With all of the fun things we did while were in Muskegon, Michigan this last week, I never had the time to report on a visit from Gypsy Journal subscribers Paul and Dennise Ziaja, from Weslaco, Texas. Paul and Dennise were staying at the campground at the Elks lodge and when they read in the blog that we were at Fisherman’s Landing, they came over to say hello. We had a very nice visit, and Dennise told Terry about all of the good produce for sale at the Farmer’s Market, which we checked out the next day. It was great to have the time to chat for a while before they had to go run some errands.

I have been busy working on the seminar schedule for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally, and it is a tough balancing act to get everything to fit. We have a great lineup of seminars, and I have a few new ones to tell you about. The Geeks on Tour, Chris and Jim Guld’s seminars are always popular, and they have offered to present a couple of extra seminars at the rally.

They are going to present both beginner and advanced seminars on writing an RV blog, basic and advanced seminars on managing digital photos with Picasa, a seminar on creating digital slide shows with Photo Story 3, and a seminar on Google Earth. That’s six seminars in all, besides their excellent Computer Boot Camp before the rally starts! When will they ever sleep? When will they ever feed their yappy little French Poodle? Where does it all end? Will they be offering late night computer classes for insomniacs? Stay tuned to find out!

One topic we get asked for all of the time is a seminar on cooking in an RV. Subscriber Vera Andrews is a home economist with 14 years teaching experience, and she has presented seminars at Escapade rallies in the past. Vera will be doing two seminars for us in Celina; Cooking on the Road, and Healthy Eating – The Why and The How. I have not added these new seminars to our Rally Registration Page yet, but check it out and factor these new offerings in and I think you’ll agree that we’ll have something for everyone.

As I said, it’s a juggling act to get everything to fit into the seminar schedule, and when some of our speakers learned that Joe and Vicki Kieva will be presenting their excellent Alaska, The Ultimate RV Adventure and RV Travel and Camping Tips seminars, they begged me not to put them up against these two powerhouse speakers. Either they did not want to compete with such well known speakers, or because they wanted to see the Kievas’ seminars themselves. But I’ll figure it all out, one way or another.

Okay, enough of that and on to other things. Early Tuesday morning a nasty thunderstorm hit Muskegon and lasted for an hour or two. We were wondering what kind of weather we’d have to travel in, but by daylight it had calmed down, though the sky was still heavily overcast.

We pulled out of Fisherman’s Landing campground at 12:30 and had an easy run south, with just one little rain sprinkle that only lasted about ten minutes. Traffic was light and we arrived back at our regular site at Elkhart Campground at 3:30 p.m. They have an Avion rally going on, and there are quite a few of the silver trailers here. I hope to get over and check some of them out today.

We’ll only be here a few days before heading to Bowling Green, Ohio for the FMCA rally, if they can find a vendor booth for us. Then our next stop will be Traverse City, Michigan for Miss Terry’s annual oncologist checkup. We’re having a busy summer!

Thought For The Day – Sometimes happiness comes through doors you didn’t even know you left open. 

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Miss Terry is still feeling pretty bad, so she spent much of yesterday napping and trying to regain her strength. What we first thought was a cold now seems to be a bad sinus infection. If she’s not better soon, I’m going to drag her kicking and screaming to a doctor.

While she was lying down, I worked on some details for our upcoming Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally in Celina, Ohio. I had two different vendors who wanted to come that I had to send e-mails to expressing regrets because we already have other vendors selling the same products. If you want to attend the rally as a vendor, get in touch with me at editor@gypsyjournal.net to reserve your site soon so you don’t miss out.

Then I reviewed a couple of proposals for new seminars at the rally. One I had to decline, because it was nothing but a sales pitch. We do allow our vendors to present seminars, but we encourage them to give an unbiased overview of the whole topic, not just a description of their products. Since this seminar was titled “Why XYZ Campground Membership Beats The Competition” I had no problem determining that it was not appropriate for the rally. The other seminar, on switching your RV’s old style TV for a new LCD model, looks good, and I think it will be well received. I’m also working on a new seminar for the rally that I think will be fun.

With that done, I went for a walk around the campground, stopping to chat with some folks who are here for the Heartland Owners Rally later this week in Goshen. One of them had a nice old dog, so I was able to get my puppy fix.

Being in an RV park that caters to fulltimers and extended time RVers is kind of like being in a small town. Everywhere you go you run into somebody you know. Some of the regulars we see here at Elkhart Campground every year were out and about, and I visited with them. Then I ran into campground owners Bob and Gita Patel, and they welcomed me back for the season.

The local economy may be down, but business seems to be good here at the campground. There are plenty of RVs here, and during the afternoon I watched quite a few more arrive.

One was a nice looking Monaco diesel pusher with a For Sale sign in the window. I asked the owner about it, and while it is a nice coach, he’s upside down and owes about 50% more on it than he can ever hope to get out of it. He’s aware of that, but says he keeps hoping he’ll stumble onto a buyer with more money than common sense. I wished him luck, but that’s not me. I have even less money than I do common sense!

Thought For The Day – Don’t argue with an idiot….they will bring you to their level and then beat you with experience!

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