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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As I reported in a previous blog entry Caught In A Dust Storm, on Monday of last week we drove from Williams, Arizona to Juniper Ridge RV Resort  in Show Low, Arizona. On Interstate 40, between Meteor Crater and Winslow, we ran into the worst dust storm I had ever been in. Soon after we came through, the Highway Patrol closed the highway for several hours.

Yesterday, one week to the day later, another dust storm closed the same section of highway for several hours. Welcome to spring in northern Arizona. Fortunately for us, this time around we were safely nestled into Tim and Sue Daughtery’s site here at Juniper Ridge. The wind rocked our motorhome all day long, but since we stayed home and waded through a mound of paperwork, we just ignored it.

Driving a high profile vehicle in strong winds is not only nerve wracking, it can be downright dangerous. In my days running small town newspapers in this area, I covered quite a few stories of big motorhomes, and even eighteen wheelers, that were blown off the highway and ended up on their sides or upside down at the bottom of a ravine. 

When I reported in Saturday’s blog that we had opened registration for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally, we had 80 50 amp full hookup RV sites available at Elkhart Campground. As of last night, we have 50 left. We also have received reservations for several of the 30 amp full hookup, and the 30 amp water and electric sites. We now have a total of 45 registrations in.  That’s not bad for three days!

Membership in the Elks and Moose organizations opens up many overnight parking opportunities for RVers. In our travels, we have stayed at Elks and Moose lodges all over the country. Some just have a parking lot where you can dry camp overnight, while others have full hookup RV parks, with very reasonable rates. But membership in both organizations is about much more than just having a place to park overnight. Both do a tremendous amount of good work in their communities and on a national basis, especially for children and veterans.

I belong to the Gila Bend, Arizona Elks Lodge, and the Elkhart, Indiana Moose Lodge. I have sponsored quite a few new members for the Elkhart Moose Lodge,and if you would like to join, I’ll be happy to sponsor you while we’re at the rally. It’s a quick and easy process, and costs less than $100 to join, including your first year’s dues. If you are interested in joining at the rally, send me an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net and I’ll be sure to have enrollment forms available for you.

Our RV travels have taken us to a lot of small town festivals all around the country, but one we missed was the Texas Sandfest, which was held in Port Aransas, Texas this past weekend. As longtime readers know, Terry and I love the Texas Gulf Coast, from Rockport to Port Aransas, and we’re sorry we missed this event.

But our friends Ron and Brenda Speidel were there, and they sent us several photos they took of some of the creations. Here are a few of my favorites. Isn’t it amazing what they can do with sand?

Now that I have conquered the paperwork that was covering my desk, it’s time to start putting together the next issue of the Gypsy Journal. Maybe, by the time I get it finished in a few days, the wind will have blown out of the area. But I’m not holding my breath.

Thought For The Day – Quarrels end, but words, once spoken, never die.

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Our old hometown of Show Low, here in Arizona’s White Mountains, was first settled by Mormon pioneers, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) still has a strong influence on the community. However, not everybody here is a member of the church, and I guess the owner of this Jeep wanted to be sure folks knew it.

In our RV travels around the country, we have seen hundreds of funny business signs, and even more bumper stickers, vanity license plates, and signs on vehicles that have had us laughing out loud. If you do much traveling, I’m sure you have too. Here are some we just couldn’t resist taking a picture of, and a few that our readers have sent us from all across the nation.

I think we camped next to these folks at least once.

When we spent a few weeks down on the Texas Gulf Coast a couple of years ago, we spotted this mural on the side of a home built RV.  I wanted to peek!

Some of the funniest vehicle signs we have seen have been on septic tank pumper trucks.  One of our readers sent the top one from California. I’m not sure which administration was in power at the time, but does it really matter?

We took this one in Indiana last summer, while staying at Elkhart Campground.

I think I may have been married to this lady at one time.

And to this one too!

My buddy, Jim Gass, sent me this picture, and when I showed it to Miss Terry, she made me sell my motorcycle.

Now this is a girl with a Bad Nick sense of humor!

We slept in yesterday, and then ran into town to do some banking, drop off some orders at the post office, and then popped in to see my daughter Tiffany for a while. Son-in-law Jim is working two jobs to make ends meet in this troubled economy, and we have not had much time to visit with him since we’ve been in town. We did get to chat for a few minutes when he came home from one job, but it was obvious that he was worn out, and we urged him to get a couple of hours sleep before he headed to his night job.  I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for Jim, and I’m glad my daughter is married to such a hard worker who gives so much of himself for his family, but I worry about the young man.

After we left Tiffany’s place, we stopped for an early dinner, and then came back to Juniper Ridge RV Resort. It was warmer than it has been all week, and the wind wasn’t blowing much, so Miss Terry took the opportunity to cut my hair and trim my beard. I’m glad she did, because I was sure getting shaggy!

Then it was a quiet evening, doing some work on the computer, watching TV, and just relaxing with my best friend. Life is good!

Well, at least I had a quiet evening. Bad Nick was busy posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled So What Should We Do? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Those who don’t beat their plowshares into swords will be ruled by those who do.