Yesterday was the final day of our 2010 Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, which consisted of morning coffee and donuts sponsored by Mac McCoy, one last chance to visit the vendors who had not already packed up and left, and the tour of the Heartland Recreational Vehicles factory. By noon we had all of the tables and chairs put away, and the building emptied out.

We spent most of the afternoon trying to get our motorhome back to some semblance of normality, stowing away rally materials in our bays, and sorting through leftover brochures, display materials, and notes we had hastily scribbled on slips of paper about interesting places to visit that our attendees had suggested, and good campgrounds they thought we might like to stop at someday.

Our dear friends Tom Owen and Diane Rojewski came by to chat for a while, and Frank Hinman popped in for a few minutes. Rumor control has it that there may be another visit to Tom and Diane’s houseboat in Key West in our future. Tom and Diane graciously invited us to stay at the houseboat two years ago, and we spent a wonderful week exploring Key West and the rest of the Florida Keys, kayaking, and playing tourist. We’re really looking forward to getting back down there again.

Soon after Tom and Diane left, Orv Hazelton stopped in, and we solved most of the troubles of the world; then Greg White came over to join us, and he had answers for the few dilemmas of mankind that Orv and I had not gotten to yet.

I spent a couple of hours reading over the rally feedback forms that we asked each attendee to fill out. There were a lot of glowing compliments about the rally, which are always nice, but also some good feedback on the different seminars we had, as well as suggestions for future rallies.

Terry and I read each and every feedback form, and give those suggestions serious consideration. We don’t always go with them, for various reasons, but we have incorporated several of our attendees’ suggestions into our rallies.

One comment that gets repeated frequently at every rally is that we have too many seminars at the same time, and that a person can’t attend one that interests them unless they miss another in the same time period.

One of the things that sets our events apart from many other RV rallies is that we focus on a broad spectrum of seminars. We had 60 different seminars at the rally, which is about average for one of our events. Not just vendor seminars, but also seminars on all kinds of other topics. At this rally we had seminars on bicycling, kayaking, traveling to Alaska, genealogy, Midwest travel destinations, RVing history, RV electrical systems, tire safety, weight safety, fire safety, and more!

True, sometimes there are conflicts when somebody wants to be at two different seminars held at the same time, but the flip side of that coin is that at least we offer plenty of options to choose from, to suit every interest. If we offered fewer seminars, and repeated them twice as some have suggested, we would drastically reduce the options for others who may be interested in something else. To us, more is better when it comes to seminars.  

Of course, we can’t please everybody; we had comments that people wanted more computer related seminars, such as the nine that Geeks on Tour presented, and comments from other folks who said they didn’t care about computer seminars, they wanted seminars on RV maintenance, or pet care, or crafts, or… you get the idea. The problem there is, of course, finding people qualified to teach those seminars. All we can do is to continue to find new seminar topics and new people to present them.

Comments were mixed on having the rally at a full hookup campground. Some people loved it, and some said they would have been just as happy at a fairgrounds, if the cost had been less. And, of course, there were folks who wanted the full hookups, but at fairgrounds prices. That just doesn’t happen!

We had 165 RVs registered the rally, as well as a dozen or so others that had not registered, but were here at the campground on a weekly or monthly basis, and signed up for the rally when they learned about it.

Most of our vendors reported good sales, and a few said that they made more money at our rally then they did at the big Newmar Kountry Klub rally the week before in Goshen, which had over 600 RVs.

With rally week behind us, Miss Terry and I plan to sleep late today and spend some time recharging our minds and bodies. We’re worn out, but we’re gratified that we have another successful rally behind us.

Thought For The Day – A ton of regret never made an ounce of difference.

The title of this blog is what a Gypsy Gathering rally is all about. We do a lot of laughing and having fun, we learn more about the RV lifestyle, and we love being with our huge extended family of nomads.

I really started the day off with some laughter, and it wasn’t intended at all. Just as I was starting my new Cemetery Stories seminar, the little remote control I use to advance the PowerPoint slideshow stopped working. I checked the switch to be sure it was on, pushed the forward and back buttons a time or two, and said to the audience “Please bear with me, my little thingie isn’t working this morning for some reason.”

