I spent most of yesterday updating our Gypsy Journal website and working on details for our upcoming Gypsy Gathering rally March 8-12 in Yuma, Arizona. As of now, we already have about 100 RVs registered, and at past rallies, most of the registrations come in during the last three weeks. So I think we’re going to have a big crowd.

I posted a preliminary rally schedule on our website to give you an idea of some of the seminars we have planned. Please scroll down to the bottom half of the page to view the schedule. This is a preliminary schedule only, and there will be some changes as more seminars and activities are added.

New for this rally will be seminars on oil painting, wine tasting, and Joe and Vicki Kieva’s excellent Personal Security Tips For RVers seminar, just to name a few. Byron Hibshan will also be on hand to tell you how you can get a non-resident concealed weapons permit from Utah, and we’ll have not one, but two seminars on RVing Alaska. We’ll also have seminars on boondocking, choosing a home base for fulltimers, and Mac McCoy’s excellent RV Fire Safety class.  

While the rally dates are March 8-12, Early Birds can arrive on Sunday, March 7 for an extra $15 fee. There is a Good Sam rally going on at the fairgrounds before our rally, and they will be leaving by noon on Sunday. Our people cannot be parked before noon. There is a large parking lot outside the fairgrounds, on 32^nd Street, and RVs can park there until the Good Sam group departs and we can start bringing our people in.

As always, we have had many requests from people wanting to be parked next to friends at the rally. While we cannot absolutely guarantee it, we will try our best to park everybody together who wants to do so. To help us make that happen, please arrive together, or be prepared to park off to the side until the rest of your group arrives. We will have 200 RVs or more to get in and parked in a very short time, and the logistics can be very difficult. Please try to arrive at the fairgrounds with empty waste and gray water tanks, and full fresh water, if possible.

They do not have full hookups at the fairgrounds, but the fairgrounds manager has told me that everybody will have electric, and there are water bibs and a dump station on the grounds.

I am a firm believer in both people in an RV being able to drive it, if only in case of an emergency. Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School will be at the rally, and Dennis will be presenting two seminars. They have two instructors in Yuma during the season. Dennis said they can give lessons before or after the rally, and they have four different RV parks in the Foothills area of Yuma that they suggest to students. You can contact Dennis at rvschool@wizwire.com for details on driving classes in your own RV.

Another important service we will have at the really is RV weighing by Rick and Joyce Lang from the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF). An overloaded RV can cost you money in the form of increased breakdowns, premature tire wear and failure, and can be downright dangerous. If you want to have your RV weighed, please click the appropriate link and complete either the Truck and Trailer Worksheet or the Motorhome Worksheet before the rally so you can give them to Rick and Joyce and they can get you on their weighing schedule. For more information on getting your RV weighed, you can call Rick at (207) 522-3336.

As you can see, there’s a lot going on. We hope we’ll be seeing you in Yuma!

Thought For The Day – If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Our Second Annual Eastern Gypsy Gathering is getting closer every day. As of now we have over 100 RVs registered, and every day more registrations are coming in. Things are happening fast, and I have lots of rally news to share with you.

At last year’s rally, husband and wife team Melissa and Larry Beahm of One More Time delighted the crowd with their concert, and a while back they wrote to ask if we’d like to have them back this year. Their concert is set for Wednesday evening, and I know you’re all going to love them.

However, as they say in those television infomercials, but wait, there’s more! Yesterday Melissa e-mailed to offer to do a second concert on Thursday evening, this one a combination of soft rock, jazz, blues, and a couple of original songs they’d like to showcase. The performance will include some Carole King, Frank Sinatra, James Taylor, Johnny Nash, and The Beatles. Sounds great, doesn’t it? I told Melissa we’d love to have them give us two performances.

These two are very talented, and a lot of fun, and all they ask for their great contribution to the rally is that we pass the hat for donations. Last year the crowd was very appreciative of their efforts, and very generous in showing them so, and I know this year will be more of the same.

We know how dangerous an overloaded RV can be, and how carrying too much weight can cause all sorts of mechanical problems, from early tire failure to broken shock absorbers and even axles. So one of the first things we plan to do at the rally is have the folks from the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) weigh our new to us Winnebago motorhome. The new rig has a pretty healthy cargo carrying capacity, but you can never be too safe, and it is an investment in our safety.

The RVSEF representatives will be doing two seminars at the rally on RV Weight Safety and RV Tire Safety, both on Tuesday morning, because they have other commitments and will have to leave the rally early to get to another event back here in Indiana. Usually they schedule RV weighing for after a rally, but this time around they will be weighing rigs as they arrive.

