That old Boy Scout motto comes in handy in the RV lifestyle, just as it does in the rest of the world.

Early one morning this week, the campground host here at the Show Low Elks campground came to our door to tell us that a construction crew had broken a sewer line near the campground, and city workers had asked that nobody flush their toilets or use their sinks until repairs were made, which could be up to four hours.

Not a problem for us, we had lots of room in our black tank, and since we are in a full hookup RV site, I had the valve to our gray tank open, so it was empty. I closed the valve and we were just fine. I don’t know what the folks in the houses near the campground did, but for us life went on like normal.

We’re not survivalists, but we always try to be prepared for whatever happens, so that things that cause inconveniences to others aren’t even a speed bump for us. We keep our fresh water tank at least half full, even in a full hookup campground, because we’ve had the water shut off for repairs more than once. We keep our fuel tank close to full, even when sitting still for a few weeks, because if the electricity goes out, our generator can supply all the power we need.

We try to be prepared for the unexpected when we’re on the road too. We very seldom make advance campground reservations, because we like the freedom of not having to be on a schedule, but we usually have a general idea of where we plan to spend the night. Before we pull onto the highway, I also have an idea of alternate stops, usually every 50 miles or so apart, along the way that we can get into if bad weather, traffic delays, or mechanical problems delay us. These may be truck stops or RV friendly businesses, a city park or fairgrounds that allows RV parking, or an Elks or Moose lodge.  That way we’re never pushed to drive into inclement weather or past dark to get someplace.

We are also aware of what is happening around us as we travel. If we see traffic starting to slow down, we monitor the CB radio to find out if there is an accident or bad weather ahead, so we can find an alternate route or get off the road into a safe place until the crisis has passed.

As RVers, we usually have the ability to avoid or drive away from areas where bad weather threatens us. But if we happen to find ourselves in some ungodly place like Tornado Alley, a good weather radio will alert us to approaching storms. If we are in a campground that is new to us, we always find out where the storm shelters are, and if we happen to be in a Wal-Mart parking lot or some such, we try to scope out a secure building we can hide out in if things get out of hand.

It doesn’t take much to be prepared, and when you are, it can negate ordinary inconveniences, and help us avoid or survive potential emergencies.

Of course, Bad Nick is always prepared, at least to give us things to ponder. Check out his new Bad Nick Blog post titled You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Rick Lang from Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) called me yesterday morning to tell me that he and Joyce plan to be on hand at Elkhart Campground on August 29th to greet anybody arriving early for our Gypsy Gathering Rally so they can weigh their RVs if they want it done.

If you have not had your rig weighed before, or if it’s been a while, you should seriously consider having it done. The RVSEF crew are specially trained to weigh RVs, which is not the same as pulling onto a truck scale somewhere and calling it good. Rick and Joyce weigh each axle individually and you get a report that tells you not only your RV’s total weight, but also if you are too heavy on any corner of your RV. This is important information to know, and will help you adjust your load for the safest ride and longer tire life.

Speaking of RVSEF, there is still time to sign up for their excellent RV Lifestyle, Education and Safety Conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky June 3-6. This is your opportunity to learn about RV technical issues and lifestyle experiences from some of the top experts in the industry. You can find out more about this great program at the RVSEF website.

I also got a call from Too Crazy Ladies yesterday, confirming that they will be at our rally, making custom name badges for the attendees. Red and Beth are regular vendors at many RV events, and they have built up a huge following of loyal customers over the years.

I have had a lot of people asking if Elkhart Campground has WiFi service available. Yes they do, and it’s free, so you will be able to get online and surf the internet to your heart’s content.

There has been some confusion about the rally dates. The rally starts with RV parking, registration, and welcome on Monday, August 30th, and ends with hitch up coffee and donuts Friday morning, September 3rd. The rally fee covers camping Monday through Thursday night, but if you want to arrive early or stay later, Bob and Gita at Elkhart Campground assure me they will have plenty of room.

Terry and I plan to arrive in Elkhart about the first of August, so we can get all of the pre-rally work done. Then we’ll hang around for a few days afterwards, before we leave for Hershey, Pennsylvania, where we will be vendors and I will be speaking at the Pennsylvania Recreational Vehicle Show September 15 – 19. We won’t be able to make it to the Escapees 50th Escapade, which is September 12 – 17 in Goshen, Indiana. We’ll miss being with our Escapees family, but the Hershey show drew over 37,000 attendees last year, and we can’t miss the opportunity to introduce the Gypsy Journal to so many RVers who have never seen it before.

I have to say a belated Happy Birthday to my son-in-law, Jim Robinson, who turned 29 yesterday. Jim’s a fine young man, and yesterday we took him and Tiffany and the girls out to dinner to celebrate his special day. Of course, somebody let it slip to the waitress that it was Jim’s birthday, and they did the typical thing where several of the waitresses bring out a cupcake with a candle on it and everybody sang Happy Birthday. Jim is a low profile kind of guy, so the rest of us had fun watching him squirm as the center of attention.

Hey Jim, it only goes faster from here on out.

Thought For The Day -Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Yesterday morning we left the Yuma County Fairgrounds, our home for the last several weeks, and drove 85 miles north on U.S. Highway 95 to Quartzsite, with Greg and Jan White following us in their American Eagle. They had never been to this part of Arizona, so I played tour guide on the handheld radio, pointing out the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Yuma Proving Grounds, and Castle Dome as we motored north.

In Quartzsite we left the main highway long enough to make a half loop around town to give them a feel for the place, though there were only a handful of RVs scattered about here and there, as opposed to the thousands that cover the desert in January and February.

From Quartzsite, we continued north on State Route 95 through Parker, then along the Colorado River through what is known as the Parker Strip, a land of dramatic mountains, cool water, and scenic beauty. I always love this drive, it’s a good two lane road, with plenty of pullouts if you need them. However, unlike past trips in our old MCI bus conversion, we didn’t need them. The Cummins diesel engine powered us right up the hills without blinking an eye!

Arriving  in Lake Havasu City, we parked both rigs at the Elks lodge, and I went inside to obtain permission to leave them there for a couple of hours, while Greg unhooked his Dodge pickup. Seeing the London Bridge was on Jan’s bucket list, so we drove across it, and then back again, then we parked and got out to see the historic bridge and checked out the shops in the small English themed village in the bridge’s shadow.

It must be Spring Break, because later on Greg told me that there were some pretty young ladies in skimpy bikinis and other revealing clothing. I didn’t notice them at all, because I was busy taking pictures of Miss Terry, and I only have eyes for her.

We grabbed a quick snack at Dairy Queen, then got back on the road and drove another 23 miles north, to hook up with Interstate 40. We took the interstate a few miles west to Exit 1, then got onto a narrow two lane road that had more nasty twists and turns than a politician’s biography. I’m sure Greg and Jan, following along faithfully behind, wondered just what kind of an adventure this crazy man was taking them on, and Miss terry uttered a reservation or two herself. But, eventually the road smoothed out, we rejoined State Route 95 through the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation, and came in to Bullhead City, where we crossed the Colorado River into Laughlin, Nevada.

Harrah’s Casino in Laughlin has an RV parking area where you can dry camp for $5/night, or $25/week, but every other casino seemed to have signs advertising free dry camping, so what’s up with that? We saw lots of RVs dry camping in designated parking lots at casinos all through town.

We stopped for the night at the River Palms Casino, which has a free dry camping area high on a hill, with great views of the casino lights below. Security told us we could get a free permit to stay up to 14 days. Then we would need to renew the permit, but we could do so for as long as we wanted to.   

We registered, parked our motorhomes, then headed back to the casino for dinner. If you join their free Players Club, you get a free T-shirt, and on Monday and Tuesday nights, two prime rib buffets were $9.95 with the Players Club card.

The line to register for the Players Club was long, and the line for the buffet was even longer. I must have been tired and cranky. Or else the bunch of French Canadians in line in front of us just ticked me off when they let some of their friends cut in ahead of us. People in line started to grumble, and Bad Nick emerged and told them that was bulls&%# and to go to the back of the line. Two did, but one lady stood firmly and said “These are my friends!” I told her that Greg was my friend, but if he tried that crap, I’d throw him out of line too!

One of the guys in their group turned around and told me in very good English it was okay, she was with him. I assured him that it wasn’t okay, and that the next time I came to his country, I’d be sure to be a rude jerk too, He gave me that smirk some folk use when they think they are being funny,  and played the old “I don’t understand English” thing with me. I told him that I knew that he understood me very well, and that he understood exactly what I thought of him and his crowd. I’m sure I embarrassed Miss Terry, Greg, and Jan, but once in a while somebody has to stand up on their hind legs and tell the jerks of the world where to get off. Besides the only place more dangerous to be than between a mama bear and her cubs is between a fat man and his food!

Today we plan to leave early and continue on to Las Vegas. Our leveling jacks are acting up again, and would not work when we arrived in Laughlin. Hopefully we can get that issue resolved in Las Vegas, and then just play tourist and relax for a while. 

Thought For The Day - Only dead fish go with the current.

Back when I was in the military, I spent some time teaching firearms and close quarters combat at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. One of the things that we tried to stress to the Army’s future leaders was that you can plan and strategize all you want to, and you may know exactly how an operation is supposed to go. But once you put boots on the ground, everything can go to hell real quick, and then it’s time to improvise. Yesterday proved to me that the things I learned way back when, still apply today.

This is a brand new fairgrounds for us, and it’s laid out differently than any other where we have held our rallies. Instead of just one or two big open fields to park RVs in, like most fairgrounds, this one has one relatively small field on the south side, a large field on the north side, and dozens of little nooks and crannies with electrical hookups where we can sneak in a single rig or two.

I thought we had our parking plan laid out pretty well. I thought I had conveyed that plan to our hardworking volunteers who man the parking crew. And I thought that the folks who were coming in as early bird arrivals would have read the instructions I sent them about the parking crew meeting them when they arrived at the fairgrounds. It sure sounded like a good plan to me. And then everything went to hell!

My first suspicion that we were going to have problems was when the weather, which has been nice here for the last two weeks, suddenly turned ugly. Yuma is supposed to average about five inches of rain a year. I think we got that much yesterday! I would have measured it to tell you for sure, but the wind, hail, and lighting distracted me. We had standing water and mud everywhere!

Then early yesterday morning one of our most seasoned parking volunteers, whom I had planned to be the leader, called with a family medical emergency and could not make it.

We had planned to stage everybody in the big parking lot in front of the fairgrounds, but a lot of RVs just breezed merrily past the parking crew as they tried to wave them down and stop them, and soon we had a bottleneck at the gates and inside the fairgrounds, while the folks who were arriving and following the parking crew’s directions to move into the staging area began to pile up out front.

The Good Sam rally was ending yesterday morning, and we had hoped they would all be gone by noon, as expected. But there were several who just sat in the middle of our parking areas, waiting for the rain to let up. I can’t blame them for not wanting to travel in such bad weather, but some of them didn’t even want to go outside to unplug their rigs so we could move them out of our parking area and into a large lot on the other side of the fairgrounds, where they could wait out the storm.

In a rally situation, the only way to safely park RVs is one after the other in line. If you have somebody already in the middle of that line, you run into all kinds of problems, because you are trying to sandwich RVs in between the parked coaches, they have slides out that you have to avoid, and electric cords out that you don’t want to run over. It makes what should be a relatively easy job very difficult and time consuming.

We had a few people who got upset because they had to wait quite a while to get parked, while we sorted things out, and they let us know in no uncertain terms that we had really dropped the ball. No, I dropped the ball. I’m the guy in charge, and it all falls on me. I’m sorry. I don’t have any excuses, just the above explanation of what went wrong, and hopefully the lessons learned will make things better the next time around. I also apologize to anybody whom I snapped at or was short with while this was all happening. I was overwhelmed, and I’m sorry.

I have to say that most people were very patient and understanding, and we very much appreciate that. I also very much appreciate the parking crew, who stood outside in the pouring rain and mud, getting yelled at by upset people, and got the job done. I have no idea why they all didn’t walk off the job, but I’m sure glad they didn’t! We also had several people who had not officially volunteered to help with parking, but who saw we were in trouble, and just jumped in to lend a hand. Thank you all very much!

We had expected to park 135 RVs yesterday, all early birds who had registered to come in Sunday, and we had 52 indoor vendor booths reserved. By the end of the day, Miss Terry had registered 183 RVs, and 55 vendor booths! And there were still others who didn’t want to stand in line, and said that they were going to wait until this morning to come in to register! There were a lot of people who didn’t register early, or at all, they just showed up!  

To add to yesterday’s fun and games, when I tried to move our Winnebago motorhome from the back corner of the fairgrounds to the front so we’d have it accessible for rally items stored inside, the living room slide refused to come in, hanging up about halfway out, and the HWH leveling jacks hung up. RV tech Phil Botnick came to the rescue and fixed it, and also checked out the gas side of our water heater, which stopped working again. I have no idea what the problem was with any of this stuff, because I never had a chance to talk with Phil about it. All I know is he got everything working again, and I need to hunt him down and give him large sums of  money. Thanks for always being there for us, Phil!  

Then, later on, I was guiding an RV back into a parking space, and managed to trip and fall into a drainage ditch full of cold, muddy, water. I was so busy that I never got the chance to change clothes or dry off until I took my shower about 11 p.m. Can you say chilled to the bone?

The weather report is for sunshine today, and we sure need it! Hopefully we’ll have a better handle on things and parking will be at least a little easier today!

Thought For The Day – No matter how much you hope for the best, you should always plan for the worst.

Things are really happening fast around here! The Yuma Fairgrounds is filled with RVs here for the Arizona Good Sam rally, and we have run into several of our friends who are here for that rally, and will be staying over for our Western Gypsy Gathering rally afterward.

Yesterday morning our friends Ed and Stevie Hackenbruch stopped by to drop off three containers of some of the most delicious, fresh, locally grown strawberries we have ever tasted. Yummy!

Unfortunately, before I could even taste one, I had to run up to the front gate of the fairgrounds to meet with the Good Sam folks about a couple of issues to make all of our lives easier.

Then I spent some time talking with some of the vendors, and those folks are our best advertisement, because they have convinced several of the other vendors for the Good Sam rally to stay for ours, too. We always try to make sure our vendors have a good show, and we let them know that we appreciate them for coming.

Our T-shirts came in during the early afternoon, so I picked them up at the fairgrounds office, and by the time I had them loaded into our van, I got a phone call that Greg and Jan White were five minutes out. Because the fairgrounds is not open to the general public and does not have RV parking except for rallies, we had to make special arrangements for a couple of our rigs to come in as part of our advance party. There is no way we could do everything that needs completed for the rally without our faithful volunteers. Greg and Jan will be busy the next few days collecting door prizes from local merchants, which is always a hard task, especially in today’s troubled economy.

Once we had Greg and Jan in and parked, volunteers Mike and Elaine Loscher came over to talk about some rally parking and registration details. Mike is our welcoming committee at every rally, and he does a great job of greeting folks as they arrive, and determining if they need to dump their holding tanks, need handicapped parking, etc. Terry says she could not handle the crowds at registration without Elaine’s calm, steady presence, helping her and the registration crew get everybody taken care of.  

Just about the time Mike and Elaine left, Bill Becker came by to pick up the T-shirts, so he and Mabel can start sorting and folding them. Did I mention how much we appreciate our volunteers?

As Bill was pulling out, Kelly Watkins, the fairgrounds director, showed up to ask if a couple of local organizations who hold evening meetings at the fairgrounds could still hold their regular meetings in the evening during our rally. Sure, why not? Kelly and his crew have gone out of their way to accommodate us. What goes around comes around, right?

The next order of business was to dump our holding tanks. It’s been about eight days since we last dumped, and we could have stretched things out a little longer, but we will only get busier between now and our rally, so we decided to get it done while we could.

With that chore out of the way, I pulled the Winnebago back into our parking area at the back of the fairgrounds, and before I could even finish hooking up water and electric, I got a phone call to come back up front. There was another problem.

Three RVs with folks from Canada had arrived and tried to bluff their way onto the fairgrounds by telling the Good Sam people that they were with our rally. Because other fairgrounds where we have held rallies do allow folks to come in early and stay, we have had some people who were confused and just showed up, expecting to be able to stay.

But this wasn’t the case. In fact, these folks were not even registered for the rally. They had just heard about it from somebody.  I explained to them that this week is the Good Sam rally, and if they wanted to pay to attend that, it was up to Good Sam, and then they could register and pay for our rally. I told them that only our advanced staff was allowed to stay on the fairgrounds. That’s when they assured me that they didn’t have to pay for either rally because the fairgrounds is public property and anyone can stay here.

I can handle confused people, I can handle stubborn people, and I can even handle stupid people. But freeloaders who play games really tick me off! That’s when Bad Nick came out! I told them that I didn’t want them at the rally. Then we discussed their concept of “public property” and my feeling about rude French Canadians (just the rude ones) in general, and them in particular. About then they decided it was in their best interest to leave and not come back.

That hassle finished, I went back to the motorhome, rounded up Miss Terry and our real advance staff, and we hunted down a Chinese buffet for dinner. By the time we had finished eating, I was more than ready to come back home and take my shoes off for the evening.

Today will be just as busy as yesterday was, and I need a favor. For the next two weeks or so, please don’t send me forwarded jokes, whatever the latest internet hoax is, or feel good stories. I just don’t have time to sort through them. If you need to get hold of me, please don’t hesitate to e-mail, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. But please, no forwards.

Of course, Bad Nick has been busy too. Besides running off freeloaders, he posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled The World’s Biggest Ghost Town. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” – Mark Twain

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally