the van couldn’t handle.

About fifteen miles east of Flagstaff it began to snow hard, and within minutes it was sticking to the windshield and starting to cover the roadway. Near Winona, Miss Terry spotted several elk on a hillside, but the best I could do was a quick glance because driving was becoming a challenge.

Once we got to the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper, who does our printing when we’re in Arizona, it was nearly a whiteout, and the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. It was so nasty that we pulled the van inside their pressroom to load up the new issue.

We had to make a couple of quick stops before we left town, and when we got back on Interstate 40 eastbound we were both wondering if we could make it safely back to Show Low.  The road was covered in snow, and more was coming down! We knew that we had at least fifteen miles of this, if not more, depending how far east the storm had moved.

Then, miraculously, in less than a mile after getting on the interstate, the snow suddenly stopped and we were driving in sunshine so bright that we could see the shadows of the cars around us! We had dry roads and no wind all the way home. Like I said, weird weather.

In a blog a few days ago, I wrote about Two Guns, once a famous Route 66 icon. Just a few miles west of Two Guns is another reminder of the good old days, the Twin Arrows Trading Post. Long abandoned, the historic trading post has been fading away and is looking pretty forlorn, and the two huge arrows that were a Route 66 landmark had about disintegrated.

I’m happy to report that the arrows have been refurbished and are looking good today, and the news is that the old trading post will be restored, as part of a project that will include an Navajo Indian casino on the other side of Interstate 40. It’s good to see a part of history coming back to life.

I’m afraid I have some bad news to report. Any RVer who has been to a Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally surely knows Henry Gartner, aka Flakey the Magic Clown. For years Flakey has been a fixture at RV rallies, where he rides around on his motorized cart and performs magic tricks for the crowds. We received word yesterday that Henry’s beloved wife Kathy passed away Wednesday in Ohio. We always enjoyed visiting with Kathy and Henry, and we extend our condolences to Henry at this terrible time. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Miss Terry will be busy the next few days stuffing envelopes, so we can get the new issue back to the mail service in Flagstaff on Monday. Since the weather report is for more cold weather the next few days, it’s just as well. We’re happy to stay snug and warm inside our cozy home on wheels until good weather returns. Assuming it ever does!

Meanwhile, Bad Nick posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Obama Bashing Gone Too Far. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally! 

We had a long day yesterday. We left Apache Junction about 9 a.m. and drove to the fairgrounds in Yuma to check out the buildings we’ll be using for our RV rally in March.

Instead of taking Interstate 10 south all the way to Interstate 8, and than taking I-8 west to Yuma, we usually take State Route 347 through the small but growing community of Maricopa, hook up with State Route 84 for a couple of miles, and then hit Interstate 8 at Exit 151. This saves about 30 miles of driving, and except for a few miles of divided four lane roadway, the rest is a nice two lane road without much traffic.

We have noticed another possible route, State Route 238, which goes west from Maricopa to connect with Interstate 8 at Gila Bend, but we had never taken it before. Since we were in the van yesterday, we decided to give it a try. The first half of the two lane road was pretty bumpy, and the second half was a series of dips and sharp curves. We shaved ten miles off our trip, but because the road isn’t nearly as nice, it took us almost exactly as long as going our regular way. If you like drives in the country and have a smaller RV, it would probably be okay, but I don’t think I’d take my 40 foot motorhome through some of those dips.

We stopped at Augies Quail Trail RV Park in Gila Bend to drop off a sample bundle of papers. The Escapees had their Boot Camp for newbie RVers there earlier in the week, and we were hoping to run into anybody we knew, but in driving through the campground, we didn’t see any rigs that looked familiar. We know a lot of folks that stay at Augie’s when passing through this area, and it looked like a nice, clean little park.

When we pulled into the fairgrounds in Yuma, Gypsy Journal subscribers Ed and Stevi Hackenbruch greeted us. We met this nice couple several years ago, and have seen them a few times since then. They winter in Yuma, and were at the fairgrounds getting their table set up for a craft show this weekend. Running into them was a nice surprise.

