As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, I think Pennsylvania is one of our prettiest states. And yesterday we got to see some exceptionally picturesque parts of the Keystone State.

We were in bed early Wednesday night, but as tired as I was after our 420 mile day, I just couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned all night long, finally dropping off to sleep about 5 a.m., and waking up about 9.

We hit the road and traveled 41 miles east on Interstate 80, and then took the brand new Interstate 99 cutoff (which shows as U.S. Highway 220 on my Streets and Trips mapping program) south a few miles to pick up U.S. Highway 322 at State College.

Most of the 90 miles between State College and Harrisburg was nice divided four lane expressway, except for a 12 mile section between Tusseyviille and Milroy, which was two lane road, but was some of the most scenic of the trip. We passed small towns, pastoral scenes, and homes that must date back two hundred years or more.

This wasn’t a fast route, but it sure was a pretty drive. We climbed up several steep grades, and wound our way down the other side. Much of the route paralleled the Juniata River, and at one point, near Arch Rock, we admired the striations in the rock face where it had been cut away to make room for the highway.

I think it’s going to be an early and cold winter in this part of the country. In several places, the leaves are already starting to change.

At one point, after we topped a particularly steep grade, the speed limit for trucks on the downhill side was 20 miles per hour for about four miles. Of course, that didn’t slow down the cowboys in the big rigs, who sped downhill at 50 miles an hour or more. Where’s a cop when you need him?

Eventually we crossed to the wide Susquehanna River, which is spanned by several neat old bridges.

Then we came under this strange overpass, or bridge or whatever it is. There was no road across it, and no reason for it to be there that we could figure out.

As we got into the Harrisburg area, traffic became pretty hectic, and the drivers were pretty aggressive, pushing their way into any space where they thought they could fit. We snaked our way through it all, and eventually the highway turned into a two lane road as it passed through Hershey. About six miles east of Hershey, we turned down a narrow country lane for a couple of miles and came to the Thousand Trails campground, with 160 miles behind us for the day.

The place was pretty crowded, and all of the good RV sites were gone. Those that were left were all pretty uneven, and in the first three we tried, the only way we could get level was to raise our front tires completely off the ground. That’s not a good thing. Finally, after over two hours of trying, we got into a site where we couldn’t get completely level, but we’re close enough that we’ll live with it.

This is our second visit to this Thousand Trails preserve, and I had forgotten how many Canadian geese inhabit the campground. They are everywhere, and they are apparently very well fed, because there is goose poop in abundance. This is not a place to go barefoot!

By the time we we were finally settled in, we were famished.  We drove four miles back to Campbelltown. On our last visit to this area, several years ago, we discovered a great place called A&M Pizza, and it was just as delicious as we remembered. Yummy!

Back at the motorhome, we took a little nap, and then spent the rest of the evening watching TV, catching up on e-mail, and just relaxing. There has been far too little relaxing in our lives the last few weeks!

Bad Nick, on the other hand, has been loafing a lot lately. But he’s back with a new Bad Nick Blog titled A White Al Sharpton? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – I used to be schizophrenic, but we’re okay now.

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

We got wrapped up in some projects that have delayed our departure for a bit, but with most of the things wrapped up that we wanted to get done before we leave northern Indiana, we hope to be on the road by the weekend. Now we just have to decide where we’re going, and how to get there.

We plan to spend November and most of December in Florida, and as I wrote here before, the plan was/is to go over to the coast someplace and go down the eastern seaboard. But since we’re getting a later start than originally planned, we’re undecided about which route to take.

We would like to go to Washington, D.C. again, and considered dropping down to Interstate 70 across Ohio and into Pennsylvania, and then dropping down to catch Interstate 68 across the northern edge of Maryland. But we may be too late in the season. Getting to warmer weather is a priority. Playing tourist is no fun when you’re chilly.

I thought about going to Lexington, Kentucky, and then taking Interstate 77 east to hook up with Interstate 64, which would take us to Norfolk, Virginia, but again, weather is a factor.

A third option was to go to Knoxville, and then take Interstate 40 east, but a major rockslide has closed the highway near the Tennessee – North Carolina border, and news reports say it could be weeks, if not months, before the road is open again.

Now we’re looking at going all the way to Atlanta, and then striking east on Interstate 20, but we’ll miss a lot of the territory we wanted to see along the coast going that way.

Then, just to muddy the waters even more, we have learned that Terry’s father has some health issues that are causing us some concern. Hopefully everything will be just fine, but we are prepared to scrap our travel plans and head for Arizona at a moment’s notice.

We have also been kicking around getting an extended warranty on our Winnebago motorhome. The Ultimate Advantage only has 34,000 miles on it and except for a contrary electrical side to our water heater, it’s in excellent condition. We’re debating whether the cost of an extended warranty is worth it.

Like any insurance policy, it’s a gamble. If we are lucky and don’t have any major breakdowns or system failures, we’d lose money on an extended warranty. However, a serious problem, such as an engine or transmission failure could easily cost much more that what we’d pay for an extended warranty. So do we bet against ourselves, or for ourselves? Why don’t some of you fulltimers and extended time RV travelers out there pitch in and share your input? Do you have an extended warranty? If so, who with, and are you glad you bought it? Is there anyone out there who decided to play the odds and lost with a major repair bill? Inquiring minds want to know.

Thought For The Day – Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I met a man at Elkhart Campground a few years ago who told me he was unhappy in the RV lifestyle because he was bored. I suggested several things he might do to keep himself busy, and he pooh poohed every one of them; visit the RV Museum? No thanks, he wasn’t interested in looking at a bunch of old junk. Play golf? Nope, that was a rich man’s sport, not for him. Go fishing? Why go to all that trouble when you can buy a nice fish dinner in a restaurant? Build houses for Habitat for Humanity? Nobody ever built him a house, so why should he build someone else one?

It didn’t take long before a light bulb went off in my head and I asked him if he had been bored before he became an RVer. He told me yes, that was why he bought the motorhome in the first place.

In talking to him, I learned that he spent part of the summer and early fall parked at his brother’s farm in Pennsylvania; then he went to the same site, which he had reserved, at the same RV park in Florida for the winter. Then in the spring he drove to Elkhart for a few days before continuing on to his niece’s home in Wisconsin, where he stayed until it was time to go to Pennsylvania again. “I tell you, I know every inch of Interstate 95 between Pennsylvania and Florida, and Interstate 65 back up to Indiana,” he told me.  

“How about just for the hell of it, you take I-75 north or south this year,” I suggested. “You could stop in Clinton, Tennessee and check out the Museum of Appalachia. It’s really cool.”

He was shaking his head before I was halfway through my sentence. “Nope, that’s not on my route,” he said stubbornly. If I go off on a different route then what I’m used to, who knows what could happen?”

I wanted to tell him that one thing that might happen was he’d see some new country. Heck, he might even make a new memory or two! But I knew I was defeated, so I just gave up, told him to have a good life, and went on about my business, leaving him to his misery.

I’ve met a lot of RVers who, while they may not be as extreme as this fellow, are still stuck in a rut. They spend their summers in the same place and their winters at the same RV park in Florida, Texas, or Arizona. They tell me they have friends in their favorite campground in the Rio Grande Valley, or wherever they hang out, and they want to get back and spend time with them. I guess that’s okay if it works for them, but that’s just too much of the same old thing for me!

It’s an easy rut to fall into. We have our favorite places we enjoy returning to again and again, but we also go out of our way to visit new places too. Or at least to take a different route to wherever we’re going. And when a place gets too comfortable, we start asking ourselves if we need to look elsewhere.

We absolutely love the area around Aransas Pass and Rockport, on the Texas Gulf Coast, and last year we came across a good deal on a couple of RV lots down there that we seriously considered. But then we realized that buying them would be the first string that would tie us down. Why have the lots if we were not going to go there? But if we went there, what were we missing someplace else?

We didn’t get into the fulltime RV lifestyle to remain static. We wanted to see and do different things, new things. The familiar is comfortable, but it can also become suffocating if you allow it to be. We’re always looking for that new route we haven’t traveled yet, that new place we haven’t seen yet, and that new adventure we haven’t experienced yet.

Remember that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the length and depth.

Thought For The Day – Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Never underestimate the power of the Internet! When it was announced a few days ago that Maine state legislature was sneaking through a bill that would prohibit overnight RV parking in any commercial parking lot, such as a Wal-Mart or truck stop, that was being promoted by campground owners, RVers sent a flood of e-mails protesting the measure and promising to take their vacation dollars elsewhere. The folks in Augusta quickly got the message and backpedaled, canceling the bill.

I bet all of those other businesses in the great state of Maine who stood to lose the revenue they make from RVers appreciate their elected officials realizing that this was a bad business move.

Now if bankers had half as much sense. As most of you know, we are shopping for a different coach to replace our aging bus. The other day I talked to a lady in Texas who has a very nice rig she needs to unload. Her husband passed away, and she has been making the payments on it for almost a year, and her finances are depleted. She just flat out does not have another dime to give the bank.

She has had the rig for sale, and one dealer offered her about 75% of the balance due. She tried to get the bank to accept that and work with her on the balance, but no dice. Their attitude is “either we get all that you owe, or we’ll repo it, sell it at auction at a loss, and come after you for the balance.” She has tried to explain to them that she is 72 years old, and between her husband’s death and her own serious medical problems, the piggy bank is empty. There is no more!

She would love to have someone take over the payments for the full amount due, which we could easily do, as could some other people she has talked to. But the bank has put one roadblock after another in her way. I guess they have all of that Federal bailout money to work with, so who cares if they actually make a profit?

It’s good to be back on the road. We left the Show Low Elks Lodge Campground at 10:45 a.m. yesterday and pulled into the Route 66 Casino on Interstate 40 just west of Albuquerque, a distance of 262 miles, almost exactly five hours later. It was an easy run, and even though the outside temperature was almost 90 degrees, I only had to use the radiator misters a couple of times. But we did get slowed way down on a couple of hills.

In yesterday’s blog I wrote that the Route 66 Casino has free RV parking, and a good buffet. Well, don’t believe everything you read! I don’t know what went wrong since our last visit, but our dinner was a real disappointment. As Miss Terry said back at the bus, we didn’t really buy that food, we just rented it on a very short term basis!

While we were inside getting ill, Ken and Sue Pace stopped by the bus and left us a note as they were passing through. Sue did her geocaching seminar at our rally in Casa Grande in February, and we were sorry we missed them. Hopefully we’ll catch up with them at Escapade.

Before I close, I want to give a quick plug to the RV Lifestyle, Education, & Safety clinic that RVSEF is putting on in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania September 13-16. For those of you who never got to go to a Life on Wheels session, this is a “must not miss” opportunity to learn all about RVing from some of the best known experts in the field. Here is a link to the classes being offered, and whether you are a wannabe, a newbie, or a seasoned veteran, I guarantee you’ll learn a lot! Check it out!   

Thought For The Day – Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally