I spent part of yesterday working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, which has to be at the printer on Tuesday of next week. I need to knock this one out, so I can concentrate on all of the details we still need to finish up for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering, which is less than three weeks away.

In the early afternoon, our pal Michele Henry from Phoenix Commercial Paint stopped by to visit and welcome us back to Elkhart. Michele said she has been getting a lot of work in from Gypsy Journal readers, and as soon as she finishes one of her custom full body paint jobs on one RV, it’s time to start on another.

I like to see a small businessperson succeed, and while Michele says we have had a lot to do with that, I know that word of her excellent work and affordable pricing has spread far beyond our modest reach due to her many satisfied customers, who are so thrilled with the results.

After Michele left, I talked to our screen printer and started the ball rolling for our rally T-shirts. If you’re coming to the rally and want a shirt to commemorate the event, please send me a quick e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net and let me know the sizes and how many shirts you want. You can pick them up and pay for them at the rally, but we just need an idea of how many shirts we need to order in each size.

Speaking of T-shirts, check out our friend Marlene Hinman in her one-of-a-kind shirt from our Arizona rally. Marlene won the shirt as a door prize, and since it was a larger size than she wears, she took it apart and rebuilt it as a sleeveless style. How cool!

Later in the afternoon, I had a meeting at Heartland Recreational Vehicles with Coley Brady, Director of Sales, and Jim Beletti, Director of Owners Interests. We are trying to set up a factory tour for our rally attendees, and if we can work out the timing, it would be an interesting opportunity to see how a top quality fifth wheel is built.

We also stopped by Elkhart Bicycle Shop and arranged to have owner Steve Peterson present a seminar on Bicycling For RVers at the rally. Steve will be talking about the different styles of bicycles on the market, how to choose the right bike for your needs, and different methods of transporting your bicycle as you travel.

We were only back at Elkhart Campground for a short time before Greg White called and said it was time for dinner, so we went to Lunker’s in Edwardsburg, Michigan with Greg and Jan.  Lunker’s is a great place, where you can buy everything from a shotgun to a fishing road, not to mention a kayak, a tent, or a sleeping bag.

They also have a great restaurant called the Angler’s Inn, and it’s one of our favorites in this area. The fare ranges from burgers and several varieties of fish, to such exotic choices as alligator tail, frog legs, buffalo burgers, ostrich, and elk.

They were pretty busy, but our server was very efficient, and took good care of us.  We topped off our meal with excellent slices of Totally Turtle Cheesecake. Yummy!

While I was busy with all of that, Bad Nick posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Fighting Fire With Fire. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – It’s not the pace of life that concerns me, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Even though our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally doesn’t officially start until next week, folks have been rolling in for the last two days!

Yesterday Mike and Elaine Loscher arrived to help with the rally. This will be the fourth or fifth Gypsy Gathering rally for this nice couple, who always show up prepared to volunteer to do whatever needs done to make the rally a success. Mike works long hours with the parking crew, and Miss Terry has come to rely on Elaine to help make registration go smoothly.

Shortly after Mike and Elaine pulled in, Bob and Molly Pinner arrived, along with Howie and Norah Glover, as part of an Escapees RV Club Class Reunion. Several other couples have also arrived for the reunion, including John and Doni Hargis, Dan and Dee Hawkey, and Rick and Terry Traver, to name a few.

Yesterday afternoon Phil Brown and Joy Waldrop dropped over to visit, along with Bill Joyce and Diane Melde. Both couples are staying at a Coast to Coast campground in nearby Wapakoneta, and they rode down together to say hello and check out the fairgrounds.

While we were visiting with them, Linda Fleeger came by to say hello. Linda is going to be presenting a seminar on Volunteering At National Wildlife Refuges at the rally, and she also volunteered herself and her pal Terry Traver to go out and collect door prizes from the local business community. I quickly passed that duty on to them, because we have been going in so many different directions at once that we still have not had time to call on anybody for door prizes.  

While all of this was going on, Brenda Speidel and Billie Barker had commandeered one of the fairgrounds buildings to sort rally T-shirts. It is always hard to know how many shirts to order, and in what sizes. Last year here in Ohio, we sold out of the smaller sizes, and were stuck with leftover XX and XXX sizes. But at our Arizona rally in February, the larger sizes sold out the first or second day, and we had leftover smaller sizes.

We have debated only having shirts available on a pre-order basis, but we have so many people who show up at the rallies at the last minute that they would be shut out. The problem, of course, is that as soon as the rally ends, any leftover shirts are just excess baggage and wasted money. The screen printer definitely does not want them back, and we don’t want to carry them around.

While all of this was going on, Bad Nick was busy too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled I Didn’t Do It! that I think will get some interesting responses.

On another topic, I reported Sunday that we had lost one of the safety pins from our Blue Ox tow bar. I got an e-mail from my friend Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint yesterday telling me that she had found the missing pin in her paint booth. Apparently I had not attached it securely when I moved the tow bar from our bus conversion to the Winnebago, and it fell out while the motorhome was in her shop getting the stripe painted on last week.

Several people have written to tell me that they had either heard of, or even experienced, having safety pins pulled out when parked at truck stops and highway rest areas. While we have never had that happen to us, one longtime reader lost the Jeep he was towing while going through Atlanta. He had stopped and taken a nap at a rest area south of the city just before. Mere coincidence? Who knows?

Whenever we stop for fuel or for a break at a rest area, and every morning before we hit the road, I always do a walk around to inspect the RV and our dinghy, to be sure everything looks okay. Even though we have and trust a PressurePro tire monitoring system, I check the tires for any cuts or damage that might have occurred from highway debris; check the tow bar, safety pins, and safety cables; check for leaks, and just look to see that the bumpers have not fallen off or something. (Hey, you might laugh, but you never had the Motorhome from Hell that we started our RV life in!)

It only takes a couple of minutes, but it gives me an excuse to get out and stretch my legs, and it’s always better to spot a potential problem when you’re safely off the road, rather than waiting for something to go wrong at 60 miles per hour.

Thought For The Day – I’m not old, I’m chronologically gifted.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally