Proving just how hard it is to break a bad habit once it gets established, I was awake by 7 a.m. yesterday morning. That’s about four hours after the time I normally get to bed. This really has to stop!

The weather report had called for scattered thunderstorms in western Michigan, and soon after I woke up, strong winds began to rock the motorhome, followed by rain.

Now we had a decision to make. Do we go ahead with our plan to drive to Elkhart, Indiana, hoping we can find a window of good weather to travel in, or do we sit tight at Fisherman’s Landing Campground in Muskegon?

Normally, we would stay put and avoid traveling in bad weather. But the storm passed by in a few minutes, and the weather report called for more of the same for all of this week. Add to that the fact that our power had been kicking off every few minutes at the campground since the night before, even though we had turned off the TV and Dish network receiver, switched our water heater and refrigerator to propane, turned off our air conditioning, shut down our computers and wireless router, and set the battery charge rate on our inverter to just 5 amps. It doesn’t do you any good to have a 30 amp RV site if the campground is crowded, their power is crappy, and everybody else is running everything they have.

We didn’t feel like paying another $25 to dry camp, and with temperatures in the mid-80s, it wouldn’t have been very comfortable anyway. So a little after 9 a.m. we pulled out, stopped at a Bob Evans Restaurant to meet Berni and Rocky for breakfast and a last goodbye, and then headed south on U.S. Highway 31.

Fortunately, we got a break in the weather, and except for a few sprinkles, we had a nice trip. Well, except for the road construction.

Michigan has two seasons; winter and road construction, and we’re smack dab in the middle of the latter. We hit a couple of construction zones on our trip south. I’ve never understood drivers who come into a construction zone and ignore signs telling them to merge right or left, instead speeding forward until the every last minute, then trying to muscle their way in. All they do is create a bottleneck and make things harder for everybody, themselves included. Just get over as soon as you see the signs and keep on rolling. At least until you have to slam on the brakes to keep from running over the idiot trying to wedge in ahead ahead of you, who didn’t.

We pulled into Elkhart Campground a few minutes before 2 p.m., and the place is packed! A lot of folks are here early, just hanging out before our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

By the time we got unhooked, Greg and Jan White had come out to greet us, Jan with a batch of freshly baked cookies in her hand. What a beautiful sight! A pretty lady with a handful of goodies beats the heck out of an angry woman with a revolver, a rolling pin, or a restraining order. Trust me on this!  Several other folks came by to say hello as we were getting set up, but I was busy and didn’t get everybody’s name.

Bob and Gita Patel, owners of Elkhart Campground, have really been busy this summer, adding a lot of new 50 amp full hookup sites, and upgrading older sites. If you’re a regular here and haven’t seen all of the improvements yet, I know you’ll be impressed.

Here is our Winnebago on the right, and Greg and Jan’s American Eagle on the left. Don’t you just love a spacious RV site?

Once we were all settled in, and had time to check our e-mails and rest up a while, we went to dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ in Mishawaka with Greg and Jan. We like Famous Dave’s because they serve huge portions, and everything on the menu is delicious. We always have fun with Greg and Jan, and the time went by fast as we talked about the upcoming birth of their second grandchild, about our mutual RV travels, and anything else that came to mind.

Back at the RV park, we visited for a while more, and then Greg and Jan called it a night. Soon after they left, Frank and Marlene Hinman stopped in to say hello and welcome us to Elkhart. We love visiting with our friends wherever we may be!

Another couple of wonderful friends of ours, Jerry and Suzy LeRoy, just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and are spending the summer on their lot at the Escapees co-op in Benson, Arizona. This is monsoon season in Arizona, which was always my favorite time of year when I lived there.  Jerry has some awesome photos of the dramatic cloud formations that fill the sky during monsoon season in their blog. Check them out, I think you’ll be impressed.

Thought For The Day – I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

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.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

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.

Saturday night when we got ready to take our showers, we discovered that we had no hot water. Because we are on 20 amp electric here at the Yuma Fairgrounds, we’ve been running the water heater on propane, so my first thought was that we had run out of propane gas. I went outside and checked the tank, because I learned long ago to never trust the idiot lights on RV control panels. But according to the gauge, we had over half a tank.

That led me to the second possible cause of the problem, which I had suspected all along. I opened the cover to our Atwood water heater compartment, and sure enough, discovered several charred wires.

This had happened last October at Elkhart Campground on a very windy day. Apparently the wind had blown the flame from the water heater upward and it fried some wires, which caused the thermal cut-off to short out. That time, it was an easy fix to replace the thermal cut-off, which came two to a package. (Apparently, they fail on a regular basis.)

Saturday had been a very windy day here in Yuma, and apparently the same thing had happened again. This time around I replaced the bad wires and the cut-off, and rerouted the wires to the top of the water heater compartment, hopefully away from the burner, and secured them in place. That solved the problem, and we now have hot water again! I wonder if this is a flaw with all Winnebago motorhomes with the Atwood water heaters, or just something in our particular coach.

I’m not sure which is scarier, the fact that the water heater can apparently flame up like that, or me actually knowing how to diagnose and repair something!

I have had quite a few e-mails from readers wondering how our encounter with the armed burglar has affected us emotionally now that it’s been about three months. They ask if we are now uncomfortable boondocking in out of the way places, or if we now feel paranoid about the same thing happening again.

To be honest, I think that while the incident has caused us to be more aware of things, I don’t think we have changed our lifestyle at all, except for the fact that I never leave home without a “personal protection device.” I never again want to find myself facing a thug with a gun, empty handed.

While inside our motorhome, I feel totally secure. It’s pretty hard to break into one of these things undetected, and I am a very light sleeper, so I have no doubt that I’d be up and waiting to greet anybody who tried to get in while we were inside the RV. I think we both feel a little bit of apprehension when we are away from the coach and return after dark. It reminds us of what happened.

But you have to keep in mind that we had well over ten years of fulltiming behind us before this incident happened, and we could well go another ten or twenty years before anything happened again, if ever. Then again, it could happen tonight. But we refuse to live our lives in fear of what might happen someday. We prepare for the worst, but expect the best.

Our friends Joe and Vicki Kieva have a brand new book out, Personal Security Tips For RVers, which combines their 45 years of RVing experience with Joe’s law enforcement and security management background, to present a practical and useful look at safeguarding yourself, your home, and your RV while you are on the road. It’s an excellent guide, packed with common sense and real world experience.

The Kieva’s book covers everything from how to respond to a criminal confrontation, whether or not to carry a firearm in your RV, important documents to have in your RV, suggestions for creating an Emergency Notification Card for your wallet, and advice on how to obtain medical care while traveling.

You’ll probably never have a problem like we did, but accidents,mechanical breakdowns, bad weather, and illness can disrupt any RV outing. It’s always better to be prepared ahead of time. Personal Security Tips For RVers is a valuable first step in being prepared. You can order a copy of the paperback book at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/books.html, or download it as an E-book for immediate reading at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/ebooks.html#security

Joe and Vicki will be presenting their excellent seminar on Personal Security at our Western Gypsy Gathering rally next week, and I plan to be sitting in the front row. I’ll save you a seat next to me.

Thought For The Day – The true traveler is without goal. It is the absence of goals which creates the ultimate traveler.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

It’s time to go shopping for house batteries for our Winnebago motorhome. For those armchair travelers or newbie RVers, I’ll give you a quick explanation, keeping in mind that I am not a technical person.

Most motorhomes have two separate battery banks. One bank is called the “coach” battery bank, and is used to start the engine and power the headlights, taillights, etc. on a motorhome. Depending on the size of the motorhome, this bank usually consists of one or two 12 volt batteries.

The second battery bank are the “house” batteries, which power the 12 volt interior lights, the fans for the furnaces, supply power to start the refrigerator when operating on propane, and provide spark to light the water heater, among other tasks. Again, depending on the size of the motorhome, the house battery bank can be anything from one battery to as many as you can carry.

House batteries can also be 12 volt batteries connected in parallel, or 6 volt batteries wired in series. Connecting two or more batteries in parallel keeps the same voltage of the individual batteries, but doubles (or triples) their capacity. Connecting two or more batteries in series doubles the voltage, while keeping the same capacity, as I understand it.

Anyway, when we bought the Winnebago, the previous owner told us that he had put three new deep cycle house batteries in a couple of months earlier. Terry and I have noticed that the batteries do not hold a charge very long when we have done any dry camping, so while we were visiting with Mike Steffen a few weeks ago, we pulled out the battery tray and discovered that the house batteries in the motorhome are actually starting batteries, which do not hold up to RV service.

In our bus conversion, we had three huge 8D Lifeline Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) batteries, which provided a lot of power and served us very well. The Winnebago cannot accommodate such large batteries, it has the smaller Group 31 size.

As with all RVers, our needs have changed over time, and we do not expect to do as much dry camping as we have done in the past. Back when we did a lot of boondocking, we once spent over seven straight months off the grid. But these days we may spend two or three nights in parking lots as we make a trip, or at an RV rally, but that’s about it. We prefer to be in an RV park, so we do not feel that we need to spend the extra money for AGM batteries. We will probably go with regular deep cycle RV batteries, which cost much less than AGMs.

I stopped at a battery store yesterday, and they carry Deka batteries, in both standard RV style deep cycle, and in AGM. I’m not familiar with the Deka brand, but in looking online, I see a lot of good reports on them. I think they are better known in the eastern half of the country. Does anybody here have any experience with Deka batteries?

Once we get the batteries replaced, we’ll be tire shopping, but that’s another day, and another blog.

While I was out battery shopping, Bad Nick was home posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled The Tennis Ball. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally