Yes, it’s miserably cold here in central Florida. Yes, I am chilled to the bone. Yes, it sucks. But I shall not snivel. Yesterday evening we watched news coverage of the blizzard that is blanketing the east coast, and all of those folks stranded in airports, and others who were busy shoveling snow, or getting stuck. Compared to them, we have it good.

But just because I’m not going to snivel doesn’t mean I have to like it! If my fingers ever thaw out enough that I can type again, I plan to write a strongly worded editorial!

We knew the weather was going to be ugly yesterday, and we had no place to go and nothing to do, so we slept in, then stayed in bed snuggling for a long time, because neither of us was in a hurry to get out from under the covers. When we finally did get up, we wore our sweats all day long, and put on our warm Teepee Creepers sheepskin slippers. While Miss Terry has to have her morning kick start, I don’t drink coffee. But I sure didn’t turn down the cup of hot chocolate she made me for breakfast!

I spent the day catching up on a backlog of paperwork I had let pile up, and managed to make a big dent in it. Terry kept busy doing some laundry, puttering around the kitchen, and working on some other chores she needed to get out of the way.

It never got much above 50 degrees all day long, and the wind kept gusting up. Looking out the windows, we saw very little activity most of the day, except for a few people bundled up, walking their dogs. That’s another reason I don’t have a pet. I love dogs, but I’ll go play with theirs when it warms up, and leave the dog walking in the cold to them.

We love our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome, and it has so many nice features we didn’t have in our MCI bus conversion. The one place where it is lacking is in insulation. When we built the bus, we put several layers of different kinds of insulation in the floor, ceiling, and walls. We didn’t have a furnace in the bus, but with an Olympian catalytic heater, or a small electric heater, we  stayed warm and toasty even when outside temperatures got  down below freezing several times.

The Winnebago has two furnaces, a heat pump, and we use space heaters as needed, but it was still cold inside it yesterday. But I’m not sniveling!

Since the overnight temperatures were going to be in the mid-20s for the next few days, I went out in the late afternoon and disconnected our water hose to keep it from freezing.

Today and tomorrow look like more of the same thing. Terry has been saying that she needed a few days of down time to spend at home, and it looks like she’s getting her wish. but I’m not sniveling!

Thought For The Day – I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost.

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I’ve been working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, which I will be sending off to the printer early next week, and we still had a few bundles of the November-December issue left. We needed to get them distributed so we’d have room for the new issue after it’s printed.

So yesterday, we spent the day dropping off sample bundles at RV parks along Interstate 4 between the Kissimmee area and Interstate 75, on the west side of the state.

It was interesting see how folks were bundled up, due to the cold snap that has hit the South. Everywhere we went, we saw people in jackets, scarves, hats, and even gloves! And they thought they were coming to Florida to spend the winter basking in the sunshine!

I was surprised by how many Carefree RV resorts we stopped at! They have a lot of RV parks in Florida! All of them were very nice, and I really appreciate the fact that Carefree Resorts also gives veterans a 50% discount on RV sites. That’s very nice, and I made it a point of telling their managers that, at the resorts where we stopped.

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One of the campgrounds where we stopped, Tampa East RV Resort in Dover, has a special weekly rate that is good until the end of December, so we may pop in there for a week between Christmas and New Years. It’s about a half hour away from my nephew Steve’s place in Pinellas Park, and might make a good place to stay while we visit Steve and the rest of the family in that area.

One place where we won’t be staying, or doing any business at all, is at Lazy Days, the mega-dealer just off Interstate 4 that has an RV dealership, campground, Camping World, and Cracker Barrel on the premises.

We stopped there to drop off a bundle of papers, and the manager on duty said no, because we had two ads for RVs for sale in the paper. One is a tiny little 1984 Mirage camper with an asking price of $4,000 up in northern Indiana, and the other is an eight year old Class A gas rig a couple have for sale in Texas.

The manager never actually gave me the courtesy of talking to me, the message relayed by the young lady at the counter was that since Lazy Days is a dealership, they don’t want to “encourage the competition.” Yeah, that sixteen year old $4,000 Mirage is sure some competition for the land yachts that Lazy Days sells!

I find it interesting that Lazy Days has contacted us in the past suggesting that we consider holding one of our Gypsy Gathering rallies there, and they have sent me press releases in the past when they want free publicity for something. But I guess that’s a one way street.

But that’s okay, we found another campground just down the road that was happy to get the papers, and whenever anybody is RV shopping and asks me my opinion of Lazy Days (and I get a lot of people asking for advice), I’ll be happy to share it. Did you ever notice that the little mom and pop places are so much nicer to deal with, and that the biggest outfits are the most chickensh..?

By the time we were done, we only had two or three bundles left, and I’ll get rid of them at a couple of places we’ll be stopping in the next few days. It was twilight by the time we were headed home, and I don’t see well after dark, so Miss Terry took the wheel. We stopped for dinner at the Sonny’s Barbecue in Clermont, and by the time we got back to the Thousand Trails, it was downright cold again! It sure felt good to get inside, turn up the thermostat, put on our Teepee Creepers slippers, and warm back up!

Bad Nick is no fool. He stayed inside where it was warm all day, pounding out another Bad Nick Blog titled I’m Sorry, I Just Don’t Get It. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

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Yesterday we had a quiet day at home. Sometimes we need one of those, just to get caught up on paperwork and household chores, to relax and enjoy each other’s company, and just decompress.

I updated the calendars on our RV website, motorcycle travel website, and self-publishing website, and added some events to the Small Town Festivals page on the RV website. Then I spent a couple of hours updating our mailing lists. 

I need to make some changes to Carlyle Lehman’s Focal Wood website, because several of the links are not working. I struggled with the links for over two hours, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t get them to work, no matter what I did. It’s time to call on my pal Greg White. I know it’s probably a simple thing that he can do in his sleep, because Greg’s a simple man.

I also watched one of our neighbors climb up the ladder on the back of her motorhome, wearing a pair of flip flops, and trip when the toe of one caught on the top step. She managed to catch herself, but I was afraid it was going to be time to call 911. I don’t trust RV ladders. We have had a couple of friends seriously injured using them in the past, and one friend who just bought a new high end coach discovered that at least some of the screws holding his  ladder in place were not secure. To climb up on one without proper footwear is just plain foolish!

In the late afternoon, Linda Spindle stopped by our motorhome and visited for a while. We saw Linda and her husband Dave when we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and now they are parked just a short distance across from us. Linda told us about a great place to buy fresh seafood in Gloucester, and we’ll definitely be stopping by there!

We spent the evening watching a movie about 1950s singer Buddy Holly, which we found interesting, because we visited the musician’s grave in Lubbock, Texas several years ago, and the site of the airplane crash that took his life a couple of months ago when we were in Iowa. Did you know that his name was actually spelled Holley, but a secretary at Decca records misspelled his name on a recording contract, and it stuck?

Today we don’t have any solid plans. We may do some exploring, taking in the local sights, and we have a couple of orders to mail out. We’re just enjoying a slow pace for a while. It’s a nice change from the hectic schedule we have kept for too long now.

Thought For The Day – Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.

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Yesterday was another gray, dreary day. The rain had stopped, but there was a heavy overcast, and it was downright chilly. We even broke out our little electric space heater. I’m not ready for winter yet!

Miss Terry knew just how to put a smile back on my face, she baked a batch of her decadently delicious made from scratch cinnamon rolls! Trust me, they taste ten times better than they look! There’s nothing better than fresh, hot cinnamon rolls and a cold glass of milk to start your day off right!

We spent much of the day not doing much, except answering e-mails and cruising the internet. Well, at least that’s what I did. Terry also did some laundry, put fresh sheets on the bed, washed dishes, and cleaned up all of the little messes I make and never notice.

About 3:30 in the afternoon we drove a few miles to Dutton, a wide spot in the road, to drop off some orders at the post office. This Thousand Trails preserve is several miles from anything, so while we were out we continued on to Gloucester to stock up on some things we needed at WalMart. 

The small town of Gloucester Courthouse is the county seat of Gloucester County, and we poked around town for a little while, stopping at a nice little bookstore and chatting with the owner. They have preserved the original county courthouse and several other historic buildings in a small park located in an island right in the middle of the main street through town.

During the Civil War, Union troops marched into Gloucester Courthouse searching for weapons they believed Confederate forces had hidden there. They only stayed two hours, and didn’t find any weapons, but they did seize a large number of horses, mules, and other livestock from local families before marching on.

A tall monument on the site honors the county’s Confederate war dead.

The back roads around here have all kinds of hidden treasures for us to discover. I could spend days just reading all of the historical markers alongside the roads, telling about early settlements, long forgotten plantations, military maneuvers, and such.

We stopped to take a picture of this old abandoned gas station. At one time, this was some entrepreneur’s pride and joy. I wonder what happened to that dream.

We love finding old places like this, whether they are still in use, or just old roadside relics. If you do too, you may enjoy a new website I discovered called LandmarkHunter.com. It is a sister website to BridgeHunter.com, another one where I can get lost for hours. Hey, I may not like driving over high bridges, but I sure do like looking at them!

We’re supposed to have sunny skies for the next few days, though it won’t get much warmer. But we’re going to try to get some sightseeing in while we can, and then I have to buckle down and get to work on the new issue of the paper.

Thought For The Day – Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

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We were in no hurry yesterday, and that was a good thing. It was cold in Gila Bend overnight, and I was too lazy to get up and turn on the furnace, so instead I shivered half the night. Finally, about 7 a.m., I got up for a bathroom trip, and when I came back to bed I snuggled up to Miss Terry and dropped into a deep sleep. So deep that finally somewhere around 10:40 a.m. Terry woke me up and asked if I ever planned to get out of bed. There were several RVs at the Elks lodge overnight, but by the time we opened the curtain over our windshield, there was only one travel trailer parked back at the far edge of the lot, and I think he’s staying there long term.

We puttered around for an hour or so, checking e-mail and returning a couple of phone calls, and finally got on the road about noon. But we only had about 120 miles to go, so there was no pressure.

It was a beautiful day, and the storm from the day before had blown itself out. We cruised west on Interstate 8, stopping only long enough to pull into a rest area for a quick walk around the motorhome and van, making sure everything was still in one piece. It’s always a good idea to stop every hundred miles or so do a walk around and stretch your legs. It gives you an opportunity to check your tires, be sure your tow bar and safety cables are still secure, and look for anything that might need attention. We had friends who once drove 400 miles nonstop, and when they arrived at their destination, they discovered that the side window of their SUV had been shattered. They had no idea when or how that had happened, and it remains a mystery today.

I like comparing how our Winnebago motorhome compares to our MCI bus conversion on steep grades. There is a small mountain range just east of Yuma on Interstate 8, and in the past, if I had a good running start at it, we’d top out in the bus at about 15 to 18 miles per hour. We had stopped at the rest area just before the uphill climb began, so there was no running start, and I had to slow down for a big truck, but in the Winnebago, we still hit the top at about 50 miles per hour. What a difference! However, I still much prefer the Jake brake in the old bus to the exhaust brake on the Winnebago. I just felt more secure with it on steep downgrades.  

After a stop for fuel at the Flying J on the east side of town, we arrived at the fairgrounds and stopped to check in at the office. They have several other events going on between now and our rally, so we found a quiet spot away from the main area, parked next to the stables. We have 20 amp electric and water, which is plenty to sustain us indefinitely.

Once we were settled in, we called our friends Mike and Elaine Loscher and arranged to meet them for dinner at the Golden Corral. Mike and Elaine are sweet people, and very dedicated supporters of our efforts. They have been to every one of our rallies, always volunteering to help. We could never afford to pay them for all that they do, from helping with parking and registration, and a hundred other chores that come up. We feel very honored to have such wonderful friends. 

I noticed in Gila Bend, and again here in Yuma, that our Verizon air card is working much faster than it was in the Apache Junction/Mesa area. Some snowbirds had told me that they were experiencing slow service here in Yuma too, but so far, so good. We’ll be busy getting all of the last minute rally chores done in the next few days. The clock is ticking down!

Thought For The Day – Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally