No matter what you have ever heard, there is absolutely no energy crisis, there never has been an energy crisis, and there never will be an energy crisis. All we have ever had is a technology crisis, and misdirected focus!

If you doubt me, spend an afternoon with two little granddaughters, ages seven and three. I guarantee that the only energy crisis there will be is you trying to keep up with them!

If we could get the scientists to stop wasting their time on silly things like fossil fuels, wind, solar, and nuclear power, and just convince them to concentrate on harnessing the energy in any child’s body under say, age ten, I think we could change the world. I haven’t done any official studies on it, but I’d say that each of my granddaughters has the equivalent of a dozen nuclear power plants inside of them, just bursting at the seams trying to get out.

We spent yesterday afternoon at my daughter Tiffany’s house, and her two girls wore me out so badly that it was all I could do to drag myself to the keyboard to write this blog when we got back home. I’m an old man! I need a vacation from my permanent vacation!

We had a wonderful time with Jim, Tiffany, and the girls, and Miss Terry knew that with all that commotion happening, I needed red meat to keep myself going. So she grilled up some beautiful rib eye steaks and some roasted red potatoes, which, combined with fresh corn on the cob, really hit the spot!

Back at the motorhome, I spent some time staring at the schedule for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, trying to figure out how to fit all of the seminars the vendors want into the time allotted, and still have a good selection of non-commercial seminars for rally attendees to choose from.

A few people have said we concentrate too hard on making our rallies an educational experience, but the overwhelming majority of the folks who come to the rallies say they are delighted with the opportunities they have to learn about everything from RV safety to technical issues, and the RV lifestyle in general. It’s a juggling act to have something for everyone, to find enough new seminars to keep returnees interested, and to fit in the favorites that people have given rave reviews in the past.

My pal Michele Henry from Phoenix Commercial Paint in Elkhart called the other day to tell me that she has booked several RVs for her beautiful custom paint jobs this summer, but that she still has some time open around our rally dates, in case any of you are thinking about getting your RV a facelift. But I wouldn’t wait too long, because true craftsmanship takes time, and Michelle doesn’t rush through her work. Instead, she takes the time to do it right, at at a price so low that you’ll think she hit the wrong buttons on her calculator.

Here is a Travel Supreme fifth wheel before Michele worked her magic on it.

And here is the finished job. Beautiful, isn’t it? And a lot less money than buying a new RV!

Michele also told me that Bob Patel, owner of Elkhart Campground is working like a madman adding new full hookup RV sites at the campground to accommodate our rally crowd. Bob and his wife Gita are wonderful folks, and we think of them as family. I’m looking forward to introducing a bunch of new people to them, and to Elkhart Campground during the rally.

Thought For The Day – Cherish your dreams, for they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

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We spent most of the day yesterday playing tour guide at the RV Hall of Fame Museum to members of the Heartland Owners Club, who were in the area for their annual rally. It was a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of Terry sitting with her new friend, Poker Alice. Poker Alice was a famous lady gambler and madam who was well known in Deadwood and Sturgis, South Dakota in the old days for her luck with cards, the cigars she smoked, and the .38 revolver she carried in a pocket in case some card sharp tried to cheat her. I wrote a story about her which is in my book Highway History And Back Road Mystery. Of course, this isn’t the real Poker Alice. That luminary died in 1930 and is buried in Sturgis. But this likeness of the old gal on display at the museum is pretty accurate.

Things got off to a slow start, because of a scheduling mix up so Terry and I, and several other volunteers called in for the occasion, spent the first couple of hours just chatting with regular visitors to the museum. Then the chartered buses pulled up with the Heartland group and the floodgates opened. Over 150 folks from the rally had a good time seeing all of the neat old RVs on display, and we had a good time visiting with them.

In ten years of publishing the Gypsy Journal, we have been approached by several RV manufacturers about advertising, but Heartland is the only one we have accepted advertising from, because they convinced me that they build a quality product and stand behind it.

The Heartland owners we talked to at the museum were just as impressed. The factory is located here in Elkhart, and they sent a small army of service techs to the rally to handle any problems owners had with rigs. Everybody was impressed with how accommodating they were. One comment I heard was “They promised less and delivered more.” A fifth wheel does not fit our needs or lifestyle, but if Terry and I were going to buy a fifth wheel, Heartland would be the first and last one we looked at.

I also talked to some of the vendors who were at the Heartland Rally, and all of them were impressed with the reception they got and the amount of business they did. I really wish we would not have been sick so we could have attended.

Unfortunately, we did have a Bad Nick sighting at the museum yesterday. One of the most unique vehicles in the collection is this wild custom motorhome called Star Streak II, built on a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado chassis, which has been featured on the Discovery Channel.

I enjoyed taking visitors into the RV to show them its many unique features, including a large screened roof vent. One family had a little boy who immediately started flipping switches and pulling on things.

His father immediately chastised him and told him not to touch things, but you know how kids can be. In no time at all he was reaching for a toggle switch on the wall and I told him “Be careful there, I’m not sure which switch it is, but one of them operates the ejector. A while back we lost a nine year old who touched it and went right through that hole in the roof. We looked for him everywhere, but the place closes at 5 o’clock, so what could we do? He still hasn’t turned up.”

The boy’s eyes were bigger than the RVs’ hubcaps, and his mouth was hanging so far open a sparrow could have flown in. I couldn’t resist taking it a step further, so I said “The security guard says sometimes late at night he hears the boy’s voice calling out, but it’s a big place and he’s an old man, so who knows?” The boy stuck his hands deep into his pockets and never took them out until he was well clear of the RV! Bad Nick!

I had another one of those small world events that happen to me all of the time while I was giving some folks a tour of the Cadillac motorhome. Paul Jones, the man who built it, was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the car has two West Point emblems mounted on the front fenders.

Back when I was a young solder, about 100 years ago, I spent a couple of years at West Point as a firearms instructor. (Sleep well tonight, I helped train the guys running the Army today!).

As one couple was looking at the RV, the husband saw the emblems and commented that he was sure familiar with them. “Were you a cadidiot?” I asked him, using the slang term we enlisted men assigned to the Academy used for cadets. “No, but I was a firearms instructor there,” he replied. As it turns out, he had the same job I did, only about four years before my arrival! How cool is that?

Thought For The Day – Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.

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Yesterday we were running around in short sleeve shirts, but that didn’t last long! By evening it had turned downright chilly here in Albuquerque, and today’s high is only supposed to be 53 degrees!

We spent most of yesterday printing off copies of our various RV guides and making CDs to sell during the rally. This is our first Affinity rally, and while we have been to some big RV events over the years, I don’t think we’ve ever been to one single venue with so many vendors.

If you were looking for anything from a Fantastic Fan for your ceiling or a rooftop satellite TV dome, all the way down to wheel covers and tire pressure monitors; from headlights and auxiliary running lights to mud flaps and ladders for the back of your RV, they’ve got you covered from top to bottom and back to front. A shopaholic would be in heaven here.

The rally has some excellent seminars on all aspects of RVing, as well as some top notch entertainment lined up. Tonight legendary singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka will be performing, and tomorrow night Rita Coolidge will be the star attraction. On Sunday evening the Osmonds take the stage. I think it’s going to be a fun rally.

I try to stay out of politics and such, because I really just am not at all interested. I prefer to just live my life, roll with the flow, and try to stay under the radar. I have several people who constantly send me forwarded e-mails that would have you believe that President Obama is the devil incarnate, and just as many people forwarding me stuff about how those darned Republicans are the scourge of the earth, and I just delete them all without opening them. I think they all need bumper stickers on their cars that say “My Conspiracy Theory Can Beat Up Your Conspiracy Theory.”

In my little world, it’s all about me, and it really doesn’t matter who is in the White House, because none of them yet have offered to buy me a new bus or give me a cushy political appointment.

Extremists turn me off. My definition of an extremist is anybody who insists on sharing with me his views on religion or politics once I’ve politely said I’m not interested. Usually when people start spouting off about their political or religious opinions, I just nod my head, tune them out, and take a mental trip to Margaritaville with Jimmy Buffet.

That being said, I just had to respond to a guy yesterday. We had a couple of orders to mail out, and the fellow in line in front of me at the post office looked me over and said “You look old enough to be a Vietnam vet. Are you?”

I allowed as to how my Uncle Sam had given me an extended jungle camping trip as my high school graduation present.

“Did you hear what Obama just did?” he asked.

Now, it’s bad enough when my friends start sharing their agendas with me, but when it’s a complete stranger, I immediately start hearing Jimmy singing about shrimp boiling as we waste away in Margaritaville. So I didn’t answer him, just looked toward the counter, in the hope that the line would move quicker.

But he continued by saying “Today Obama and the Department of Homeland Security declared that all white Vietnam veterans are a national threat and he has ordered that they all be rounded up and put into concentration camps by the end of the month, along with their families.”

I tried, but even I couldn’t ignore this! Jimmy was stroking his six string and hit a sour note, and I said “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s true.” He insisted, “The mainstream media is keeping it a secret, but it’s all over the internet if you know where to look!”

I know I should have ignored him, but sometimes I just have to say something.

“Are you really stupid enough to believe that?” I asked him. “Do you really think that could happen? And that not one radio or television station or newspaper would report the fact that millions of Americans are headed for a concentration camp? And do you really think we’d all just go along quietly? Have you even considered the logistics of it? How could they make it happen in less than two weeks?”

“It happened to the Jews in World War II,” he insisted. “You just wait and see! I’ll be waving to you from outside the fence when they take you to the gas chamber!”

Now, I’m not going to lose any sleep over his dire predictions. I’ve ridden in Mac McCoy’s van with the windows rolled up on the drive home from the Golden Corral buffet, so I know all about gas chambers. But what really concerns me is that people that dumb are allowed to drive cars and procreate!

(And please, don’t start replying with your political viewpoints, okay? Remember, I have a delete button, and I’m not afraid to use it!)

Thought For The Day – I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

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For whatever reason, once we were parked at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds Tuesday after driving to Albuquerque from Show Low, Arizona, I just could not get to sleep. I tossed and turned all night long, and I think I managed about two or three hours of sleep at the most.

Since we arrived at the fairgrounds after normal parking hours and dry camped in the parking lot, we had to be up early yesterday morning, because the fellow in charge of the parking crew had said he’d be at our rig bright and early to get us moved into our assigned space.

So I rolled out of bed a little after 7:30 a.m., which is long before my normal time, and then you have to consider that our bodies are still on Arizona time, which is an hour later. Needles to say, I was kind of fuzzy headed most of the day yesterday. Yes, even more so than usual!

This place is filling up fast as people arrive for the Affinity rally, and we have run into several people we know, including Tim and Crystal Ryerson, from Inflatable Boats 4 Less, as well as Tim and Sue Daugherty from Sky Med, and Chris and Charles Yust, who represent Good Sam’s Roadside Assistance plan. All of these folks have been vendors at our Gypsy Gathering rallies, as well as Gary and Cheryl Green, who are also parked nearby. Cheryl is a representative for Creative Memories scrapbooking supplies. It was fun visiting with everybody, and just to make the party merrier, Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour arrived and are parked right behind us! We’re all just one big happy family out here on the road.

We have made so many wonderful friendships among the RVing community, and if it is possible, even closer relationships among some of the vendors we see at rallies all over the country.

Another vendor couple we have been close with for years is also here, Jack and Doreen Ingle, from AON Recreational Insurance, which has just undergone a name change and is now called PoliSeek Recreational Insurance. We met Jack and Doreen at our very first RV rally, an Escapade in Lancaster, California, during our first few weeks on the road, and we’ve been pals ever since. Like I said, one big happy family.

Since we’ve been at an RV site with just electric power for the last couple of weeks, with no water or sewer connection, our laundry had piled up. Miss Terry said it was time to either go shopping for a new wardrobe, or wash the ones we have now. So after we were parked in our designated site, we checked out the vending area, and then found a nearby laundromat. Terry much prefers to use the apartment size washer and dryer we have in our bus instead of going out to do this chore, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. We were lucky and found a very clean laundromat where all of the washers and dryers worked, which isn’t always the case.

Back at the fairgrounds, several of us got together for dinner at a Chinese buffet somebody had located, and when we returned from dinner, Jim and Chris Guld came over so Jim could resolve some issues Terry was having with her computer. I don’t know what we ever did without our mobile computer geek buddies! Chris has helped me with getting my two blogs up and running, and whenever I have a hardware issue, I call Jim. If you have not been to one of their seminars yet, be sure you do at your next RV rally. They really know their stuff, and make learning complex things easy and fun.

By the time Jim had things taken care of on Terry’s computer, it was 10:30 p.m. and we were both tired. But we still had to make the bed, and I had to get this blog and the Todays Hero Blog posts ready to go. I’ll tell you what, the bed sure looked nice by the time we were finally ready to turn in!

Thought For The Day – If raising children was going to be easy, it never would have started with something called labor!

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I have traveled all over the world and seen some marvelous sights in my life, but I don’t think anything compares to a sunset in the Arizona desert. Each one is a masterpiece. I happened to look out the window yesterday evening as the sun was setting here at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande and saw this beautiful sunset. I had to grab a camera and get a quick shot.

We are getting down to the wire on our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, and new registrations are coming in every day. I don’t think this year’s rally will be quite as big as last year, but we’ll still have a good turnout.

Several new vendors have registered recently, including Henderson’s Lineup, who specializes in RV suspension systems; M&B Enterprises, which sells diesel engine filters and other diesel performance equipment; Reggie Collins, representing SMI towed vehicle braking systems; Lois and Mort Jensen, selling RV vacuum systems; Donna Tuffenkjian, representing Arbonne skin care products; and Tim and Crystal Ryerson, with inflatable boats and RV interior shades, to name just a few.

Many of our regular vendors will also be here, including Too Crazy Ladies selling name badges; Jaimie Hall-Bruzenak with the RV Author’s Co-op; Phil Botnick doing RV repairs; Mike and Pat McFall with Pressure Pro tire monitoring systems; and Jack Ingle from AON RV Insurance. Those are just a few of the vendors who will be offering some great RV products at the rally.

Yesterday Terry and I ran up to Sam’s Club in Tempe to stock up on rally supplies, including coffee, creamer, sugar and Splenda sweetener, cups, and all of the other things needed for the morning coffee and donuts. We also placed an order with the Casa Grande WalMart bakery for all of the donuts we’ll need every morning.

Just as we were getting back to the fairgrounds and discussing our options for dinner, my buddy Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety called to say he was headed to the fairgrounds. I asked Mac if he was buying dinner, and he said yes, so that settled that matter.

Mac is the premier RV fire safety expert in the country, and he will be teaching two of his fire safety classes at the rally. Folks, if you have never been to one of Mac’s classes, you need to make it a priority. And even if you have been to one, it’s never too early for a refresher. The classes are hands-on, and you will learn how to save your rig, and your life, in the event of a fire. We have had two fires in our bus conversion, and we were fortunate both times in that Terry reacted quickly based upon the training she received from Mac, and had them out in seconds.

Thought For The Day - Heroes are the people who do what has to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

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