Can you believe  that three months from today, our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally will begin? That may seem like a long time to you, but believe me, from our perspective, it’s coming up fast!

There is a tremendous amount of work involved in planning and pulling one of these events off. With over 225 RVs attending, and a ton of walk-in visitors who are staying at local RV parks, it’s a real juggling act to have enough different seminars to meet everybody’s needs. Not to mention the logistics of providing morning coffee and donuts for everybody, making sure the different seminar rooms have the equipment each speaker needs, and that we don’t have two seminars in the same time slot that compete too heavily with each other. And did I mention the evening entertainment, or feeding several hundred hungry people pizza in a matter of minutes at our pizza party? All of of that is after we get all of those RVs in and parked!

I’ve been giving our seminar lineup a lot of thought. One part of me says that there are already a lot of events with seminars on the basic RV stuff like how to hook up campground utilities, basic RV systems, RV tires, etc. So maybe we should concentrate more on seminar topics that folks can’t get everywhere else, like the seminars we had on Kayaking For Beginners and Bicycling For RVers at our Eastern Rally in Elkhart this summer. But then again, if you’re a brand new RVer coming to your first rally, you need those basic seminars.

I’d like to see more seminars on RV destinations, places to go, and things to do when you get there. If anybody who is going to be at the rally has an idea for a seminar that they’d like to put together along those lines, or on any topic, for that matter, or maybe a craft class, send me an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net and tell me about it.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do about T-shirts for the Arizona rally. Everybody says that they want rally shirts, but we have to order at least 100 to get the pricing that we can afford. Then, we usually end up with 40 or more shirts left over, which means we lose money anyway. Somebody suggested that we only take pre-orders that are paid in advance, but then people at the rally say “I wanted one too!” So I’m just not sure if we’ll have shirts in Yuma or not. 

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Several people said that we could just donate the leftover shirts to charity, and that sounds good, but it’s still money that we spent and received no return on, and as a business, the idea is to make a profit. 

Miss Terry found a use for some of the T-shirts that we had left over from the rallies. The other day she made a rug from several leftover shirts. Looks cool, doesn’t it? The bits of yellow, black, and white you see in the rug are the printed logos from the T-shirts.

Speaking of my beautiful bride, two people have expressed condolences to us in the last few days over the loss of Terry’s mom. I don’t know where that rumor got started, and while we appreciate your concern, Terry’s mom, Bess Weber, is alive and well, and just as feisty as ever. My parents have been gone for many, many years, but Terry’s parents, Pete and Bess are still healthy, active, and very involved in life, their church, and their family’s activities. I know a lot of people half their age that are not in as good shape.

We only have a week to go on our Buy One, Get One Free Holiday Special Offer. A lot of folks have taken advantage of the savings, and there’s still time for you to renew or extend your subscription, and get a free subscription for somebody on your Christmas shopping list too! Just click the link below, while there‘s still time

Whatever you’re doing today, I hope you take a moment to remember our fellow countrymen who were lost 69 years ago today during the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. That terrible Sunday morning changed the world forever, just as the terrorists attacks of 9/11 did. The only difference is that back then, our nation had the cajones to kick ass and take names, as we used to say in the military.

Hey, I’m starting to sound like Bad Nick, so I’ll stop for now, but check out his latest Bad Nick Blog, titled Silly Sarah, and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – No matter how bad you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.

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Did you ever have one of those days where you remember waking up and getting out of bed, and the next thing you know, you’re falling asleep and wondering where the day went? That sums up yesterday for me.

Josh Leach, from Bradd & Hall,  was knocking on our door before we were up yesterday morning, having come by to drop off some company brochures and a check to cover their sponsorship of Tuesday morning’s coffee and donuts at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. We jumped into some clothes and visited with Josh for a while, and by the time he left, somebody else was here asking about the rally schedule.

From there, the day was just a blur of fielding telephone calls, answering e-mails, greeting folks who arrived early at Elkhart Campground for the rally, and getting last minute chores done. Red and Beth from Too Crazy Ladies arrived in the late morning, and I spent some time helping them select a site for their motorhome and vending trailer.

About the time I was finished with that, a potential vendor showed up asking if we had any indoor booths left. I told him no, but that we could get him into an outdoor space, which he declined. A short time later, one of our vendors who had reserved a double booth came by to tell us that due to a medical issue, he had to cancel at the last minute. I sure wish I had known that an hour earlier, when I turned away the other vendor

Our close friends, and stalwart rally volunteers, Mike and Elaine Loscher arrived and got settled in, and we had a nice little visit with them in our Winnebago. Then Terry and I took off to get some things done away from the campground, including picking up the rally T-shirts from the screen printer, stopping at the bank, post office, and to fill our van’s gas tank.

Then we went by Heartland Recreational Vehicles to pick up brochures to distribute at the rally. Heartland has also agreed to be a sponsor for our coffee and donuts, on Wednesday morning. For those who are staying on at Elkhart Campground after the rally, rather than traveling on the busy Labor Day weekend, Heartland is holding a special factory tour just for our rally attendees, at 10:30 a.m. on Friday morning. It will be a great opportunity to see how the fastest growing RV company in the industry does things.

Back at the campground, a large crowd had gathered for a happy hour under the tent we rented for the rally. The crowd included several folks who are staying in Goshen working on the upcoming Escapees RV Club Escapade rally, and included Escapees head honchos Bud and Cathie Carr. We had dinner plans, but we told everybody to have fun, and they seemed to have a pretty good handle on doing just that.

Terry and I, Greg White, Mike and Elaine Loscher, and Stu and Donna McNichol had a nice dinner at North Garden Chinese Buffet, and a lot of fun joking around and enjoying the company of good friends. If there has ever been any encounter of three or more fulltime RVers that did not include food, I’ve never heard about it!

By the time we got back from dinner, visited with our friends Russ and Debbie Davis, who had arrived while we were out and were parked right behind us in their beautiful truck conversion, talked to a few other people, and Miss Terry got her bike ride and walk around the campground done, it was getting late. I wrote my blog and it was bedtime. Where did the day go?

I may not know where the day went, but Bad Nick spent part of it writing a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Stuck In The Dark Ages. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – If you are traveling just for the fun of it, how can you be late getting anywhere?

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I closed yesterday’s blog by telling you we had tire troubles. Here’s the story:

From the time we left Gilroy Tuesday morning, until the time we arrived at the the Emigrant Trail Museum in Truckee that afternoon, one of our inside dual tires had lost over 35 pounds of air. This is the same problem we have been having with the inside duals ever since Camping World installed them the end of February. Supposed they fixed it when we went back a few weeks ago, but evidently not.

At that time it was determined that the problem was the valve extensions, and it might still be. Especially since one look at the scratches and tool marks on it told us that the valve extension was not new, and was probably the one that gave us problems before.

Our motorhome has an onboard air compressor, and I have an air hose, but as it turns out, there is a problem in our auxiliary air system somewhere and we couldn’t get it to work. We found a gas station where we could fill the tire, and I left the valve extender and PressurePro sensor off, and checked the tire again before we set off yesterday and it was still holding pressure. So once we get into Salt Lake City, I’ll find a new extender to put on the tire.

Yesterday morning we left Boomtown Casino and followed Interstate 80 east across Nevada, Traffic was busy in Reno, but the rest of the day we didn’t have much to deal with. The first part of our route was pretty curvy as we followed the Truckee River, and then we came into a big valley with salt flats as far as the eye could see. We zipped past this barren landscape in no time at all, but it took the pioneers of the Donner Party six days to cross the salt flats.

Miss Terry was taking pictures out the window as we motored along, and she managed to capture this smiley face somebody made to welcome travelers.

Some of the mountains off in the distance still had snow on top of them, but down on the highway it was over 90 degrees!

Part of our route had some steep climbs and downhill grades, but nothing compared to crossing the Sierras the day before. Both days, the Winnebago had no problems, the big Cummins diesel engine never started to get too warm, and carried us over the top as fast as I wanted to go. After years of being passed by eighteen wheelers in our old bus on even small grades, it’s sure nice to pull over into the left lane and pass them by as they labor up the hills!

We stopped at the Flying J in Winnemucca for fuel, but their RV pumps were out of order, and there was a long line of trucks at the truck islands.  We continued on another 50 miles to Battle Mountain. I don’t think the Flying J there was a company store, but rather an affiliate, but it was easy to get in and out.

We saw some nice rock formations alongside the highway!

We arrived at Crossroads RV Park in Wells, Nevada about 4:30 p.m., with  346 miles under our belt for the day. Crossroads is a small Passport America park, nothing much but a gravel lot with 30 amp full hookup RV sites. But at just $10 a night, it’s a good bargain. We have four bars of high speed EVDO internet service, which is always nice.

One of our subscribers recommended Crossroads to us, and said the managers, Dennis and Irma Sayers, were wonderful people. When I checked the place out on RV Park Reviews, their friendliness was mentioned in the first three reviews I read. So I was looking forward to meeting this nice couple.

Sure enough, they were just as nice and helpful as could be; Irma checked us in and chatted for a while, then Dennis got us parked and made sure we were hooked up okay. I asked about restaurants, and Irma got right on the phone to call the shuttle van from a local casino to come and pick us up and take us to the restaurant. You don’t get that kind of service very often!

When we got back from dinner, Dennis and Irma stopped by to check on us, and Terry gave them a tour of our motorhome. I think Dennis was thinking about going RV shopping by the time they left!

We have about 180 miles to go today to reach Pony Express RV Resort in Salt Lake City, and then we’ll have a few days to relax, do some genealogy research, and we have a couple of technical issues on the motorhome that we need to look into. Nothing major, but apparently the gremlins have been at work.

Thought For The Day – A true friend is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes the fake smile.

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With summer finally here, a lot of us who have been sitting still much of the winter are hitting the road, and weekend warriors are getting their RVs ready for vacations and summer camping trips.

RVs are complex machines, and while I am far from a technical person, even I am capable of taking a few steps to make sure our motorhome is in the proper shape for the long miles ahead. It doesn’t take a mechanic or an RV tech to prep an RV for hot weather travel.

It takes just an hour or so to inspect your RV or tow vehicle’s chassis systems, which is time well spent, and can avoid hours sitting on the shoulder of the road waiting for a tow truck to arrive, and even more time spent in a repair shop.

The first step is to check all fluid levels: engine oil, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid, radiator coolant level, and windshield washer fluid. While you’re in the engine compartment, check your air filter. A dirty air filter can really cut down on your fuel mileage, and make your engine work harder, too. Also, check all of your belts and hoses, as well as hose clamps, for cracks or worn spots that can lead to failure (and expensive repairs) on the road. Spend a few moments looking over your wiring. Is anything frayed or loose? Did critters spend the winter nesting in your engine compartment, gnawing on the wire insulation?

Step two is to check your windshield wiper blades for wear, and then turn them on and be sure both are working properly. Then, check all exterior lights, including headlights, turn signals, emergency flashers, brake lights, and marker lights.

Next, check your starting and house batteries to be sure they are filled with distilled, that all cables are tight, and that there is no corrosion on any connections.

Walk around your RV, looking for any leaks, and if you spot any suspicious spots on the ground, check to see where they came from.

Your tires are next. Check for uneven wear, any cracking or weather checking, and use a good tire pressure gauge to be sure all are properly inflated. I use a PressurePro tire monitoring system to make this chore easier, and to monitor my tires when on the road.

Next, deploy all of your awnings. Are they working properly? Are they worn or frayed? Are the anchor clips on your window awnings secure?

Once you are done outside the RV, go inside and make sure that your air conditioner(s) are working properly. Extend and retract your slide rooms. Do the same with your leveling jacks. Check your refrigerator and water heater for proper operation if the RV has been stored all winter. When things sit for long periods of time, the gremlins seem to go to work on them.

No matter where you live, or where you spent the winter before starting your summer travels, it is always easier and cheaper to get a problem fixed at home than it is when you are broken down on the road.

Now that you have your RV ready for the road, take a minute to check out Bad Nick’s latest blog post, Oops! and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – You can only be strong and useful for the people around you if you honor your needs as much as theirs.

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Yesterday morning bright and early I was parked at the Camping World in Mesa, Arizona letting their service people know that I was not pleased with their installation of our new tires in February, and that I wanted them to replace the valve stems and the valve stem extensions on both inner dual wheels.

Ever since we bought the new tires, both inside duals have lost air and given false readings on my PressurePro tire monitor. Several people whose opinion I respect, as well as the service manager at the Camping World, all agreed that the problem was either that the valve stem extensions they installed were bad, and/or that they had crushed the small O rings in the valve stems when they screwed on the extensions.

A little after 8 a.m. they pulled our Winnebago into a service bay, where for the next three plus hours the mechanic talked to his co-workers, jacked the rear end  of the RV up, stopped to talk to his co-workers, took the tires off the driver’s side, stopped to talk to his co-workers, wandered away for a while, came back, talked to his co-workers, told me that he couldn’t find any leaks and that it was probably the valve stems (which I already knew), wandered over to the next bay to talk to his co-workers, installed a new valve stem on one tire, talked to his co-workers…. do you get the picture?

Finally, at 11:30, I was really ticked off, so I tracked down a service manager and told him I wanted the job done now! I guess he lit a fire under the service tech, because about noon he finished the job and pulled the motorhome out, and we hooked up the van and took off.  We spent almost $4,000 at this Camping World on new tires and house batteries, and between the fact that they never tightened the battery cables down on the house batteries, they screwed up the first valve stems on both inside duals, and then the hassle getting the valve stems replaced yesterday, I won’t be in any hurry to go back there for service, or to recommend them to anyone.

From Camping World we started up State Route 89, known locally as the Beeline Highway, toward the high country. As many years as I have spent in Arizona, the state’s topography still amazes me. In two hours of driving time, we went from cacti covered desert, where it was in the upper 90s, to thick forests of Ponderosa pine trees, and temperatures in the low to mid-70s.

One of our regular blog readers asked if I could show some photos of the trip today, so Miss Terry was clicking away with her digital camera. We started out passing tall saguaro cacti, with beautiful white flowers on them.  Saguaros have long life spans, they take up to 75 years to develop one of their arms, and can live 150 years or more.

Soon the saguaros gave way to stark rocky hillsides, with sparse vegetation.

State Route 87 is a good divided four lane highway between Mesa and Payson, 75 miles to the north. The road has a lot of curves, and a lot of 6% grades, both up and down. When we drove this route to Show Low a couple of years ago in our old MCI bus conversion, we were running hot all the time, and creeping along at 10 miles per hour in some places.

This trip, in the Winnebago, we dropped down to 35 miles per hour on a couple of steep climbs, but averaged over 50 most of the time. However, I will say that I felt a lot more confident with the Jake brake in our bus than I do with the exhaust brake on the Winnebago. It did a much better job of keeping our speed down on those steep downhill grades.

A few miles south of Payson, we passed this huge bicycle junkyard. I’ve driven by this place for years and always wanted to stop. Someday I will.       

When we hit Payson, we transitioned very quickly from desert to pine trees. In Payson we got onto State Route 260, which would carry us across the Mogollon Rim and on to Show Low. This picture was taken two hours after we were driving past saguaros.

But we weren’t done climbing yet. In Payson the elevation is 4,970 feet, and 30 miles east as we got to the top of the Mogollon Rim, we were at 7,530 feet.

Once we topped out on the Rim, this rest area makes a good place to pull over for a break, and offers some great views down the Rim.

A lake in Arizona? Actually, the Mogollon Rim and White Mountains are covered with small lakes that offer excellent fishing opportunities.

Now we were driving through a beautiful forest. To me, this is one of the prettiest places in Arizona.

Most of State Route 260 is two lane, with frequent pullouts and passing zones.

At Heber we started seeing the effects of the terrible Rodeo–Chediski Fire, which burned over 460,000 acres in 2002. It will take a lifetime for the forest to recover. The inferno actually started as two separate fires, both intentionally set, that merged into one terrible blaze that destroyed over 400 homes, and did over $50 million in damage.

It makes me sick to know that all of this destruction was caused by a couple of idiots with no regard for anyone or anything.

We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Show Low about 3:30 p.m. When we made this same trip in our bus, it took eight hours, and in the Winnebago it was less than half of that.

The Elks Lodge has a campground with full hookup 50 amp RV sites, all for $15 a night, and we managed to get one that offered us a clear shot through the trees so our satellite TV dish would work, even if it is not 100% level. We do love our HWH jacks!

By the time I finished registering at the lodge, my daughter Tiffany and granddaughter Hailey were there to greet us.  Seven year old Hailey helped Grandpa hook up our water, electric, and sewer connections, and it only took me about twice as long as the chore usually does. Once we were settled in, Tiffany picked up her younger daughter, Destiny, and hubby Jim, and we all headed for dinner at Pizza Hut. I’m glad, because by then we were famished.

We’ll be here a couple of weeks, or maybe more, as we enjoy family time with Tiffany and her family before we start our summer travels. It’s a good place to be.

Thought For The Day – Learn from the mistakes of others. Trust me, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. I’ve tried!

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