If you plan to have your RV weighed, please click the appropriate link and print out and complete the Motorhome Work Sheet or the Trailer Work Sheet. Then when you arrive, you can just hand it to the weighing crew and save everybody a lot of time. For weighing fees and information, or any questions, call Rick Lang at (207) 522-3336, or e-mail him at ricklang46@hotmail.com.   

If you have not signed up yet for the Geeks on Tour pre-rally Computer Boot Camp Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, click this registration link and get that taken care of now. Everyone I know who has attended one of the Geeks’ Boot Camps has had nothing but praise for it, including Miss Terry.

The material in the Boot Camp is more advanced than most people expect.  The program is designed to fill in the holes in your computer knowledge, and I promise you that you will come away a much more informed computer user. I’ve always been the one who knew his way around a computer in our home on wheels, but after taking the Boot Camp last year, Miss Terry has found herself answering questions for me many times.

The cost of the Boot Camp is $99 per computer for one person or a couple. This does not include your camping fee, which will be paid directly to the Mercer County Fairgrounds. For more information on the Boot Camp, go to http://www.geeksontour.com/bootcamp/.

The two new seminars the Geeks on Tour will be presenting, Blogger: Beyond the Basics, and Picasa: Beyond the Basics are a Gypsy Gathering exclusive that you won’t find anywhere else. They will be primarily a question and answer format, and if you will send your questions to Chris Guld in advance, she says it will help her insure they get covered.

As you can see, there is a lot going on, and if you click the Rally Registration Page and scroll to the bottom to see the schedule, I think you’ll be impressed. We think it’s going to be a great rally, and I hope we see you there! 

Thought For The Day – We teach others how to treat us by how we treat ourselves.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

With the FMCA rally over, we took in just about enough to cover our expenses getting into the event, and make a small wage for ourselves, if we had been children working in a Chinese sweat shop someplace. Financially, it was just about our worst rally ever, even though there were thousands of RVers in attendance.

The good news is that we made some contacts that may pay off down the road in terms of future business. The bad news is that every negative thing we have ever felt about the FMCA was reinforced tenfold; from the snob attitude so very many of the members exhibit, to the way they run the rally.

Terry and I have been family members of the FMCA for ten years, but we had to also purchase a commercial membership just to qualify to come here and pay them to vend. And they still expect us to maintain our family membership too! What’s up with that! I think when it comes time to renew, we’ll just tell them where to stick both memberships.

For me, the final straw was when a member of the FMCA Governing Board came by our booth and wanted to purchase about $140 worth of our products for $50, because as a Governing Board member, he felt he should get some special consideration. I asked him where the consideration was for the vendors that had to pay double duty just to get into their rally, and sent him on his way.

I think the only people who had to put up with more bulls#&% than the vendors here was longtime Gypsy Journal subscriber Greg Vederoff, who sent me this photograph of his rig after parking at a Flying J. Greg said when they pulled in they parked next to a school bus towing a car, which left and was later replaced by a cattle truck that left him this present. What a mess! 

Okay, enough of that, let’s talk about a fun rally, namely our upcoming Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio in late September. I’ve got some good news for you; the folks from Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) will be at the rally giving a couple of great seminars, and weighing RVs. If you have not had your rig weighed, that’s something you really need to get done.

An overloaded RV can be a very dangerous thing, and cost you not only in terms of premature equipment failure, but also in your very safety. Check out the RVSEF website to learn a lot about weight issues in your RV, and while you’re at it, go ahead and register for their RV Lifestyle Safety and Education Clinic too!

My pal Henry Gartner, aka Flakey the Clown, will also put in an appearance at the rally. If you don’t know this wonderful, gentle man, you’re in for a real treat! I profiled Henry in my Today’s Hero Blog a while back. Read Henry’s story and the comments by so many people who love him, and I think you’ll be impressed. Henry has promised to teach us all some easy magic tricks we can use to amaze and delight our grandkids. I’m looking forward to it.

Before I sign off, I want you to check out a brand new free website called ChatRV.com, which was unveiled at the FMCA rally. The owners tell me it’s sort of a Facebook just for RVers. Since our Verizon air card signal has been so poor here, I have not had the opportunity to spend much time looking it over. It’s got a long way to go, but could this be the next new rage for RVers? Tell me what you think.

Thought For The Day – When in doubt, just take the next small step.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally