I can only spend so many days in a row stuck at my desk, and then I have to escape for at least a little while. I reached that point yesterday, so I took a break from working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, and Greg White and I drove out to Shipshewana to check out the goodies at the gun show.

I think we may have cause to be concerned, when we see the Amish stocking up on guns and ammo! At the Shipshewana gun show last year, I saw several Amish men looking over the hunting rifles and shotguns, but yesterday the exhibit hall was full of them. And I swear, one was buying a 9mm handgun!

Sometimes I forget that not everybody gets my sense of humor. While Greg was looking at something else, I found a nice toy on a display table, and was talking to the man who had it for sale, when Greg walked up. Being the typical wise guy that I am, I said to the fellow at the table, “Well, before I can buy anything, I have to ask my wife here if it’s okay.” The guy looked at his friend, back at me, and suddenly he wasn’t nearly as friendly as he had been just a few minutes earlier. “You’re not those kind of people, are you?” he asked.

Miss Terry and Greg’s wife, Jan, were off having a girl day, and when we left the gun show, we met them for a late lunch/early dinner at El Maguey, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Terry, Jan, and I had the shrimp enchiladas, and they were delicious. Greg had a chicken plate, and was just as pleased with his choice.

Back at Elkhart Campground, longtime Gypsy Journal subscriber George Bartley stopped by to say hello, and drop off his two year renewal check. Soon afterward, somebody else came by who is staying at the campground all month, and wanted to register to attend our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally.

Terry and Jan dropped off some stuff at the motorhome from their trip to the farmers’ market, then took off again for a WalMart run, Greg went off to do whatever it is he does, and I started back in on the paper. That didn’t last long, because somebody else stopped by to chat, and about the time I excused myself and said I really needed to get back to work, a series of telephone calls started coming in. I was finishing up the last of them when Terry and Jan got back home.

I worked the rest of the afternoon, and past midnight local time, except for a break to go to Dairy Queen with Terry, Greg, and Jan about 7 p.m. After our late lunch, nobody was very hungry, but there’s always room for dessert!

If I get an early start, and really, really work hard, I can get most of the new issue done today, making up for the time I spent goofing off yesterday. But it was worth it, I needed the break.

Thought For The Day – One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m still doing, just plugging away on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, just like I have been most of the week. I wish I had something new and exciting to tell you about, but you probably wouldn’t find the details of adding paper to my HP laser printer or running spell check on a draft of an article all that thrilling, so I’ll spare you the details.

Yesterday afternoon I got away from my desk long enough to stop in at Heartland Recreational Vehicles for a quick visit with Director of Sales Coley Brady to work out the details of a factory tour for folks attending our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. We have such a busy schedule of seminars during the rally that we couldn’t find the time for the tour until Friday morning, after the rally officially ends.

Anybody who wants to take the tour can meet in the main vendor room at 9:30 a.m., and a representative from the factory will lead a caravan the couple of miles from Elkhart Campground to the factory. Even if you’re not in the market for a new RV, it’s always interesting to see how the different companies build them. We learn something new with every factory tour we take. Elkhart Campground has plenty of room if you want to stay around for the tour, and maybe hang out with all of us who will still be here for the weekend.

Later in the afternoon, we went to Ryan’s Buffet, another favorite restaurant of ours, for dinner with Greg and Jan. The food was good, and the conversation with our friends was fun and interesting, as always.

I am going to take a break for a little while today, to go to the gun show in Shipshewana with Greg, and drool over all of the big boy toys we can’t afford and have no room for anyway.

While we’re doing that, Jan and Miss Terry are going to have some girl time and check out the big American Countryside Market. We were sad to learn that this big indoor bazaar, which features Amish foods and crafts, will be closing its doors in early September, and that its future is unknown. We always enjoyed browsing all of the vendor stalls and admiring everything on sale there.

I think parking everybody who will be coming in for our rally is going to be pretty easy, since a good number of the people who registered for the rally are already here, and more are coming in every day. Several people have stopped by to say hello, and while I haven’t have much time to visit, I’m looking forward to getting the paper done so we can get out and have some fun.

I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel; by last night I had 25 of 36 pages of the new issue finished, and I’ll wrap it up by Monday, giving Miss Terry plenty of time to proof it, and to get it to our printer on Tuesday.

I’m not the only one working hard. Bad Nick posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Good parenting is only gained by experience, and therefore only available to grandchildren.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Yesterday afternoon we had a delicious meal, courtesy of Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School. Dennis and Carol have been here at Elkhart Campground for a couple of days, after a summer RV trip to Alaska, and they invited us over for a cookout. The main course was deep fried halibut cheeks. Did you know that the cheek is the best tasting meat to be found on many fish? I know that now. Yummy!

Bill Joyce and Diane Melde joined us in the feast, and our good friends Ron and Brenda Speidel pulled into the campground about the time Dennis was taking the first round of halibut out of his deep fryer. Dennis told me to invite them to join us too, so as soon as they got their beautiful Winnebago diesel coach parked next to our bus and ran their leveling jacks down and their slides out, they came down.

There was so much food that I think that even though we all stuffed ourselves, there were more leftovers than we actually consumed. Thanks for the delicious meal and for your hospitality, Dennis and Carol!

I have to share this picture with you, which I took in the parking lot of the gun show in Shipshewana. This cool canine was relaxing in the seat of a Stallion, which is a very upscale trike style motorcycle, while his owner was inside shopping for goodies.

The dog seemed friendly as several people stopped to admire him and take his picture, but when one guy decided to check out the bike and got a little too close, the dog let him know that he needed to back off right now! Once he stepped away, it was all doggy smiles again.

I had hoped to get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal finished over the weekend, but between a lot of visitors and a fair amount of goofing off on my part the last few days, I still have a ways to go. But I’ll have it to the printer in time for them to do their thing this week.

The way registrations are coming in, Terry and I think this year’s Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally will be a lot bigger than last year’s event! Every day we get new reservations by mail or coming in online. And we are already starting to see several folks registering for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally next March! We have had some new vendors register for the Ohio rally, as well as several returning who were there last year. Once we get this new issue of the paper out, we’ll be concentrating on all of the final details that have to be handled to have a successful rally. It’s always a lot of work, but it’s always a lot of fun too!

Thought For The Day – Memory is more indelible than ink.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We had another busy day yesterday. I had a lot of work to get done, but I decided to cheat and go play for a while first. There was a gun show in Shipshewana, the Amish center 20 miles east of Elkhart, and I have wanted to get out that way and drop some bundles of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal at the campgrounds in that area, so I decided to combine business with pleasure.

Shipshewana, best known for its flea market, is an interesting place. In the past I have called it sort of an Amish theme town, in that you will see lots of Amish people in their horse drawn buggies and plain clothes, but also shops packed with tourists buying everything from overpriced quilts and crafts, to delicious cheeses. You can even (for a fee) take a ride in an authentic Amish buggy!

And Shipshewana is always a busy place! The main street through the business district is only a mile or so long, but it can take you a long time to cover that distance with all of the traffic. Cars, tour buses, RVs, buggies, Amish riding bicycles, and people on foot create an obstacle course that you have to be very careful to maneuver safely through.

After an hour or so of wandering through the gun show, and wishing I had kept all of the shooting irons I have sold over the years, I dropped Miss Terry off at E&S Sales, an Amish bulk food store, and then backtracked to drop off a couple of bundles of newspapers at the Shipshewana South Campground. There is also a Shipshewana North Campground a couple of miles north of town, which we had hit on the way in. The northern campground is never as full as the southern, which is within walking distance to everything in town, and both places are always clean and have friendly people in the office.

E&S was packed with shoppers, and when I caught up with Terry we spent a while browsing everything from a huge assortment of flour and other baking goods, to bulk candy and a dozen or more varieties of cheeses.

We had spent more time in Shipshewana than we had planned to, and when we left we stopped at a roadside produce stand, and when we left there, I told Terry I had to get right to work as soon as we got home. Yeah, right!

Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School had arrived at Elkhart Campground while we were gone, and as we pulled up we saw them and they came over to say hello and tell us all about their summer adventures RVing in Alaska. We just have to make that trip one of these days! Sometime during their visit, somebody mentioned dinner, and Terry and I realized that it was 5 p.m. and we had not had anything to eat all day long. So we piled into their car and went to Ryan’s Buffet for dinner and more good conversation. 

When we returned to the campground, Ruth Fleck and Linda Jensen were waiting at the bus. We had met them in Albuquerque at the Affinity Rally, and ran into them again at the FMCA rally in Bowling Green, Ohio a couple of weeks ago. We visited with them for a while, and Bill Joyce and Diane Melde wandered over to join in the party.

Finally, about 8 p.m., I excused myself and went inside to get some work done. Sometimes you just have to throw your plans out the window and go with the flow.

Thought For The Day – Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally