Yesterday was a much needed lazy day for us, after our week at the RV show. We slept in, then didn’t do much of anything all day long. Terry did a couple of loads of laundry, we checked e-mail, cruised the internet, watched TV, and I napped for a while on the couch. 

We needed to unload our display tables, books and RV guides, and everything else we had used at the RV show from our van and get it all packed back into the bays of our motorhome, but we both seemed to be drained of energy and couldn’t get motivated to get started.

About 5:30 we drove to Hummelstown for dinner with longtime subscribers  Dave and Thelma Middleton, and their friends Gary and Donna Rath, at a place called Hoss’s Steakhouse. The company and conversation were great, but the restaurant seemed to be having an off day. Dave and I ordered our steaks medium rare, and they were very well done, we asked for bread a couple of times and never got it, and when I tried their chocolate pudding for dessert, it tasted sour.

Dave and Thelma felt bad, because they had invited us, but it wasn’t their fault, and they have had good meals there in the past. Maybe the manager was taking a day off or something.

Back at the Thousand Trails campground, I answered a couple of questions from readers who wanted to know about any suggestions I had for an RV park in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and how I felt about using synthetic oil and transmission fluid in a diesel pusher motorhome. I replied to the first one that since we have only visited the Valley once, and were not impressed enough to stay long, I didn’t know enough about it to suggest an RV park for their winter stay; and told the second person that while I don’t have synthetic oil and transmission fluid in our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage yet, I plan to switch to both at our next service. I know many RVers who do use both, and report good success with them.

Then we spent the rest of the evening watching television, including the season premiers of two of our favorite shows, Two And A Half Men, and Pawn Stars. They’ve moved The Big Bang Theory to a new night, so we’ll have to wait until Thursday to see its season premier.

And that was about it for our Monday. Like I said, it was a lazy day, and that’s just what we needed.

Thought For The Day – I don’t mind going nowhere as long as it’s an interesting path.

Boy, there sure are a lot of RVs here on the campus of Bowling Green State University for the FMCA! The last official word I had was 2500 family coaches, plus a couple hundred vendors, staff, and volunteers’ RVs, not to mention several dozen new motorhomes on display by dealers and manufacturers.

The FMCA brought a crowd to this little college town, and the merchants are sure happy about that! Everywhere you go the restaurants and stores are full of RVers.

We have a booth in the indoor vendor area, where we’ll be introducing people to the Gypsy Journal and the various books and booklets we have to offer. The indoor market area is open today through Thursday, and this grand soiree winds up Friday and we’ll all head for every point on the compass.

That is if it doesn’t rain. We are parked on a very rutted grass field that could well turn into a real problem if we get a lot of rain and it gets soft. And since the weather reports are for scattered thunderstorms all week, we’re hoping for the best. Obviously a lot of heavy vehicles have been here before us, because the grass is so rutted it shakes the fillings out of your teeth just driving across it at a snail’s pace.

The vendor area has a ton of offerings; everything from sewer hoses to campground memberships, to RV furniture and awnings, and whatever else your little heart could desire and your pocketbook can afford. We have had the opportunity to visit with many of our vendor friends, and we’re hoping to entice a few more of them into coming to our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally in late September.

We’ve only done one of the huge FMCA International rallies before, many years ago, though we have vended at many of their smaller regional rallies with limited success. So we’re hoping for the best.

Once we had our vendor booth ready to go and spent some time visiting with other vendors yesterday, we drove back to Toledo to look up one of my best friends from high school, Dan Connell. It’s been about nine years since I had seen Dan, and it was great to see my old pal. I know Miss Terry and Dan’s pretty lady Patty must have gotten tired of us reliving every single teenage prank and bit of mischief we ever got into together, especially since I’m sure we had the same conversation the last time we got together, but some of those stories just needed retelling.

I also get to meet Dan’s son Steve. The one and only time I saw him, Steve was less than a week old, and he is a grown man now. He sure grew up to be a fine young man, and it was heartwarming to see the bond he shares with his Dad. We hope to get back up to Toledo to see Dan and Patty before we leave the area.

By the time we got back to Bowling Green and grabbed a bite to eat, there was just time to write the blog post and answer a few e-mails before bedtime. We are not morning people, so being bright eyed and bushy tailed to start meeting and greeting the public at 8 a.m. is a real chore.

Thought For The Day – I gave up jogging for health reasons. My thighs kept rubbing together and setting my shorts on fire.

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When we announced our ten year anniversary of fulltiming, a blog reader wrote to ask me what we would do differently if we had it to do over again, but knowing what we know now about the fulltime RV lifestyle. In thinking about it, there are several things that would have made our lives easier and saved us a lot of money and frustration in our early years on the road. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. So here’s my list of things I’d do differently.

1. Do more homework. I thought that I’d done a lot of research before we hit the road, but looking back, we sure had a lot to learn. I read several books on fulltiming, as well as all of the popular RV magazines, and learned quite a bit. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I were planning on becoming a fulltimer today, I’d read even more, spend a lot of time reading the various internet forums on RVing, and attend a couple of RV rallies as part of my research.

2. Join RV Consumer Group. The independent RV Consumer Group rates all RV makes and models for highway control, reliability, and value, and provides a wealth of information on what to look for, and what to avoid when making an RV purchase. I have had some people tell me that they don’t trust the RV Consumer Group’s ratings because they do not actually buy and test each individual model of every RV made. Instead they rely on a formula developed by their research. My feeling is that until somebody builds a better mousetrap, they are a valuable resource for RV shoppers. If we would have known about their material beforehand, we would have never purchased our first motorhome.

3. Buy a diesel pusher. There is no one best RV make or model to meet everyone’s needs. We all have different RVing styles and priorities. For our needs, a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher by a quality manufacturer such as Allegro, Winnebago, or Newmar would have served us much better than the 36 foot gasoline powered motorhome we originally purchased.

4. Not buy a campground membership. Within our first month on the road, we purchased an expensive campground membership, which turned out to be a total waste of money. I always advise new fulltimers to wait at least a year before they buy a campground membership. It takes that long to develop your traveling style.

5. Join the Elks and Moose. My memberships in these two organizations have provided us many nights of free and low cost camping. Our membership dues and the donations we make to the lodges where we spend the night help them with their many good works in their communities, so it’s a two way street. I wish we had not waited several years before joining.

6. Avoid Camping World. It took us a couple of years to realize that just about anything we can buy at Camping World can be found for less money at many other retail locations and online.

7. Not join Good Sam Club. From the day we joined the Good Sam Club we were flooded with junk mail wanting us to upgrade our membership and buy some other product or service they offered. The small discount we got on camping at Good Sam parks was not worth the cost and hassle of the junk mail they sent us.

8. Buy a Blue Ox towbar. When we started fulltiming, we purchased a Roadmaster Falcon 5250 towbar, and fought with it for years. The release buttons were very stiff to push to disengage the arms, and if our dinghy was not perfectly straight , we could not unhook it. A few years ago we upgraded to a Blue Ox Aventa tow bar, which releases with levers, and we have found it to be a much more user friendly product.

9. Research health insurance issues. When we changed our legal domicile from Arizona to Texas, our insurance agent assured us we had full coverage, and we took his word for it. Eighteen months into our fulltime lifestyle, Miss Terry was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and our insurance company denied the claim. As it turns out, there was a 24 month exclusion for cancer, and even though we had the policy long before we started fulltiming, the clock started ticking all over again the day we switched addresses. A bridge policy to cover the gap would have saved us a fortune.

10. I would have started a blog earlier. I’m a dinosaur, and when people first started talking about blogging, I did not pay any attention. Since then, my thinking has obviously changed. Blogging has become an important part of our income stream, and the commissions we receive from those little ads you see on the blog help us pay our bills. But even if we did not have a business, or any ad income, blogging is a great way for RVers to stay in touch with their family and friends, and to record their travels.

So there are my Top 10 Things I’d Do Over. I’m curious, what would you experienced RVers do differently if you could start all over again?

Thought For The Day – Don’t go to bed angry. Stay up and plot your revenge.

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