Now, I don’t have a dirty mind, but apparently everybody else in the room did, because it erupted in laughter! About then I realized what I had said, and they tell me my face turned about six shades of red. But the show still has to go on, so I grabbed my Blackberry and called Barbara Westerfield, who handles our technical equipment. I was holding the phone up to my ear with my left hand, and I had the microphone I use for my seminars in my right hand. When Barbara answered, I dropped my left hand away from my ear, put the microphone to my mouth and said “Barbara, I need you to come to my seminar room and fix my computer.” That brought another round of laughter from the crowd, because Barbara couldn’t hear me two buildings away over the microphone.

When I began developing our rallies, I wanted them to be a combination of fun and fellowship, mixed with some pretty serious educational seminars. Sort of a hybrid between a regular RV rally and Life on Wheels, and I think we have accomplished that. We had an excellent lineup of seminars here, including many by our vendors. Mac McCoy, who was also a Life on Wheels instructor, has been to every one of our rallies, presenting his excellent fire safety seminar.

Chris Yust, from Good Sam insurance, did a great seminar on the Pros & Cons Of RV Extended Warranties, and several attendees told me they learned a lot in her seminar yesterday.

 Daryl Lawrence, from Lawrence RV Accessories, is an expert on RV electrical systems, and he has has educated a lot of RVers on how their electrical systems are designed and how to get the most out of them. If you combine all of the knowledge and experience of our vendors and instructors, I don’t thnk there is any aspect of RVing and the RV lifestyle that they don’t know about. 

Socializing is always an important part of any RV rally, and everywhere you looked on the fairgrounds this week, there were small groups of friends old and new visiting, swapping lies, and planning their next RV adventures.

Yesterday Kellie Gunn had a birthday, and there was quite a party  for her. I’ve never had 300 people sing Happy Birthday to me, but Kellie sure seemed to enjoy it!

Of course, any time you put a bunch of RVers together, food is always going to be a priority, and last night’s pizza party was no exception. RVers were at their tables with hungry appetites, Miss Terry’s crew of dedicated servers were lined up and ready, Domino’s delivered two truckloads of piping hot pizza,  and we all stuffed ourselves.

I have no idea how she does it, but Miss Terry is able to organize things so well that her crew served hundreds of people in less than ten minutes! Did I ever tell you how much my wife amazes me?  

After everybody had finished eating, country singer Michael Hargis took to the stage for a fantastic concert that had everybody applauding. RV rallies are hard work, whether you’re the one organizing them, one of the volunteers who help make it all happen, or an attendee who is on the go every minute attending seminars, shopping the vendors, and meeting up with old friends. But even though everybody was tired by the end of the day, Michael’s show was so good that he had a lot of couples up and dancing. Thanks for the great show, Michael!

Today is the last full day of the rally, and we still have a lot of great seminars left to offer, and a lot of fun too! If you couldn’t make it to this rally, I hope we see you at one of our events soon.

Thought For The Day – Celebrate something today. Anything!

We all want to get the most bang for our buck when we make a purchase. Whether you’re buying a pair of blue jeans, a television set, or an RV, you want to get your money’s worth, right?

I don’t think anybody I’ve ever met has managed to make a better deal than longtime Gypsy Journal subscriber John Culp, who is here at our rally in the 1947 Westwood West Craft Coronado travel trailer that he bought brand new, and still travels with 62 years later! Yes, you read that right. John has had his RV for over six decades, and the octogenarian and his old rig are still going strong!

John said he lived in the trailer fulltime before he got married, calling it his “bachelor pad,” but when he and his wife got married, they decided after a couple of months that it was too cramped for both of them. Alone now, John pulls the trailer behind a van, and brings it to a lot of the Tin Can Tourists events. I never met anybody whose RV is old enough to draw Social Security!

The wind finally died down yesterday, and by late afternoon we even had blue sky overhead. But it was cold! The thermometer dipped into the mid-30s overnight, and a lot of folks said that as soon as the rally ends Friday, they’re headed south.     

Yesterday evening we had our pizza party, and it always amazes me how fast Miss Terry and her volunteer crew can serve over 90 pizzas to a crowd of hungry RVers. Everybody complimented me on their efficiency.

After we all finished stuffing ourselves on pizza, Melissa and Larry Beahm, who perform as One More Time, entertained us with a wonderful concert that had everybody tapping their toes and singing along to the music.

Melissa and Larry are fulltime RVers, who make their living traveling the country performing at RV rallies, nursing homes, and other events. They will be performing for us again tonight, and have promised a lot of “belt buckle rubbing” slow songs to dance to.

We tried something different with this rally; moving our vendors inside, in the same building where we have the morning coffee and donuts, and where the vendors present their seminars. It has worked out very well, and several of the vendors said it has been an excellent show for them. In fact, Ben and Gay Miller from Coyote Sales sold so many of their Wilson cellular phone antennas and accessories that they had to have more merchandise sent in by overnight delivery!

We did some shopping ourselves here at the rally. One piece of equipment I consider critical in an RV is an Electrical Management System (EMS) from Progressive Industries. The unit is designed to shut down incoming power to an RV if it detects high or low voltage, an open ground or neutral, or other problems that could cause serious damage to the RV and its electrical systems.

The EMS in or bus conversion saved us from damage several times over the years, and as impressed as I was with the unit itself, I was even more impressed with the service from Progressive Industries and their vendor, Daryl Lawrence, from Lawrence RV Accessories.

Two years ago while we were in Quartzsite, a board went out in our EMS, and even though it had been out for warranty for years, someone from the company drove several miles from town to where we were parked in the middle of the desert and replaced it for us! So yesterday we had Daryl install an EMS in our Winnebago, and now I’ll feel a lot more comfortable when I plug into a campground’s electric pedestal. Thanks for the great service and peace of mind, Daryl.  

Thought For The Day – The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat sensibly, and lie about your age.

I spent most of yesterday working on a website for Carlyle Lehman at Focal Wood Products. Many people are surprised to learn that while the Amish people live a much simpler lifestyle than most of us, with their horses and buggies, they do in fact make use of many modern conveniences, including telephones, electricity, and even the internet.

Every Amish community has its own rules as to how much of the “English world” (as they call life among the non-Amish), they can incorporate into their homes and businesses. While the Amish don’t own or drive cars, they will hire someone to take them where they need to go if it is too far for their buggies, and crews of Amish workers at local factories car pool in vans driven by non-Amish co-workers.

If you drive past the Amish farms on some of the back roads here in northern Indiana, you will see small wooden structures at the end of the driveway at every third or fourth home. These are shared telephone booths, where they can make and receive calls relating to business. But these booths are not heated and do not have a seat, to prevent them from spending much time chatting. We often see newspaper advertisements for items for sale, with a telephone number and the notation “Call between 7:30 and 8 a.m.” Those are the hours when they will be monitoring the telephone to receive calls. For businesses such as Focal Wood Products, they have a voice mail system, so if we call when Carlyle is busy, we leave a message and he calls us back. It’s not quite as convenient as calling a traditional business, but it works for them.

In the case of his website, Carlyle received permission from his community to have one to advertise his products, but he cannot build or maintain it himself. That’s where I got involved, and it’s been an interesting experience working with someone whose culture is different in so many ways from our own.

I mentioned a while back that I have co-authored a new book on self-publishing, titled The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit. Last week I received my first copy of the book, hot off the press, and I’m very pleased with it. All of the credit goes to my co-author, Christy Pinheiro, who conceived the project and handled all of the production details. For more information, here is a link to the book’s website. Check it out; you too could be a published author!  

One of the things I suggest on my self-publishing website, Publishing4Profit, is producing small niche guides aimed at very targeted markets. Examples would be our Guide to Free Campgrounds and Overnight Parking Places, and our Guide to Casino Camping.

I don’t know if Dale Sumner from Mobile RV Medic, Inc. spent any time reading the website or coming to any of my seminars, but he recently published a very good guide, titled Basic RV Electricity and Protection, which is an excellent primer for anyone who owns an RV. Dale packs a lot of excellent information into the book, without getting buried in technical details that the average RVer could not understand. If you want to know what happens when you plug your RV’s electrical cord into a campground’s pedestal, and how to avoid overloading the circuit, and how to protect your rig from problems, this is an easy to understand guide that is well worth the money. You can order your copy at www.lulu.com/basicRVelectricity or e-mail Dale at sales@mobileRVmedic.com.

Of course, if you’re staying at an upscale RV resort such as Retama Village in Mission, Texas, you won’t have to worry about things like electrical problems. My friend Jack Mayer owns a couple of RV lots at Retama Village, and Jack and some of the other lot owners have set up a website, Retama Rentals, to market their lots when they are not staying on them. We paid a visit to friends at Retama last winter, and I can tell you it’s the nicest RV resort we have ever seen! So if you’re thinking about spending some time in the Valley this winter, check out Jack’s website.

While I was busy building a website this weekend, Bad Nick wrote a new post for the Bad Nick Blog titled We’re Going To Lose The War On Terror. Check it out, it will give you something to think about.

Thought For The Day – Anything in the future will always look better because there’s always something wrong in the present.

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