We spent a couple of hours at the fairgrounds, making notes on the buildings, looking over the areas where we’ll be parking RVs, and going over some final rally details with the fairgrounds staff.

Then we stopped at the local Domino’s Pizza to talk to them about ordering over 100 pizzas for our traditional Wednesday evening pizza party. The price they quoted us was about 60% more than the Domino’s in Casa Grande or Celina, Ohio have charged us at previous rallies, and they’ll have to sharpen their pencil if they want to earn our business.

With all of that done, we drove around dropping off bundles of sample newspapers at some of the RV parks in Yuma. As we were pulling into one RV park, I told Terry that our friends Smokey and Pam Ridgely are workamping in Yuma this winter, and the name of this park sounded familiar. Just then Terry spotted Smokey’s beautiful Peterbilt truck coming out of the park. I stopped, jumped out, and waved Smokey down. He turned around and led us back to their fifth wheel, where we spent an hour or so visiting with Smokey and Pam. We have not seen them since they made a brief stop at our rally in Ohio in October, and we were glad we had the chance to visit for a while.

By then it was getting late and the sun was sinking low. We drove back eastward on Interstate 8, stopping to take a couple of pictures of the mountains near Wellton glowing in the last of the sun’s rays. That is not a natural lake you see in the foreground, just evidence of the how much water came down in last week’s storms.

On our way home, we passed by the Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino near Maricopa, spotting 15 or 20 RVs dry camping in the parking lot, and made a mental note for future use if we’re nearby and need a safe, level place to park overnight.

It was chilly and sprinkling when we left our motorhome in the morning, but the weather was beautiful while we were in Yuma. Coming back, we ran in a downpour about five miles from home, and from the amount of standing water on the roads, I suspect it rained most of the day.

We got home about 10:30 p.m., having covered about 450 miles, and I sure was ready to get out of that van and back in our motorhome!

Thought For The Day – Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

We’re on the road today, headed for Yuma to check out some things at the fairgrounds for our Gypsy Gathering rally in a few weeks. One of the buildings that we thought we would be able to use is not going to be available, but they have a couple of other ones we need to look at before we can decide which seminars will be in which locations, and where our vendors, registration, and evening events will be held.

We already have more RVs registered for the Yuma rally than we had at our Eastern rally in Ohio last fall, and every day more registrations are coming in. I think it’s going to be a big one, folks!

We have a good lineup of vendors, selling just about anything you could want to put in, on, or under your RV. Some of our latest vendor registrations include SMI Brake Controllers for towed cars, Magna Shade windshield sun screens, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Lightblasters LED lights, Phil and Ann’s RV Service, and classes to obtain a non-resident Utah concealed weapons permit, to name just a few.

We have also added several new seminars to the schedule, but I can’t put them on the website until we get back from Yuma, and know what buildings we’ll have available.

I did add a poster to our Rally Registration Page for the Michael Hargis concert Wednesday night right after our pizza party. Scroll down the page, and the poster is between the registration links and the schedule. We’re really looking forward to Michael’s show!

I’ve had a lot of folks offering to volunteer at the rally, and we appreciate it. We will need help with parking, registration, seminar room hosts, door prize runners, morning coffee and donuts, pizza party servers, and I’m sure some other stuff I’ve forgotten. We also need somebody who will be in Yuma a week or two before the rally who is willing to go out and solicit door prizes from local merchants. If you want to take on any of these chores, send me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the list.

One group we’ll really miss at this year’s rally are the Texas Trio; Richard King, Mark Didelot, and Manny Esparza, who have helped us with parking at the past two or three Arizona rallies. Those dogs are hanging out in Florida this winter, and I hope the mosquitoes bite the heck out of them! Not that I want to see them suffer, I’d just like to watch those little winged bloodsuckers try to fly a straight line after sucking down some of the 100 proof fluid those guys call blood!

Richard and Mark gave me a call from the Florida Keys yesterday, where they were dining at one of our favorite seafood restaurants on Marathon Key. They just wanted to rub it in that they were in paradise and I’m stuck in chilly Arizona, where we saw snow on the mountains, from Apache Junction yesterday!

Bad Nick was so hurt by the Texas Trio’s deserting us that he posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled So What Does Life Really Mean? Check it out and leave a comment. 

Thought For The Day – Why does a slight tax increase cost me $200, but a major tax  decrease save me thirty cents?

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I’ve had a few e-mails from readers who noted that we are currently staying at a Thousand Trails preserve and wanted to know if I felt that  Thousand Trails membership was a good investment.

As I have said many times before, like anything, a campground membership can be a good investment if you use it enough. If you don’t, it’s a waste of money. I know Thousand Trails members who get a lot of value from their memberships, and others, like Terry and myself, who really don’t use it enough to justify the annual dues.

We knew going in that it would take us some time to free up our schedule enough to really take advantage of our membership, and we got it cheap enough that we can handle that.

We have stayed at Thousands Trails and NACO campgrounds in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Ohio, and visited preserves in several other states. Most have been more than adequate for our needs, but overall we have not found them to be the idyllic resorts that the fancy brochures the marketing people put out depict.

This is our third visit to the Colorado River preserve in Columbus, Texas, and the first time that we have not had problems with electrical power (so far). As in past trips, the electrical posts at several RV sites are covered with plastic bags and inoperable, so even though the campground is supposed to have 94 campsites available, a number of them are out of service. Nobody ever seems to get around to repairing them.

This lack of maintenance seems to be a common theme at many Thousand Trails/NACO preserves across the country. We have been to some preserves where interior roads were in poor shape, and others where swimming pools and hot tubs were out of commission. There have been a couple that we have not even visited, because of the poor reports on them posted at the Thousand Trails Yahoo group.

Despite maintenance problems at some locations, every preserve we have visited or stayed in has been very clean, and the staff have always been very friendly and helpful.

Be aware that this system was designed for family camping, so in the summertime you can expect lots of kids, bicycles, smoky campfires, and such. If this isn’t your thing, like us, you will probably want to avoid the preserves when school is out of session.

Many Thousand Trails members have expressed concern over the growing numbers of RV sites that are leased out on a seasonal basis, taking them out of the pool for traveling members. These are usually the most desirable sites in the preserves. Given that, we still have always been able to find a site at any Thousand Trails or NACO campground we have visited.

What really burns me up is the fact that they have hired an outside company to handle annual dues payments. This company is also a collection agency, and there has been a lack of communication between them and the Thousand Trails office a couple of times in terms of posting payments.  Twice the dweebs at the outside company have called us and acted like we were deadbeats, when in fact the payment was already made, but Thousand Trails had not updated the records they share with them.

If you are interested in a Thousand Trails membership, be sure to get a nationwide one, with the NACO package included. And be aware that no two Thousand Trails memberships seem to be the same. It’s all about how good a negotiator you are and how hungry the salesman is, as to pricing and what added benefits your membership may have.

You can come to a preserve and sit through their sales spiel, but be aware that like all campground membership sales reps, some of the folks hustling these memberships are very much into the hard sell. A new membership will cost you thousands of dollars. Or, like us, you can buy a used membership.

There are tons of folks out there who have Thousand Trails/NACO memberships who just want to get rid of them and stop paying the dues. You can find a used membership for anywhere from free to about $1,000. Some people ask a whole lot more for them, because they believed the salesman who sold it and told them they could always get their money back.

When we decided we wanted a membership, I simply put a post on the Escapees forum and was swamped with folks wanting to unload theirs for anywhere from free to $5,000.

We got our membership used for $100 plus the $750 transfer fee, from a lady whose husband died and she wasn’t RVing any more. We can stay at any Thousand Trails or NACO park nationwide for fourteen days, and go directly to another one with no days out of the system. The original owner wanted to give it to us, but my attorney said to give her $100 to make it a binding contract.

Our annual dues are $500, which gives us 50 nights of camping, and after that, we pay $5 a night. If we wanted to pay higher annual dues, we could stay in Thousand Tails/NACO parks 365 days a year. So it can be a good bargain if we used it enough, which we hope to do, now that our schedule is not so complicated.

If you are considering a used membership, always call Thousand Trails and give them the contract number and ask what it includes, and if there will be any changes if you buy it. Here is a link to a website where you may be able to find a good deal, if you are looking for a used membership  http://www.rvparkstore.com/campground_memberships.htm

And while you’re online, check out Bad Nick’s new blog post What Does It Take? and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – A cloth is not woven from a single thread.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

When we got up yesterday morning it was 12 degrees in Elkhart, Indiana! That’s to damned cold for any sane person to be living in, which apparently explains why my pal Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum is spending the winter there. 

But, at least the wind had died down, the sky was clear, and they got the repaired driver’s seat reinstalled. With even colder temperatures on the way, Terry and I decided to make our escape while we could. We settled up with Duncan RV Repair, hooked our van to the back of the Winnebago and pulled out about 11:30 a.m.

When I first plug in our PressurePro tire monitoring system, we get a warning signal if the tire pressures are low, which they will be after a cool night. But we had been in very cold weather for days now, and it took forever for the tires to warm up enough for the warning alarm to stop beeping. Terry scanned all of our tires pressures to be sure they were okay and we kept on rolling. Nothing short of a wheel falling off the rig was going to make me stay one minute longer.

We retraced our route south on U. S. Highway 31 to Indianapolis from a week earlier, picked up the I-465 bypass to the east, and got off on Interstate 74 eastbound. For the first 75 miles or so we had some snow blowing across the highway, but the roads were pretty dry overall. There were a few wind gusts that caught us by surprise, but nothing so bad as to be dangerous.

We entered Ohio for a few short miles, and then took the I-275 loop around Cincinnati, veering back into Indiana for a short stretch before we crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky.

Our Ultimate Advantage has a digital thermometer on the dashboard that measures outside temperature, and as it climbed from 12 degrees in Elkhart up to 18 in Indianapolis, and then 28 degrees as we drove south on Interstate 75 in Kentucky, I told Miss Terry we were having a heat wave. The temperature had risen by over 100% in just a few hours!

We stopped at the Flying J in Walton, Kentucky, and got another scare as some idiot in a small car went flying out of the parking lot as we were pulling in, driving up on the curb with two wheels to get past us, with inches to spare.

While I was filling our fuel tank, I saw an older couple with an Allegro Bus who were having problems trying to dump their holding tank. The man apparently has some physical problems, so his wife was bent over fighting something inside the sewer bay. I asked if I could help, and discovered that the plastic access hole cover in the bottom of the bay had been wet when last screwed in and was now frozen in place.

Since the configuration of the bay was such that the sewer hose had to come up from the bottom to attach, there was no way the lady could hook up her hose. I got a large screwdriver and a hammer out of our toolbox, and after several hard whacks on the end of the screwdriver was able to free the cover. Then the hose was too cold and stiff to want to stretch enough to reach the dump station, so I helped them with that and held it in place until the husband could get his foot on the end of the hose to secure it. My good deed for the day done, I finished filling our tank, shivered my way back into the motorhome, and off we went.

We pulled into Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington about 5:30, just as the sun’s last light was disappearing from the sky. Every year they decorate the Horse Park for the Southern Lights Christmas display, and it is pretty impressive. But not so impressive that I want to stay any longer. Its a few degrees warmer than Elkhart, but still way too cold. I have some medical stuff to deal with at the VA hospital this morning, and we hope to be back on the road quickly. I know that somewhere there is a palm tree with my name on it, and I’m gonna find that darn thing even if it kills me! 

Thought For The Day – A short pencil is better than a long memory.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally