Sometimes I have all kinds of things to write about in this blog, and there are other times when I sit down at the computer with no idea what I will come up with to fill the minimum 500 word quota I set for myself every day. Fortunately, one way or another, I always seem to manage to come up with something. My old man used to say, if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.

But in writing today’s blog, I had a completely different problem. I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to type, and my fingers all felt like limp noodles when I tried to hit the keys.

No, I’m not sick, just super relaxed. Our friend Jean Damon gave Miss Terry and I full body massages yesterday evening that just turned us both into Jello. Jean was born and raised in the Philippines, where she studied Asian massage techniques before marrying Dave and moving to the United States to become a fulltime RV gypsy. Now they work the rally circuit, selling 303 products, and Jean gives massages.

Jean said she did about 10 massages at our Eastern rally at Elkhart Campground, and another 25 at the Escapade in Goshen. She offered us massages at our Elkhart rally, but we were just too busy to take her up on them. So when we ran into them here at the Orlando Thousand Trails, Jean said we weren’t getting away until she got us on her table. All I can say is wow, it do feel good! If you have never had a professional massage, trust me, you have no idea what you’re missing. Pamper yourself and get one sometime.

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Speaking of RV rallies, I’m thrilled to say that our friends Joe and Vicki Kieva will be presenting two of their excellent seminars at our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma. Joe and Vicki are two of the most well know RV writers and speakers of all time, and having them at our rallies is a real honor for us.

They will be presenting their ever popular  Alaska, the Ultimate RV Adventure seminar, and if you have ever wanted to make the trip north, you don’t want to miss this one. There are plenty of travelogues showing pretty pictures of Alaska, but Joe and Vicki’s presentation is a how-to type seminar telling people how to prepare for a trip to Alaska, and what to expect along the way.

Joe will also be drawing on his experiences as a police officer, and their years of RV travel, to present his Personal Security Tips for RVers seminar. Overall, RVing is one of the safest lifestyles that one could ever choose, but even so, we know firsthand that anyone can run into trouble anywhere. Joe’s seminar shows you the criminal’s point of view, and gives you tips and ideas on how not to become a victim.

Check out Joe and Vicki’s RV Notebook blog, and  be sure to take note of the books and e-books they have advertised in the right hand column. I’ve learned a lot from them over the years, and they’re happy to share their vast knowledge with you too.

For anybody planning an Alaska trip, you can’t have too much knowledge. This rally is going to be a real learning experience on making the big trip north. Besides Joe and Vicki’s seminar, my buddy Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School will be presenting his Preparing To Drive To Alaska seminar, and we will also have an RVing Alaska panel discussion with several folks who have traveled and lived in Alaska participating. So as you can see, we have the topic covered well!

Okay, I’m so relaxed I can’t write another word. I’m headed for bed.

Thought For The Day -  I am not stupid. Everyone else is just smarter than me.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

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

In spite of some setbacks, such as overbooking vendor spaces, and not having a large enough building for all of the activities, we managed to make our 2010 Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally a success! At yesterday evening’s closing ceremonies, the audience let us know that they had a good time, and we really appreciated their support.

I’m a natural ham and thrive on the attention, but Miss Terry is never comfortable getting up on stage. During the opening and closing ceremonies at our rallies, she let’s me drag her up there, but she’d be much happier just doing what she shines at, working quietly behind the scenes, taking care of 1,001 duties to make sure the rally runs smoothly.

Last night when I had her on the stage, the audience gave her a standing ovation, and if anybody ever deserved one, it sure is Terry. Here is a rare picture of Terry up on stage, during our opening ceremony earlier in the week.

It’s late, and I still have a couple of hours of work to get done for tomorrow, so I’m going to share some pictures my buddy Paul Anderson took at the rally. Here I am enjoying a hug from my friend Marcia Jones. I sure do appreciate a pretty lady!

Our vendors all seemed to do well. Here are Bill and Janet Adams from Internet Anywhere, talking to Stu McNichol. Stu said Bill was able to solve a problem with his rooftop TV antenna when the techno-geeks at the network dropped the ball a couple of times.

Our vendors had all kinds of goodies for sale that no RVer can do without.

Here are our friends, Butch and Fonda Williams, who sell induction cookware, and make the most delicious almond toffee candy in the world!

Our rented tent was a busy place all during the rally, serving as a classroom, a place to socialize, and as a venue for our evening entertainment.

Our classrooms were filled with students for the many seminars we held.

Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School presented an excellent seminar on Testing Air Brakes.

For those looking for some adventure in their lives, the Beginning Kayaking seminar was popular.

This morning we’ll have coffee and donuts, sponsored by Mac McCoy, better known as Mac the Fire Guy. Then we have about 75 folks going out to tour the Heartland Recreational Vehicles factory, while others will be hitching up and heading off to their next adventures. Still others will be staying on here at Elkhart Campground through the Labor Day weekend, and quite a few will be here until the Escapees RV Club Escapade rally begins in a couple of weeks.

Terry and I will spend a couple of days wrapping up all of the paperwork from the rally, settling our bill with Elkhart Campground, and hopefully finding a few minutes to catch our breath.

But we won’t have a lot of time to relax, since we have to be in Hershey, Pennsylvania in less than a week to get settled in as vendors at the big Hershey RV Show.

Thought For The Day – Statistics show that at the age of seventy, there are five women to every man. Isn’t that a lousy time for a guy to get those odds?

Can you be exhausted, footsore, and ache over every inch of your body, and still be having a fantastic time? You can if you’re running a Gypsy Journal rally!

Yesterday, after morning coffee and donuts, furnished by Bradd & Hall RV furniture, I spent part of the morning checking up on our vendors and seminar rooms to be sure everything was going well. Then late in the morning I did my Gypsy Journal FAQs seminar, an informal chat in which I tell the audience how we began our 12 year traveling and publishing adventure, why we do things the way we do, and what we see for our future.

I couldn’t get away for lunch, so Greg White grabbed a sandwich for me while he was out running errands, and in the afternoon I sat in on Roger Marble’s excellent Beginning Genealogy seminar.

At 7 p.m. we had door prizes, and then the real fun began. First Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School, in his pumpkin persona, took to the stage to act like…well, an orange version of Dennis Hill.

I eventually had to climb up on stage and put a leash on Dennis, because the crowd was having way too much fun! He’s wearing the world’s one and only orange Gypsy Gathering T-shirt.

Then it was time for the highlight of the evening, our Hoosier Honey Beauty Contest. Six of the most bizarre looking women, who had been pretty run of the mill middle aged men an hour or so before, strutted their stuff on the stage to win the coveted crown.

When he (or she) isn’t breaking hearts or creating nightmares for men nationwide, this is Al Hesselbart, author and historian for the RV Hall of Fame Museum. The things you don’t know about your friends until a cheap 99 cent tiara is on the line!

I miss my momma, but not that bad, thank you just the same!

Here’s a face that only a mother or a cellmate could love!

During the contest, I had to lecture several of the “ladies” on decorum. Apparently keeping their legs crossed is a real problem in their world.

Here are all six of our contestants, waiting for the audience to decide the winner by popular vote. Be still, my heart!

And the winner is Carmalita Camelback, aka Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour!

Here is Denny Orr checking out our new Beauty Queen. I’m not sure what Denny is thinking, but forget it buddy. There’s not that much booze in the entire world!

After the beauty contest, the “ladies” collected donations from the audience for the Escapees CARE program. Our winner had a lot of money stuffed in her bodice.

All told, we raised $450 for CARE. Here I am presenting it to Brenda Neil from the Escapees RV Club.

It was a busy and fun day, and today we get to do it all over again!

So yes, I’m sore, exhausted, and ache in places I didn’t even know I had. But I’m sure having fun!

Thought For The Day – We all have to get older, but growing up is optional.

The folks from Grand Rental Station were supposed to be at Elkhart Campground about 10 a.m. yesterday morning to set up the tent we rented for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. But at a little before 10, I looked across the campground and realized that there was a big tent where there hadn’t been one the night before!

I was disappointed, because I wanted to get some pictures of the process, but not to worry, my buddy Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School was there with his camera, and recorded the event for posterity.

The first step was to lay out the 50×70 foot tent. It covers the campground’s whole basketball court!

Then they set up the side posts and staked them down. The stakes go 42 inches into the ground, because if a strong wind were to come along, they don’t want the tent flying away to Toledo.

They used this nifty machine to raise the two tall center poles.

Dennis said the crew obviously had a lot of experience, because everybody knew what to do and when, and the tent went up like clockwork.

And here is the tent, all set up and ready for our rally to begin. We really appreciate the great service from Nate and the rest of the crew at  Grand Rental Station. They are real professionals.

Of course, no job like this can take place without a lot of sideline quarterbacks making sure every detail is handled just right. Fortunately, we have a lot of guys here who were willing to volunteer for that duty.

The ladies, on the other hand, preferred to spend their time line dancing. I’m not sure which group had more fun.

Speaking of having fun, the people who are already here at the campground waiting for the rally to start have been practicing hard, and they seem to have that down to a science.

Here’s my pal Frank Hinman, cooking burgers to feed the hungry masses. Frank never offered me a burger. I think either he or Dennis Hill ate mine for me because I was busy. Thanks for the help, guys.

Not everybody is a party animal. My dear friend Nancy Hazelton makes adaptive clothing for wounded service members, as part of a non-profit program called Sew Much Comfort.

With approximately 40 wounded servicemen and women returning to the United States each week, there is a real need for clothing that will accommodate patients’ medical devices, such as prosthetics, braces and casts, or for those suffering burns and nerve damage. A lot of the clothing has Velcro seams to make it easier for these brave men and women to dress, or to allow room for their special needs.

Each month, Sew Much Comfort distributes over 1,200 clothing items and comfort accessories to combat medical units, hospital wards, VA clinics, wounded warrior barracks, and military medical facilities in the United States and abroad. Without the special clothing that people like Nancy create, many of our wounded troops would have only standard hospital gowns as their only clothing.

Nancy knows all about the needs of our country’s active duty military personnel and veterans.  Before she retired and ran away to became an RV gypsy, Nancy was my Primary Care Provider at the Veterans Administration hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. She is married to a Vietnam veteran, and her two sons, David and Daniel, are both officers in the United States Army. Nancy may be retired, but she continues to serve our nation’s war veterans. Those are just some of the reasons I love and respect this special lady so much.

If you want to help with this wonderful program, either through a donation, or by helping to sew clothing for our vets, log onto the Sew Much Comfort website to learn more.

Thought For The Day – Remember the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others, and Responsibility for your actions.

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