We had a great time yesterday, but I sure am sore this morning!

Yesterday Terry and I, along with Ron and Brenda Speidel, floated the St. Joseph River from Mottville, Michigan to Bristol, Indiana, a distance of about 7 or 8 miles on the water. I said float, but the water was so calm that we paddled for much of the trip.

You may recall that I sold my first kayak and replaced it with a different model, from Fluid Fun in Bristol, and that after one paddling excursion that lasted about an hour, I quickly realized that I had chosen the wrong boat. The good folks at Fluid Fun are very dedicated to their customers and to the sport, so they allowed me to trade it in on a different model that fit me much better. This was the inaugural trip in the new boat.

The launch in Mottville is very nice, and the river was flowing along nicely, allowing us to just dip our paddle blades into the water now and then to keep the front of our boats pointed straight. In no time at all we were paddling under the historic Mottville Bridge. Built in 1922, the bridge is the longest concrete camelback bridge in the United States.

I think the St. Joseph River must have one of the largest populations of turtles in the world. We saw then everywhere. Sunning on logs, swimming along, and slipping off the bank into the water as we passed by. This log held eleven, and we saw even more on other logs during our trip! There were also plenty of birds; Canadian geese, swans, blue heron, and ducks.

In some places the river was very wide, and in others it narrowed down, as shown in this view from Miss Terry’s perspective. The river is pretty shallow, not more than a couple of feet deep most of the way, and so shallow in some places that I got grounded on the gravel bottom and Terry had to grab the front of my kayak and give it a couple of strung tugs to get me moving again. (On dry land, she sometimes accomplishes this with a couple of strong kicks to my hind end.)

We put in at 2:30 p.m. and the trip took us just over three hours. The current that had carried us along early in our float died out, and we spent most of the trip paddling. I sure felt it in my back and shoulders by the time we arrived at our take out point in Bristol! I bet if I did that two or three times a week, I’d probably fit in my kayak better, and maybe not get stuck in shallow water so often!

On another topic, several blog readers have asked me to repeat the information on the veteran’s discount offered by Verizon Wireless. Take your DD 214 (discharge) to any Verizon company store (not a franchise store), and ask for discount code #117818. You will get a 15% discount off your Verizon bill, before taxes. I submitted my paperwork in June, and the discount started showing up in my next month’s bill.

Another company that treats veteran’s right is Lowes. Somebody had told me a while back that they offer a 10% veteran’s discount, and last week when we purchased the handles for our new desk/workstations, I remembered it as we were checking out. The young lady at the counter took a quick peek at my V.A. medical card and I got my discount! How very nice! You can bet I’ll do my shopping at Lowes anytime I can in the future!

Thought For The Day – Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to us; peace is our gift to each other.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Sometime early Monday morning the sky above us broke open and rain began to pour down on northern Indiana in torrential amounts. One news report said that four inches of rain fell before 6 a.m. and then it was averaging an inch an hour for the rest of the morning. The roads here in Elkhart Campground looked like small lakes, and the ground is just saturated. And we’re supposed to get more rain all week long! Would somebody please turn off the water!

At some point early yesterday afternoon, when we had a short break in the deluge we waded next door to Ron and Brenda Speidel’s motorhome and I suggested to Ron that maybe we should all take our kayaks out and get some paddling in, right here in the campground!

Dennis and Carol Hill, from the RV Driving School, were supposed to leave yesterday for an RV park in Howe, Indiana, but they took one look at the weather and decided to sit tight for another day. And yet, as nasty as it was, yesterday morning we watched a bunch of RVs pulling out and hitting the road, and later in the day, during another nasty storm, more RVs were pulling in.

Why in the world would anyone choose to travel in terrible weather like this? It just doesn’t make sense when you’re safe and sound in a comfortable campground already. We have wheels under our homes so we can pick up and go when we want to, but we also have brains in our heads that should tell us “not today” sometimes.

I had been rushing to get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to take to the printer today, and falling further behind with every knock at the door, when our printer called yesterday and said they had some production problems that put them behind schedule, and could we wait to bring it in until Wednesday afternoon? Whew, a break I very much needed! I told them no problem at all, happy to oblige.

A couple of notes on our upcoming RV rallies in Ohio and Arizona – if you are planning to attend the Geeks on Tour pre-rally computer boot camp before the Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, you will need to pay the Mercer County Fairgrounds directly for your camping during the boot camp. Also, even though you have arrived early and are already parked, you will probably have to move on Sunday when the registered Earlybirds start arriving. The fairgrounds only has a few full hookup RV sites, and we need to reserve them for handicapped rally attendees. This was a problem for a couple of folks last year, and they got their feelings hurt because they believed it was first come, first serve.

At the Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma next March, we will not be able to accommodate Earlybird arrivals. The fairgrounds has another RV rally going on that will end the day ours starts, and they don’t have room for us to arrive before our scheduled starting date.

Gee, it’s raining again! Go figure.

Thought For The Day – People never lie so much as after fishing, during a war, or before an election.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

My cousin Terry Cook is very active in Scouting, so when he told me that a specially decorated RV is traveling the country to celebrate the Boy Scout’s 100 year anniversary in 2010, and that it would be in Traverse City yesterday, I accepted his invitation to go check it out.

The 32 foot long Class C, donated by Coachmen Industries, is scheduled to visit all 308 Boy Scout Councils in the lower 48 states between now and next February, when it will end its tour at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas. Fourteen teams of Scout leaders from different areas around the United States will take the RV on separate legs of the journey. Traverse City was stop 186 on the “Century of Values Tour.”

The motorhome is wrapped in a vinyl covering depicting the world of Scouting. The curb side of the motorhome has a map of the United States, with the different legs of the trip marked out. The driver’s side has a mural of old Scouting magazines and publications, the doors have the Boy Scout emblem, and the rear of the motorhome is covered with a mural depicting the history of Scouting.

The mural was created by artist Bill Morrison, a former Boy Scout who achieved the exalted rank of Eagle. Morrison has worked designing posters for Disney movies, and for Hollywood animation studios, including the one that produces “The Simpsons.”

The mural is anchored by a portrait of Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Scouting movement, and depicts important events and people associated with Scouting. The crew driving the RV presented local Scouting officials with a framed 24 inch by 36 inch copy of the mural. Then there was cake and punch for everybody gathered, which included local Scouts and Scouting officials, the mayor of Traverse City, and at least one State Assemblyman.

In all, the RV will cover more than 45,000 miles during its trip, and then will be donated to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. I spent a few minutes chatting with one of the fellows who picked the rig up in Cleveland, Ohio and brought it to Traverse City, and he said he had never spent any time in an RV before, but now he’s hooked. When I told him about our life as fulltime RVers, he was fascinated. He had no idea that people actually lived and traveled every day of the year in RVs, and he couldn’t wait to call his wife and tell her about it. Do we have another future fulltimer in the wings?

Terry and I have enjoyed our visit to Traverse City, but it’s time to move on. We will be leaving here today and driving about 130 miles to Muskegon, Michigan to visit with Rocky and Berni Frees for a few days. I’m hoping we can get our kayaks out on the water again, if the weather cooperates. We really enjoyed paddling with them when we were there a few weeks ago.

Thought For The Day – Humans are not the only species on earth. We just act like it.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Yesterday was one of those days where it didn’t seem to me that we were all that busy, but looking back, I guess we were!

In the morning I printed off several of our booklets to fill orders that came in with our last mail delivery, which was waiting for us when we returned here yesterday, and Terry got them all packaged. Then we ran to the post office to mail them out, and stopped at the bank to make a deposit.

With those chores behind us, we drove ten miles or so to the small town of Bristol, where we stopped at Fluid Fun, a canoe and kayak dealer that stocks the most impressive line of boats we’ve seen anywhere in the country. I want to replace my Ocean Kayak Angler model with a different boat. It’s a great kayak, and I’ve only had it in the water a few times, but it just doesn’t fit me well. I found a couple of models that are better suited to my needs, and will probably stick my boat out in front of the bus today and see if anybody here in the RV park is looking for a good fishing kayak.

While we were in the area, we stopped and checked out a couple of public launch sites on the St. Joseph River for our next paddling outing. One was at a small park right in Bristol, with a good parking area and not one, but two, boat ramps.

When we left Bristol, we stopped at Phoenix Commercial Paint to visit with owner Michelle Henry. She had a Class C motorhome in the shop that she was in the process of stripping down for a new paint job. Michelle gave us a tour of the place, and explained how paint is mixed to create custom colors for the beautiful full body paint jobs she produces.

It is amazing how a custom paint job can transform a dated looking RV into a rolling work of art, and even more amazing that Michelle can turn out such quality work for half of what some places charge.

What’s the secret? Hard work, being willing to do a lot of the work herself instead of hiring expensive help, and a love of what she is doing. You can bet when we find the right coach to replace our bus, we’ll be talking to Michelle about a paint job!

Back at the bus, I actually did some work! A company called Pineapple Publications contacted me a while back and wanted to use some of the material from my Publishing4Profit website for a new book on self-publishing they are bringing out this summer. That led to an interview with the author, Christy Pinheiro, which in turn led to an offer to be listed as co-author of the book.

Christy sent me a copy of the final manuscript and asked me to give it a final proofing before it goes to print. So I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening doing that. The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! will be available in just a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing the book when it is published.

Speaking of books and publishing, several readers have written to ask me what I think of my Amazon Kindle, now that I’ve had it a while. Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news. I love the concept of the Kindle. It’s a great product, especially for RVers who have to consider the weight of books if they do a lot of reading. You can store hundreds of books digitally and carry a complete library in your Kindle. And having seen the new model Kindles, I’m glad I have the first generation model. It just feels better to me. But to be honest, I hardly use it.

Part of that is because just about the time I got the Kindle, Terry’s cousin, Carolyn Henley, who is about to become a fulltime RVer, gave us several big boxes of once read books that we have been working our way through in the last few months. With that much reading material, there just wasn’t much reason to buy anything.

Also, as convenient as it is to order a book online and download it to the Kindle, we just love prowling around both new and used bookstores. Terry and I can spend hours in a bookstore. Sometimes we buy a lot of books, and just as many times, we don’t buy a thing. Either way, we still have a good time, and we look forward to finding new bookstores to explore wherever we travel.

Thought For The Day – I wish the buck stopped here. I could use a few.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Muskegon, Michigan is located on the shore of mighty Lake Michigan, and the city’s history and personality were greatly influenced by its maritime heritage. Even though it is not as busy at it once was, the waterfront is still a busy place, though these days the pleasure boats far outnumber the working vessels.

In addition to the big lake, the area includes several smaller lakes and the Muskegon River, so everywhere you look there are people in fishing boats, sailboats, canoes, kayaks, jet skies and every other imaginable type of watercraft, as well as several I have never seen before.

Several retired historic ships are berthed in Muskegon, including the USS Silversides, one of the most famous World War II submarines, which we visited at the Great Lakes Navel Memorial and Museum and featured in the November-December 2008 issue of the Gypsy Journal. Also at the museum and featured in that issue, is the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter McLane, which saw service chasing whiskey smugglers during Prohibition, and Japanese submarines during World War II.

On this trip to Muskegon we toured another historic World War II veteran, the LST 393, one of only two World War II LSTs still in existence. The official designation for this type of vessel is Landing Ship Tank, because they were designed to carry tanks, trucks and other heavy equipment right to a beachhead, though their crews referred to them as Large Slow Targets. LST 393 made 30 round trips to Omaha Beach during the D Day invasion, and landed 3,248 vehicles during her wartime service. We’ll have a feature story on this historic ship in our next issue.

Docked right behind LST 393 is the cargo ship Paul H. Townsend, which spent the last fifty years carrying concrete from Duluth, Minnesota to Great Lakes ports. Built near the end of World War II, the ship is currently used for concrete storage, because it is cheaper to move cement with barges powered by a tug boat. We were talking to a gentleman at the dock who told us that the ship is still commissioned and can be made ready to sail within a matter of days. Meanwhile, he said, Inland Lakes Management, Inc., the company responsible for the ship, pays a watchman $300 a day to live aboard the Townsend to protect it from vandals or burglars. If I ever stop traveling, I want a job like that!

Seeing so much activity on the water had us eager to get our kayaks wet, so yesterday we introduced my cousin Berni Frees and her husband Rocky to paddling. They rented a couple of kayaks, we hauled ours out of the van, and off we went up the Muskegon River. Rocky and Berni both took to kayaking like ducks to water, and we had a wonderful time. Here is a pictures of Rocky and Berni enjoying their first paddling adventure.

Since it was their first time paddling, we didn’t make a long excursion, but in the couple of hours we were on the water we probably covered a little over three miles.

Until now, Terry and I have only paddled in the Florida Keys and the Gulf of Mexico at Aransas Pass, Texas. We learned that paddling a river is much different. Going downstream with the current is pretty easy to do, but fighting our way back upstream against the current our last half mile or so was hard work! We all had sore muscles by the time we pulled the boats out of the water, but all four of us were already talking about our next expedition!

Thought For The Day – Love, not time, heals all wounds.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally