Sometimes it sucks to be me. Oh, the life of a hard working fulltime RVing newspaper publisher! Will the grind never end?

Yesterday I slept in until about 10 a.m., which isn’t really sleeping in for me, because that’s about the time I usually wake up. But Miss Terry wasn’t there to snuggle and cuddle up with like she usually is, so I had to just lay there all by myself and drowse off and on for a while before I finally drug myself out of bed.

And just in time, because Terry was busy making me a batch of her delicious crepes, with strawberry jam, for breakfast! I checked my e-mail, then read some of my favorite RV blogs. Greg White had finally posted something, after taking a day off; Dennis Hill was bragging, and deservedly so, about the pork butts he was smoking in Texas; my pals Joe and Marcia Jones are leaving Key West in search of new adventures; Stu and Donna McNicol’s blog had some new pictures of their puppy; and Mike McFall’s had pictures of his cat. Then I popped into Facebook to check in on all of my friends there.

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With all of that done and breakfast finished, we goofed off for several hours, and then decided to get some paddling in on Lake Hancock. We’re getting better at inflating my Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 kayak, but Miss Terry and I both agree that we need to contact Tim at Inflatable Boats 4 Less and order one of their electric pumps to make the job even easier. Even so, in less than 10 minutes the boat was ready to go and I was paddling away from the launch.

We paddled to the south side of the lake, to check out this derelict old sailboat, which somebody apparently pulled up to shore and abandoned. At one time this was somebody’s pride and joy, and now it’s just rotting away. I wonder how it got into this sad condition.

We paddled around the lake for about 90 minutes, crossing over to the far side and back, stopping occasionally to rest and just enjoy the water.

Miss Terry has the sharpest eyes of anybody I’ve ever known. We can be rolling down the highway at 60 miles per hour, and she’ll point out antelope grazing in a meadow, or a hawk resting on a fence post.

She spotted this osprey perched high in a tree beside the lake, and paddled over to take its picture. With the things she can turn out with her cheap little Olympus point and shoot camera, I think Terry needs to move up to a digital SLR. But the pocket size camera is handy and she always has it with her. A larger camera might end up spending more time in its case, instead of being carried all of the time.

We also saw all of these turkey vultures sitting together. How many can you count?

The sun was sinking low in the sky when we came off the water, and by the time we got the boats dried off and stowed away, and got back to the motorhome, it was starting to get dark. We spent the evening watching TV and cruising the internet.

So there you have it, my hardworking day. Unlike most working folks, I don’t even get Sunday’s off! Yeah, it sucks to be me.

Bad Nick didn’t have it any easier. He worked yesterday too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog installment of the popular Dumb A$$ Report. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg, even if you are half-cracked.

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We must have been worn out by a week of sightseeing, because yesterday we slept in much later than we expected to. But since we had not planned to take the Metro back into Washington, it really didn’t matter.

We puttered around the motorhome for a while, checking e-mails, reading some of our favorite RV blogs, and grumbling because Greg White got lazy and didn’t post a blog. Come on Greg, inquiring minds want to know what the heck you guys are up to!

Then we drove to Edgewater, Maryland to check out the Annapolis Elks Lodge. They allow RVing Elks members to dry camp, and we wanted to look at it as an alternative to commercial campgrounds when we get back in this area. We wanted to spend some time touring Baltimore on this trip, but two days of bad weather made us put that off this time around. The Elks lodge will be a good base for exploring that area when we return.

I also wanted to go to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, but they had some sort of security restriction in place and we were not going to be allowed on base. So instead, we drove back to Cherry Hill Park, and spent the rest of the afternoon at home.

That’s when I discovered that Dish Network had dropped the FX channel. What? No Sons of Anarchy? That’s not acceptable! I get really ticked off when companies change their programming and don’t give me what I signed up for and paid for. I have been a Dish customer for years, but last December when our motorhome was burglarized the thugs trashed our receiver, and Dish wouldn’t replace it for us, even though new customers get all kinds of freebies. Obviously loyal customers do not matter to Dish. I wonder if I can get my Winegard Trav’lr automatic rooftop TV dish adapted or reprogrammed to DirecTV?

We have had a good time visiting College Park and Washington D.C., but we are both ready to leave. This area is just too busy for us. The streets, the sidewalks, the stores and restaurants, they are just packed with people all of the time. I like people, just not that many people, all in one place!

Today is a travel day for us. We’re heading for the Chesapeake Bay Thousand Trails campground near Gloucester, Virginia. It looks like it will be about a three hour drive, so we should have an easy day.

We have not been to that area before, and we’re looking forward to seeing some new places. There is a lot of history in the region, from historic Jamestown, the Revolutionary War Yorktown battlefield, Civil War battlefields, plantations, and lots more.

But it won’t all be sightseeing. I need to get the next issue of the Gypsy Journal read to print while we’re there, and I’m really behind schedule in updating our websites. After being on the go pretty much non-stop ever since we left Arizona back in June, Miss Terry needs some downtime to decompress, get caught up on her projects, and maybe I can even talk her into making me some decadent dessert or her delicious cinnamon rolls while we’re there. Diet? What diet?

Thought For The Day – When somebody tells you nothing is impossible, ask him to dribble a football.

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One of the greatest things about the RV lifestyle are the many wonderful friends we have made. As with most fulltime RVers, many times we find that these friendships are deeper and more fulfilling than those we had with folks back in our old lives, living in sticks and bricks.

Like our lifestyle itself, RV friendships are different than other relationships we may have had in the past. Sometimes we only see our RVing friends once or twice a year, depending on where our travels take us. But we keep in contact with e-mail, on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, by reading their blogs, and through the RV grapevine.

There are times when we will make plans to meet up with fellow RVers someplace for a day or a week, and other times when the meetings are more serendipitous. We have pulled into and discovered friends we have not seen in months parked in the site next to us, and we have stopped for lunch at a highway rest area and found friends parked there doing the same thing. Once, in Indiana, we were at a fuel stop on the Indiana Toll Road when our friends John and Margie Conda happed to pull up to the fuel island next to us. Things like this happen so often that we’re not even surprised when they do anymore.

Yesterday, we had lunch with two of our very special RV friends, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy. They have a lot at the Escapees co-op in Benson, about 35 miles south of Tucson, and when they learned that we were going to be here for a few days, they called and suggested we meet for lunch.

We decided on Mimi’s Cafe at Wilmot and Broadway, on the east side of Tucson, because it is closer to Benson than the Mimi’s on the north side of town near Tucson Mall, and only a mile or so from my cousin Beverly’s apartment.

We met at 1 p.m. and had a wonderful lunch as we talked about our different adventures since we last crossed paths, compared notes on family relationships, and solved most of the problems of the world. Before we knew it, our luncheon had stretched out for three hours, and our friends had to get on the road to get back to Benson. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

Here is a picture of Jerry, Suzy, and Miss Terry outside the restaurant just before we parted company.

I asked Jerry and Suzy if they would take a bundle of Gypsy Journals to the Escapee park for us, and they were happy to oblige. Whenever we can pass a bundle of sample papers on to RVing friends to distribute in their travels, it helps us spread the word about our efforts. Many times when we receive a new subscription order, it includes a note saying that they picked up a copy of the paper at such and such RV park, someplace where we’ve never been.

After we left Mimi’s, we stopped at Jo-ann Fabrics so Terry could pick up some yarn she needed for a project, and then we went to Beverly’s place, where I spent the next three hours trying to delete cookies and spyware in an effort to speed up her laptop computer, which has slowed down to slightly less than snail speed.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I called another RVing friend, my pal Greg White, and asked for suggestions, since Greg made his living resolving computer issues for folks. He suggested some things to try and clean the laptop out, but I wasn’t making much headway. Since Beverly has a medical appointment on our side of town today, we didn’t want to keep her up too late while I struggled with the laptop, so we called it a night and headed home. I’ll take another shot at her computer today or Saturday.

Back at Tra-Tel RV Park, we watched some TV, answered a few e-mails and I wrote my blog post before we headed for bed.

Today, after Beverly’s doctor appointment, we are getting together for lunch with two more of my cousins, Vivian and Sharon, who also live here in Tucson.

Bad Nick is not nearly as much a social butterfly as I am, so he spent yesterday writing a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Did He Push Humpty Off The Wall Too? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.

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The worst of the storm was gone by the time we woke up yesterday morning, but heavy clouds hung overhead all day long, and it rained most of the day. Not a heavy rain like we had been experiencing, just showers. At least the wind was gone, and that alone was a blessing.

From the blogs I’ve read and the e-mails I received from our RVing friends who are in Quartzsite, it looks like everybody came through the bad weather okay, but they all agree that it is an experience they never want to repeat, and that they will remember for a long, long time.

My daughter called from Show Low to say she had about 30 inches of snow at her house, and it was still coming down hard. She said that a few miles further up the mountain, in Pinetop-Lakeside, the snow accumulation was estimated to be four to five feet high by the time the storm moves out. News reports later in the day said that the roof of the Pinetop fire department building had collapsed under the weight of the snow. In Flagstaff, the roofs at the giant Bookman’s Bookstore and neighboring fabric store, as well as several other businesses, had  had also caved in.

A little after noon, Terry’s cousin Carolyn Henley and her husband Mel stopped over for a visit. Mel and Carolyn have been fulltiming for several months now, and it was interesting to hear about their transition to their new lifestyle, and the places they have visited. Whenever we talk to newbie RVers, it reminds us of our first months on the road, with so much to learn, and guess what? We’re still learning!

For 35 years or more, Miss Terry has had a big, bulky Pfaff sewing machine, and it gave her very good service. But eventually the old machine wore out, and when we took it into a shop for a tune-up and adjustment a while back, they told Terry it needed some parts that were no longer available, and they couldn’t guarantee that it would last much longer.

Since then, Terry has talked about getting a new sewing machine, but she had not seen anything that really appealed to her. The other day, while out with her sister Dani, Terry came across the Bernina Bernette line of machines, and decided that she liked the Model 66.

Now, I’m always finding some new toy that I just have to have, but it’s very seldom that Terry says she wants anything, so when she does, I try to make it happen. The original store, where she had seen a different model, did not have the machine Terry wanted, so while she was busy doing something else, I snuck around and made some calls and found one at a quilting shop in Tempe.

After Mel and Carolyn left, we drove to Tempe and bought the Bernina, and Terry is looking forward to getting familiar with it. In fact, the shop even has a day long class to teach customers how to use all of the features on their new sewing machines. I can see why, it’s got almost as many bells and whistles as the dashboard of our Winnebago!

We were supposed to have dinner with Terry’s sister Lisa and her husband Jim, and by the time we got finished at the quilt shop, we had about twenty minutes to get across town. Terry called Lisa to tell her we’d be a few minutes late, but we hoped it wouldn’t be long. When we got on the Superstition Freeway (U.S. Highway 60), it looked like traffic was going to be bad, but I managed to get across to the car pool lane, and we zipped across town with no delays, arriving at the restaurant only ten minutes late.

We never get to spend enough time with Jim and Lisa, and they are a fun couple that we always enjoy. Dinner was delicious, and afterwards we went back to their house to continue our conversation for an hour or so before we headed back home.   

By then I was happy to just log onto the internet, check my e-mail, and read a few of my favorite blogs. But Terry never slows down, and before long she was baking some wonderful peanut butter cookies. The perfect dessert after our dinner out!

Thought For The Day – Enthusiasm is contagious. You can start an epidemic.

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For the last couple of weeks we have been spending a lot of time with friends from Florida to Alabama, and we have had a wonderful time with them. We love being with our family and friends whenever we can, but from time to time, we need an “us” day, and yesterday was the day.

An “us” day is a day we spend together doing anything from working to sightseeing, all by ourselves. A day to enjoy each others’ company, and to remember why we are best friends as well as husband and wife.

We seldom get to bed before 1 or 2 a.m., which means that we don’t usually wake up until about 9 a.m., and are seldom ready to greet the world before 10. Yesterday morning we lay in bed snuggling and talking, making silly jokes, and planning our day. About 10 a.m. somebody knocked on the door, but we were not dressed yet and ignored it. An unspoken rule among RVers is that if the curtains are pulled over the windshield and door, it means do not disturb. We don’t feel rude about not going to the door if we haven’t opened the curtains yet, though we occasionally offend someone by not doing so.

Once we were dressed, Miss Terry made a delicious brunch of French Toast, and we spent an hour or two checking e-mail, our favorite blogs, and reading the news online. We have come to rely on blogs, and in my case Facebook, to keep track of what our RVing friends are up to, wherever they are traveling around the country.

About 1 p.m. we drove down to Gulf Shores, where we stopped at several RV parks there, and in Foley, dropping off sample bundles of the Gypsy Journal. Ever since we started publishing the Gypsy Journal, leaving sample papers has been an important part of our marketing plan. Besides the papers we drop off wherever we are traveling, many of our readers will take a bundle or two from us and distribute them where they are going. It’s like the ripple effect when you drop a pebble into a pool of water, giving us a much greater reach than we could achieve ourselves.

While we were out, we spotted a store called Old Time Pottery that a couple of people have recommended to us. It’s a large place, carrying everything from kitchenware to linens to, of course, pottery. Miss Terry found two or three items she has been looking for, and since one of them was a pan to make me a sheet cake in, I didn’t complain too much about having to spend time shopping in such a “girly” store.

After a quick stop at a Winn-Dixie grocery store for a couple of things, we made it back to Rainbow Plantation just in time for the 4 p.m. social hour. After chatting with some folks there for a while, we went back to the motorhome, checked e-mail again, and then about 6 p.m. we went back out for dinner, at a little place called the Shrimp Basket, in Foley.

We discovered this restaurant on an earlier trip to this area several years ago, and were delighted to find that the food is just as good. In fact, this was our second visit in six days! I had the blackened fish and shrimp combo, while Miss Terry had the crawfish platter, which had both fried crawfish tails and crawfish etoufee over rice. It was all delicious!

It had turned really cold while we were in the restaurant, and as soon as Terry started the engine on our van, I flipped the heater to high. Back at our motorhome, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing with TV and the internet, before it was time to go back to bed and snuggle. The perfect ending to a perfect “us” day!

Thought For The Day – If you are not sure where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

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