Okay, I give up. It’s obvious that God doesn’t want me to watch the space shuttle being launched. Yesterday’s liftoff was canceled due to a fuel leak, and now NASA officials say it will be the end of November, at the earliest, before the shuttle will take off. We’ll be gone from the Space Coast long before that. We’d like to see it, but there is a lot more here in Florida that we also want to see.

Yesterday we had a very nice lunch with Peter and Connie Bradish, our hosts here at The Great Outdoors, and then we went back to their beautiful home and spent several hours visiting. Peter and Connie are really into genealogy, and have many years of experience in family history research, and I learned a lot talking with them that will help me in my own research. In fact, back at our motorhome, I logged onto a website Connie told me about, and discovered two sisters of my father, that were born and died in infancy, that I had never known about!

By the time we got done visiting with Peter and Connie, the weather had turned very cool. The day before we were running our Winnebago’s basement air conditioner, and yesterday evening we were sitting around whining about how chilly it was!

In addition to doing some genealogy research yesterday, I also worked on the seminar schedule for our upcoming Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally. Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School will be doing four seminars at the rally, including one for ladies only, called Yes, You Can Drive That RV.

If you’ve been reading my blog or the Gypsy Journal for very long, you know that I believe that both people in an RV need to know how to drive it. One person may do most of the driving, but you both need to at least know how to get the rig off the road and to a safe place, in case of an emergency. In addition to the seminar at the rally, the RV Driving School will also be offering behind the wheel driving lessons in your own RV at the rally, for a separate fee. Anybody who has taken the class will tell you that it is one of the best investments that you can make for your RV safety.

Dennis will also be presenting seminars on Testing Air Brakes, RV Driving Tips & Techniques, and Preparing To Drive To Alaska. I think if I snivel and beg hard enough, he will probably also sit in on our RVing Alaska panel discussion. Gee, I feel kind of bad about making Dennis work so hard when his pretty wife Carol is just sitting around running their vendor booth and being bored. I wonder if I can get her to teach a line dancing class?

Today is our last day in the Titusville area, and we’re going to spend it with Tim and Ann Moran. Tim has been wanting to show me a museum near their house, but hasn’t been up to it all week. If he’s feeling better, we may do that, and if not, we’ll just sit and visit. When you’re with people you love, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, it’s all about just having that precious time together.

Bad Nick has been at it again, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Who Makes This Crap Up? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

I have some good news to report on the rally front. As I reported a few days ago, I really messed up when I was counting the number of vendors we would have at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, because I did not take into account that several of those vendors wanted two or three booths. Suddenly we realized that we had nowhere to put everybody!

I’m happy to report that at least that problem has been solved. Sunday evening our friend Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School came by our motorhome to tell us that he was willing to cancel his vendor booth if it would make room for another vendor. Dennis said he had some driving lessons scheduled, and he could still do them, just not have a booth to sign up any more students.

And then yesterday morning, another good friend, Butch Williams, called to tell us that he and his wife Fonda would just come to the rally as attendees and give up their induction cookware vendor booth to make room for somebody else.

Wow! Do you realize what those folks were willing to do for us, and for the benefit of the other vendors? These are business people who essentially agreed to close up shop to help us out of a tight spot, and to give other vendors an opportunity to make money, even though they had reserved their vendor booths months ago, and built our rally into their travel schedules. You darned sure don’t see that kind of character and integrity every day!

Fortunately, Miss Terry got her graph paper and rulers out, did some drawing, some erasing, and some more drawing, and said “If we really tighten up and do some creative spacing, I think we can do this after all!” So we spent most of the day yesterday inside the building, measuring and laying out the vendor area, and I’ll be darned if she didn’t make it work! Don’t ask me how; all I do is come up with these harebrained schemes, and Miss Terry makes them happen, and makes me look good in the process.

So now we can fit in all of our vendors, including Dennis, and Butch and Fonda. And I hope everybody who comes to the rally takes the time to stop by their booths and thank them for their willingness to do whatever it takes, even losing money in the process, so the rally is a success.

With the new layout, we’ll have two rooms of vendors, and we’ll be moving some of our seminars out to the big tent we are renting. It’s not the way we originally planned things, and it’s not the way we wanted to do things; but as several of the folks who are coming to the rally have told us, we’ll still have a good time, in spite of ourselves.

At this point, the only camping spots we still have available are 20 amp water and electric, but we have plenty of them. If you want to come to the rally, and have not registered yet, shoot me a quick e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net and we’ll get you on the rally list.

Bad Nick is really ticked off, and I’ll let him tell you about it in today’s Bad Nick Blog, titled Too Stupid To Live. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Live life for what tomorrow has to offer, not for what yesterday has taken away.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

We really like Forest City, Iowa. It’s a charming little town that draws its lifeblood from the Winnebago factory, and just as folks in southern Texas love the Winter Texans who flock there every year, folks here love the “Bagos” who come to town every year for the Grand National rally. Everybody we have met in the stores and restaurants have been very friendly and gone out of their way to welcome us to their community.

We are also very impressed with the Winnebago Customer Service facility. When I spoke to someone here last week to talk about the work we wanted to get done, she urged us to get to Forest City as soon as possible, to get our name on the list for some work we needed done, since they get swamped when the rally ends.

When we arrived Thursday, we got signed up, hoping to get a service slot by Tuesday. We were amazed to be told we were on the stand-by list for yesterday morning, and sure enough, they took us in at 11:30, and by the time their day ended at 3 p.m., they had already completed several things on our list. The service techs carefully explained everything they had done, and what still needed to be completed. Compared to our experiences years ago with the morons at the Fleetwood factory in Riverside, California, it’s a difference between night and day.

We are parked for the weekend in the Service Center camping area, with 30 amp electric, until Monday morning, when they want to start on the rest of our work… at 6 a.m.! Who in the world gets up at 6 a.m.? I told the techs I hoped they worked quietly, because I never roll out of bed before 9 or 10!

While I am impressed with Forest City and the folks at Winnebago, I’m not very thrilled with the very slow 1X National Access internet service  we’re getting from our Verizon air card. Getting online is very slow, if we can get on at all, and then staying online is a crapshoot at best. During the day I can take my iPad inside the Customer Service lounge and use their WiFi to answer e-mail (except for the weekend, when they are closed), but posting the blog is terribly slow, and I get knocked offline about three out of four times.

So if you don’t see the blog every morning for the next few days, we didn’t get abducted by a UFO, or eaten by a rogue rooster. Please, please, don’t send me forwarded jokes and other stuff while we’re here. It’s just too hard to access e-mail. If you do e-mail me about anything else, I may not be as fast in replying as normal.

My pal Butch Williams noticed a mistake in the schedule I posted for our upcoming Gypsy Gathering rally, in which I have seminars scheduled for  Wednesday, September 1; Thursday, September 1; and Friday, September 1. Butch asked me how many times we are having September 1st this year, and I wrote back to tell him three that I know of so far. That’s the last time I buy a calendar at the dollar store! I’d change those typos, if only I could get online!

I also have added a new seminar to our rally schedule, on Beginning Kayaking, as well as a panel discussion on RVing Alaska. I think both will be well received. And don’t forget that the good folks from RVSEF will be at the rally weighing RVs, and that the RV Driving School will be offering behind the wheel driving lessons in your own RV. These are two things you should plan on scheduling as soon as possible, to be sure of getting a weighing time slot, and a driving lesson before or after the rally. To schedule your weighing time, call Rick Lang at (207) 522-3336. For a driving lesson, call Dennis Hill at the RV Driving School at (530) 878-0111.

Thought For The Day – Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

After reading in the blog about the frustrations I was having trying to do research at the Family History Library, Roger Marble sent me some website links to articles on getting the most out of a visit to the Family History Library. I spent a couple of hours Sunday reading those articles, and then getting my notes better organized. It really made a difference.

Yesterday I went back to the library for a couple of hours, and I think I may be getting the hang of how things are laid out there. I found a lot of very good information, including the dates and newspapers that several family members’ obituaries were in, as well as their last addresses before they died. I also found some information on my older brother, who was murdered back in 1968. It was quite a breakthrough, and I feel like I accomplished a lot. I want to go back again today for a while, since our visit here in Salt Lake City is almost over. I definitely plan to come back here again!

Roger presented a couple of seminars on genealogy at our rally in Celina, Ohio last year, and the response was so good that he will be doing them again at our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally in Elkhart, Indiana August 30 – September 3.

Blog reader Ray Warner and his wife Cindy live in Riverton, Utah, a little south of Salt Lake City, and when he read that we were going to be in the area, Ray invited us to dinner. Never one to pass up the chance to make a new friend, or a free meal, I was happy to take Ray up on his offer.

We met at the Chuck-A-Rama buffet, where Terry and I had dinner Friday evening, and it was just as good this time around, too. Ray and Cindy are a very nice couple, who have a fifth wheel, and are looking forward to doing some extended traveling once Cindy retires in a couple of years.

We always enjoy talking with folks about the RV lifestyle, and sharing what we have learned in our time on the road. Cindy had questions about things like how do we get our mail on the road, and what happens if you have a major illness or accident when far away from home. We explained to them about mail forwarding services, and medical evacuation services such as Sky Med and MASA.

I also stressed to both Cindy and Ray how important I feel it is for both of them to know how to handle all of the dumping chores, how hook up and unhook their rig, and how to drive the RV, even if one is the primary driver and the other seldom gets behind the wheel. We have seen too many situations where a husband gets sick or injured, and the wife has no idea of how to get someplace safe until the situation is resolved. We have also known couples where the wife does most of the driving, and the husband would be really challenged if he had to take the wheel.

Some husbands (or wives) can teach their spouses how to drive an RV, but for many couples, it just doesn’t work. If you fall into that category, or if you are a new RVer, male or female, I have good news for you.

Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School will be presenting driving seminars at our Elkhart rally, as well as giving private lessons behind the wheel of the students’ rigs. I really hope folks take advantage of this opportunity to get lessons from the pros. The small fee for the class is worth every penny. It will make you a better, safer, and more confidant RVer. And if you do take the class, you’ll probably qualify for a discount on your insurance too!

Bad Nick is back on his soapbox, and he has a brand new Bad Nick Blog titled Talk About Cajones that may just open your eyes to how much money we are giving to criminals every month. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Money can’t buy happiness, but it can sure make misery much more comfortable.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Okay, we both know that headline is a lie. I’m very overweight. But the good news is that our Winnebago motorhome is not overweight!

My buddy Rick Lang from the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) arrived at the fairgrounds here in Celina yesterday, and will be weighing RVs for folks coming in for our rally. Once Rick was in and set up, I had him weigh our new coach to see how we were doing now that we have moved in.

The motorhome has a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of 32,000 pounds. With a full tank of diesel fuel, about 75 gallons of water onboard, and empty waste tanks, with me in the driver’s seat, we came in exactly 500 pounds under our weight limit. So the good news is we’re okay for weight, and the bad news is, we have to be very careful about bringing anything else onboard. That was never an issue with our bus conversion. If we could find a place to stick it, we could carry it.

Actually, we still have quite a few things to get rid of, including some books, tools, and other heavy items that will probably give us another couple hundred pounds of safety margin once they’re gone. Thanks for weighing us Rick, you gave us some extra piece of mind.

Okay, as for my weight, I have decided that I can spend an hour or two a day walking and exercising to lose weight, or I can just spend an hour or two once a year going to Wal-Mart to buy new clothes in a larger size. As busy as I am, I think that’s the way it will probably go.

I am a big believer in education, especially education that can save your life. There are many excellent safety classes offered at RV rallies that every RVer should take part in. These include the RVSEF classes on RV weight safety and tire safety, Mac McCoy’s excellent fire safety classes, and the RV Driving School’s classroom seminars and their behind the wheel driver safety program.

Modern RVs, with power steering and brakes, and air bag suspensions, are easy to handle. But they are still big, heavy vehicles, and they don’t drive like the family minivan. They take longer to get up to speed, longer to stop, and longer to clear an intersection.

One careless minute and you could find yourself in a situation like this, which took place in Amador, California when an RVer pulled out into the path of a big truck. Get some education before you get behind the wheel.

When you read blogs, do you also read the comments? If so, do you ever go back the next day and read the comments that were left after you originally read the blog? Do it sometime. The comments from Friday’s blog, Who Gets Their Dream, have been very interesting. Longtime reader George Stoltz sent me an e-mail saying that they could be a discussion guide for a graduate-level course on marital relationships. I have to agree. In fact, for the first time ever, Miss Terry even left a comment!

Thought For The Day – Before you give someone a piece of your mind, be sure you have enough to spare.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally