We had a lot to get done yesterday, and accomplished very little of it. Some days are just like that, I guess.

We had quite a bit of stuff that we had been carrying around in the van that we decided had to go away, so I loaded it into the Explorer to drop off at a Goodwill or Salvation Army. It’s amazing what you discover that you had forgotten you own!

A little after noon we drove back to the car dealer in Winter Haven, where we bought the Explorer, to pick up the the SMI auxiliary brake that they had agreed to disconnect from the van, and to drop off the van’s title, which we had forgotten the day before. Along the way, we stopped at a Salvation Army store and unloaded the items we had to donate.

We had noticed a squealing noise coming from the Explorer, that I suspected was a fan belt or something like that. It wasn’t a big deal, just irritating. So I asked their service department to take a look, and they decided that a serpentine belt and a pulley were glazed, which was causing the noise.

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They pulled the vehicle into the shop to change them, and said it would take  a couple of hours to get the parts and do the job. Okay, we were there, they were paying for it under warranty, so we’d get it out of the way.

Well, we all know that no job ever gets done in the time allocated, right? The two hours stretched out to almost three before they were done, but they did a good job. This was supposed to be a quick trip, so I had not taken my iPad with me, so I spent the time reading old magazines about topics I had no interest in, while Miss Terry, always better prepared, had a book to read.

We needed to find a Fed Ex drop box to send the loan paperwork back to Alliant Credit Union, and we thought we had seen one in a shopping center we would pass on the way out of town. As it turned out, we were wrong, so we stopped at a hotel to ask if they knew of one nearby. They didn’t.

Again, if I had my iPad, I could have gone online and found one quickly, but we figured we’d pass a Staples or Office Depot, which usually does Fed Ex shipping. No such luck.

Miss Terry was driving, so I got online with my Droid Incredible and looked up Fed Ex, called them, and they gave me the location of the nearest Fed Ex drop box. Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? I entered the address into our Garmin GPS, which directed us a mile north, only to then tell us to make a U-turn and drive two miles back south to the drop box! Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?

Eventually we found the drop box, deposited the envelope, and headed back to the Thousand Trails campground. We stopped along the way for a bite to eat, made a stop at Lowes, and got back to our motorhome just after dark.

We’re due to leave here tomorrow, and we still have to pack the Explorer, get our hard kayaks onto the roof, and get some other chores done. All the stuff we had planned to accomplish yesterday!

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things.

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Well, it took a while, some trial and error, and my blood pressure was in the stratosphere for a couple of days, but it was worth it. Well, it was worth it to me. Miss Terry had to live with the grouchy bear I become when I get too stressed out from dealing with thieves and idiots, and I’m not sure she’d agree that anything is worth that! But, it all came together, and yesterday we resolved the issue with towing the Ford Explorer, and took delivery of it.

Actually, we already had it, because the folks at Dodge Chrysler Jeep of Winter Haven allowed me to keep it overnight Wednesday while we tried to figure out a way to get it set up to tow behind our motorhome.

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the Explorer requires a Neutral Tow Kit, which is basically an LED light that plugs in under the dashboard, and a simple computer procedure from a Ford dealer to set up the transfer case for towing. However, the company that made the kit for Ford has gone out of business, and a dealer in Oregon bought up every kit available and was charging $375 plus $30 shipping, for an item that originally retailed for about $30. What a rip off!

A lot of internet research, and repeated phone calls to my two most reliable technical guys, Greg White and Ron Speidel, confirmed my belief that any LED light would complete the circuit and work. Thanks for all of your help and patience with my repeated phone calls, guys.

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The next step was finding a Ford dealer that would “flash” the computer for me. Jarrett Gordon Ford, in Davenport, Florida was willing to try it, and it worked like a charm! A $2 LED light beats the heck out of over $400 to accomplish the same thing!

Once we knew that we could tow the Explorer, the next job was to unload our Ford van so we could drop it off at the dealer as our trade in, and do the paperwork. Do you have any idea how much stuff you can cram into an extended length Ford cargo van? A lot! We are going to have to get ruthless about what to keep and what to dispose of, because while the Explorer will carry the newspapers we take to RV parks and rallies, and our kayaks on a roof rack, it’s no cargo van.

What it is is a very nice ride, maybe the nicest we’ve ever owned. The previous owner was a Ford executive who special ordered the Explorer as his retirement present, and it has every option that was available that year. Leather interior, power seats, power windows and door locks, power sunroof, zoned climate control, molded in running boards, and more than I can remember. These pictures are from the dealer’s web site, and are not great, but hopefully they will give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s tan with a tan interior.

In fact, I was driving it home and playing around with all of the buttons and knobs, and suddenly I started feeling uncomfortably hot, even though the air conditioner was on. I told Miss Terry later that if I had been a woman, I would have sworn I was having a massive hot flash. As it turns out, I had turned on the seat heater, an option I never hope to be in cold enough weather to need!

The base plate for towing the Explorer is on order, and it will be a couple of weeks before we get it installed. In the meantime, I’ll drive the motorhome and Terry will drive the Explorer for the little bit of running around we’ll be doing between now and then.

By the way, if you are a fulltime RVer who is having trouble obtaining financing on an RV or tow vehicle because the bean counters at your bank don’t understand our lifestyle, call my friend Eileen Gilmore at Alliant Credit Union at (773) 462-2200, extension 3621, and tell her I sent you. Eileen will go the extra mile for you. She handled the purchase of our motorhome last year, and the Explorer now, and she has always been great to work with.

While I was busy with all of the details of the Explorer purchase, Bad Nick stayed out of the line of fire, and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Coloring Outside The Lines. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Adversity introduces a man to himself.

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I have had a very frustrating couple of days, and if I had any hair left, I’d probably be pulling it out about now.

Our Ford van has 163,000 miles on the odometer, not counting many thousands more being towed behind our motorhome, and behind our bus conversion before that. It’s reached the point where it’s beginning to nickel and dime us to death. So we have been shopping around for something to replace it.

We found an absolutely beautiful low mileage 2005 Ford Explorer Limited 4×4 at a nearby dealer, and according to Motorhome magazine’s 2005 Dinghy Towing Guide,  the Explorer can be flat towed after the installation of a Neutral Tow Kit, which is about a $30 part. Cool, let’s do it!

Before we signed the papers, I wanted to double check on the procedure for setting up the vehicle for towing. Since the dealer selling the Explorer is not a Ford dealer, I went down the road to the Ford garage and told them what I wanted to do. They told me that basically the dealer plugs the Neutral Tow Kit into a socket under the dashboard, and then they ”flash” the vehicle’s computer to tell the 4 wheel drive transfer case to shift into neutral when I step on the brake pedal and push the 4×4 button, with the transmission in neutral.

However (you knew there was a “however” coming, didn’t you?), it’s not quite that simple. Ford no longer carries the Neutral Tow Kit, and the dealer can’t order one. I found one dealer in Oregon who has several of them in stock, for $375 each plus $30 shipping, and I found one on eBay for $500. Several websites list them, but nobody actually has one, they all want to take your money and put it on backorder.

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From what I understand, the tow kit is nothing more than an LED light, a plug, a template for mounting the gizmo, and three safety stickers.

I have spent the last two days online and on the phone, calling dealers all over the country, talking to a Ford district rep, and getting a different story from everybody I talk to. Some insist that I have to have the tow kit to make things work, some say all a dealer has to do is flash the computer program with or without the tow kit, and some say they have made their own replacement for the tow kit by simply wiring a 12 volt LED light into the circuit where the other tow kit would go. If you can find a dealer to flash it with a homebuilt replacement. Many won’t do it for liability reasons.

It’s a pain, but I understand the liability part of things. Years ago, when we first went on the road, we bought a new Toyota pickup to pull, and Toyota insisted it could not be towed. It was a manual transmission 4×4, so all I did was put the transmission and transfer case in neutral and we towed it for years with no problems. But the bean counters are all programmed to say no to anything, because “what if?”

Now, I think that Ford builds some very fine automobiles and trucks, and I also think that they have some very dumb and/or greedy employees. Three dealers immediately wanted to sell me a new vehicle, and when I told them I wasn’t going to do that, they had no time for me. Several service departments told me that an Explorer can’t be towed in any configuration, and others just scratched their heads and had no advice at all.

The very nice folks at Camper Connection pointed me toward a local Ford dealer’s garage, and the service manager agreed that the tow kit is nothing more than an LED light, a plug, a template for mounting the gizmo, and the safety stickers. Yesterday, the selling dealer let me take the vehicle to the Ford dealer, so he could try flashing the computer without the LED light in place. It didn’t work, so he told me to get an LED light, and we’re going to try again this morning.

Keep your fingers crossed for us. We love the Explorer, it meets all of our needs, the price is right, the financing is in place, but for want of a silly $30 part, the whole deal may fall through. Can you say frustrating?

UPDATE: We’re in luck! Jarrett Gordon Ford installed the LED light I got, and everything works fine for towing!

Thought For The Day – Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

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The time comes for all fulltimers when illness, advancing age, changing interests, family needs, or some other reason causes us to make the decision to hang up the keys.

Some fulltime RVers enter the lifestyle knowing that they will only be traveling for a certain amount of time before they settle down, while others hope to travel forever, and only leave the road when forced to do so.

Hopefully, Terry and I are a long way from reaching that point, but like most of our RVing friends, we know the time will eventually come. We have talked about what we will do at that time in our lives, and where we might want to to live.

We lived in the little mountain town of Show Low, Arizona before we hit the road, and my daughter and her family still live there. But we know that we don’t want to return there, and neither of us likes Arizona enough to want to live there again.

We love being around water, we want a moderate climate, and we don’t want to be in a big city. However, we want to be close enough to the services we will need as we get older.

If we had to make a decision today, I think the Rockport/Aransas Pass area of Texas might be it for us. We love the laid back small town atmosphere, it’s on the Gulf of Mexico, with lots of opportunities for fishing and kayaking, and the cost of living is affordable. Because it’s only about 30 miles from Corpus Christi, there is easy access to any kind of shopping or medical services one could want or need.

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However, we also have thought about Florida, for its abundant water sports opportunities. Florida is God’s waiting room, because there are so many retirees here, and they are an important part of the state’s political and economic base. But, it is God’s waiting room, and I don’t see us being happy playing bridge and comparing varicose veins forever in some retirement community.

Having had big houses, small house, mobile homes, and just about every kind of dwelling available, we have both agreed that we’re very happy living in the small size a motorhome offers. We’d be very happy to find a lot someplace and live out our days in our home on wheels.

We know some fulltimers who have already purchased a lot someplace, in preparation for “the day,” whenever it comes. We almost bought a lot (actually three adjoining lots) in Aransas Pass a couple of years ago, but we felt like that would be the first string that started to tie us down, and we’re not ready for that yet. We worked hard to cut those strings so we could live the fulltime lifestyle. We worry that if we had a lot, we’d feel like we had to go back there every year, because why have it if we’re not going to use it?

Of course, if all goes well, I’ll follow my original exit plan, which is to bounce my last check, burn my last drop of diesel, and have a fatal heart attack, all on the same afternoon.

So what about you? Have you thought about what you’ll do when the time comes to hang up the keys? What are your plans?

Thought For The Day – I have never been in a situation where having money made it worse.

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Somebody please note for future reference that I was up and outside of our motorhome before the sun was up Monday morning. While that may not be quite as momentous an occasion as when man first walked on the moon, in the little universe that revolves around me, it’s pretty darned close!

Miss Terry and I got the registration building opened up, and Mike and Elaine Loscher were right behind us, ready to help get everybody signed in for the rally. Mike and Elaine are such great friends and loyal supporters, we don’t know what we’d do without them.

Here is Mike, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to greet the day! I never completely understand anybody who can smile that early in the morning. There has to be something terribly wrong in his mind!

Before long the folks started filing in to pick up their name badges and door prize drawing tickets. We saw a lot of friends who have been at previous Gypsy Journal rallies, and also quite a few new faces who are joining us for the first time.

Here are Connie Anderson and Elaine Loscher, manning the registration table. It’s okay, Connie, I have that same lost and confused expression on my face a lot of the time!

And what’s a Gypsy Journal rally without a lot of fun and laughter. I’m not sure I even want to know what set Dave Damon and Connie Anderson off in this picture, but knowing these two, it couldn’t have been pretty!

In the vendor room, things were starting to get busy, as folks shopped for all kinds of RV goodies and gadgets. Bill and Janet Adams from Internet Anywhere took advantage of a quiet moment between customers to catch their breath. From automatic rooftop satellite dishes to wireless routers, Bill and Janet have just what you need to get connected on the road.

Gayle Longwell was busy manning the Passport America booth. Passport America is the nation’s largest discount camping club, and we have belonged since before we hit the road fulltime, over twelve years ago.

Jean Damon sells 303 products to help protect your RV and to keep it looking like new, and she is also an excellent masseuse. After our rally in Ohio last year, Jean gave me a massage, and I was so relaxed that I could hardly walk back to our Winnebago afterward!

Russ and Debbie Davis are a fun couple who sell all kinds of personalized items, including these great insulated tote bags. They donated some of them as door prizes at the rally.

We met Gay Miller from Coyote Sales at our very first RV rally, years ago, and have been friends ever since. Gay and her husband Ben sell Pressure Pro tire monitoring systems, Wilson trucker antennas and amplifiers for cell phones, routers, and a lot of other great high tech goodies.

At 3 p.m. we had our Welcome get together, followed by an introduction to all of our vendors. Then, after a short break, Dennis Hill, Denny Orr, Frank Hinman, Mac McCoy, and Daryl Lawrence sat in on our Ask the Experts panel, in which the crowd could ask questions about every aspect of RVing, and take advantage of a couple of lifetimes worth of accumulated knowledge.

At 7 p.m. we drew names for door prizes. Greg White spent over two weeks collecting door prizes from local merchants, mostly restaurants, and we passed most of them out, to give people time to use them before the rally ends. We have a lot more door prizes left to go!

By the time the door prizes were over, Terry and I were both really dragging. We grabbed a quick dinner, then spent what was left of the evening writing the blog, printing some of our RV guides and booklets, and were in bed much earlier than usual.

Today we’ll finish registering any late arrivals, start our seminars, and this evening will be our Hoosier Honey Beauty Contest. I guarantee that will be a hoot!

Thought For The Day – Marriage is a relationship where one person is always right, and the other is the husband.