We were out of bed earlier than usual yesterday morning and hit the ground running, and didn’t slow down until well past midnight. Sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day.

We’re leaving Elkhart Campground today and driving 150 miles to Muskegon, Michigan for a week to spend some time visiting with my cousin Berni and her husband Rocky. We had several last minute things to get done before we left, not the least of them being laundry.

Elkhart Campground has full hookup pull through 50 amp sites, but the site we prefer has just 50 amp electric and water. That’s not a problem, because we have a large waste holding tank, so we only have to hit the dump station every couple of weeks. But Terry can’t do laundry with our onboard washer and dryer,so I dropped her off at the campground laundry, then ran to the post office to mail out some orders.

Back at the campground, I stopped to check in on Terry, and she was just putting the clothes in the dryer. While she was finishing up the laundry, I checked our propane tanks, and one was empty, so I drove up to the office to have it filled. When we built the bus conversion, we opted for a pair of portable propane tanks instead of a stationary onboard tank, because it makes it easier to refill. Instead of having to drive the bus to a propane station, I just take one of the tanks, as needed.

By then Terry was finished, so we ran to Wal-Mart to pick up some items. A few minutes after we got home, Jack and Paula Conrad, from Arcadia, Florida stopped over to visit. Jack and Paula have a very nice MCI bus conversion, and every year they host a large New Years bus rally in Arcadia.

We had a nice visit, and by the time they left, it was time to unload some of the bundles of papers in the van so we could load our kayaks and bicycles back in, and then reload the papers around them. While we were doing that, longtime Gypsy Journal subscribers Pete and Patty Gioia stopped by to say hello. Pete and Patty are a neat couple that Terry and I both enjoyed meeting, and we look forward to seeing them again in our travels.

With the van finished, there was still laundry to put away, a bed to be made, and blogs to write before we could begin to think about getting to bed.

We have a lot planned in the next few weeks. We’ll spend a week in Muskegon, and then we will return here for a couple of days, and head over to Bowling Green, Ohio to be vendors at the big FMCA rally July 20-23. As soon as the rally is over we’ll be on our way to Traverse City, Michigan for Terry’s annual oncologist checkup. 

August 3-7 will find us vending at the Newmar Kountry Klub Rally in Goshen, Indiana, if the nice lady in charge of the vendors ever sends me the necessary paperwork. I’ve talked to her twice now and each time she was going to e-mail it to me immediately, but I’m still waiting. We’ll have a week or two to catch our breath, and then August 24 – 28 we’ll be back in Goshen to vend at the Carriage Travel Club Grand National Rally.

With those events behind us, we’ll be in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania September 13 to 16 for the RV Lifestyle, Education & Safety Clinic held by the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF).

When we lost Gaylord Maxwell last year, Life on Wheels ended, which left a big hole in the education options for RVers. I was delighted when Walter Cannon, the head honcho at RVSEF, called to tell me that he was going to hold the new event, and asked me to present some seminars. If you have been lamenting the fact that you never got to attend a Life on Wheels conference, now is your chance. Several of my fellow Life on Wheels instructors will be participating in the RVSEF program. I hope we see you there.

As soon as we’re finished with the RVSEF educational clinic, we’ll be burning up the highway back to Celina, Ohio for our own Gypsy Gathering rally September 28 to October 2. This will be our second Eastern rally, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I have posted a tentative schedule on the rally page on our website, just scroll down to the bottom of that page and check it out. This is NOT the final schedule, we’ll be adding several other seminars and doing some fine tuning before the rally date, but it will give you an idea of some of the offerings we have in store for you.

After that is all over, and after some appointments at the V.A. hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, we will be more than ready for some downtime.

We plan to head to Florida for a while, and I’m hoping that if I whine and snivel hard enough and long enough about needing a vacation, our pals Tom Owen and Diane Rojewski will invite us back to their houseboat in Key West for a week or three. By then, I’ll be ready for a tropical getaway.

Thought For The Day – I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Never underestimate the power of the Internet! When it was announced a few days ago that Maine state legislature was sneaking through a bill that would prohibit overnight RV parking in any commercial parking lot, such as a Wal-Mart or truck stop, that was being promoted by campground owners, RVers sent a flood of e-mails protesting the measure and promising to take their vacation dollars elsewhere. The folks in Augusta quickly got the message and backpedaled, canceling the bill.

I bet all of those other businesses in the great state of Maine who stood to lose the revenue they make from RVers appreciate their elected officials realizing that this was a bad business move.

Now if bankers had half as much sense. As most of you know, we are shopping for a different coach to replace our aging bus. The other day I talked to a lady in Texas who has a very nice rig she needs to unload. Her husband passed away, and she has been making the payments on it for almost a year, and her finances are depleted. She just flat out does not have another dime to give the bank.

She has had the rig for sale, and one dealer offered her about 75% of the balance due. She tried to get the bank to accept that and work with her on the balance, but no dice. Their attitude is “either we get all that you owe, or we’ll repo it, sell it at auction at a loss, and come after you for the balance.” She has tried to explain to them that she is 72 years old, and between her husband’s death and her own serious medical problems, the piggy bank is empty. There is no more!

She would love to have someone take over the payments for the full amount due, which we could easily do, as could some other people she has talked to. But the bank has put one roadblock after another in her way. I guess they have all of that Federal bailout money to work with, so who cares if they actually make a profit?

It’s good to be back on the road. We left the Show Low Elks Lodge Campground at 10:45 a.m. yesterday and pulled into the Route 66 Casino on Interstate 40 just west of Albuquerque, a distance of 262 miles, almost exactly five hours later. It was an easy run, and even though the outside temperature was almost 90 degrees, I only had to use the radiator misters a couple of times. But we did get slowed way down on a couple of hills.

In yesterday’s blog I wrote that the Route 66 Casino has free RV parking, and a good buffet. Well, don’t believe everything you read! I don’t know what went wrong since our last visit, but our dinner was a real disappointment. As Miss Terry said back at the bus, we didn’t really buy that food, we just rented it on a very short term basis!

While we were inside getting ill, Ken and Sue Pace stopped by the bus and left us a note as they were passing through. Sue did her geocaching seminar at our rally in Casa Grande in February, and we were sorry we missed them. Hopefully we’ll catch up with them at Escapade.

Before I close, I want to give a quick plug to the RV Lifestyle, Education, & Safety clinic that RVSEF is putting on in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania September 13-16. For those of you who never got to go to a Life on Wheels session, this is a “must not miss” opportunity to learn all about RVing from some of the best known experts in the field. Here is a link to the classes being offered, and whether you are a wannabe, a newbie, or a seasoned veteran, I guarantee you’ll learn a lot! Check it out!   

Thought For The Day – Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally