Thanks to all of you who e-mailed or posted comments wishing Miss Terry good luck with her doctor’s appointment yesterday. I’m happy to tell you that she got a good report, and continues to be cancer free after over ten years. And she feels much better now that her yearly ordeal is over.

We were talking a bit with the oncology nurse before the doctor came in, and I mentioned that I strongly believe that Terry’s willpower and attitude had a lot to do with her recovery. When she was first diagnosed and they told us she had Stage 4 cancer, I asked her first doctor what that meant, and his casual reply is “Stage 5 is when they bury you. You folks probably need to be talking about funeral plans.”

Talk about a lack of bedside manner! He could just as easily have been a mechanic telling us that we probably should think about trading in our old clunker, because it was past saving. Terry promptly fired that SOB, and we found a wonderful doctor who was just as committed to saving her life as she was to surviving, and her being here today is living proof of the power of positive thinking, in every aspect of our lives.

One thing that Terry always says is that, if the worst would have happened, she was glad that at least we had that first eighteen months on the road to live our dream. Over the years, we have met too many people who waited too long, waiting on the perfect “someday” that never arrived.

Today we’re headed south to Muskegon, Michigan for a few days with Rocky and Berni Frees. While it has been pretty comfortable here in Traverse City during our stay, and we have gotten along just fine on 20 amp electric, yesterday it really warmed up and we would have liked to run our basement air conditioner.

I’m also looking forward to a clear shot at the sky for my automatic rooftop TV dish. The thick trees in my cousin’s driveway prevented us from getting a satellite signal, and I don’t have a portable dish any more. I jokingly told Miss Terry last night that we have turned into “those people” – the ones who really enjoy their full hookup RV sites that we used to sneer about when we spent weeks, even months boondocking. We still boondock for an occasional night or two, and are quite comfortable doing so. But, there is something to be said for creature comforts on a long term basis.

We have enjoyed our stay here in Traverse City, and very much appreciate my cousin Terry Cook and his family’s hospitality. They always treat us like, well, family. We appreciate you guys, and look forward to getting back up here again next year.

Today will be an easy run, about 140 miles. After our 440 and 480 mile mad dashes to get here from Iowa last week, we’re looking forward to much shorter trips in the foreseeable future. Yes, we have turned into “those people.”

Thought For The Day – Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Today is our last day in Traverse City. Time sure goes fast when you’re having fun! It seems like we just rolled in yesterday.

This afternoon, Terry has her annual checkup with her oncologist, and we’re looking forward to getting that behind us for another year. Terry has been cancer free for ten years now, and every day is a blessing. But she still gets very nervous and uptight before her annual appointment. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if you tried to put me on an airplane headed back for the jungle. I wish I could make it easier for her, but all I can do is hold her, encourage her, and let her know that she is not alone.

There is so much to see and do around here that I wish we had more time. But we have to get down to Elkhart to start getting things set up for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. If you haven’t visited this part of northern Michigan yet, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.

Speaking of the rally, sometimes I feel like no matter what I do, I get into trouble. I had a couple of comments on yesterday’s blog from people who were upset because we have run out of full hookup RV sites, and two or three more e-mails from others who are mad at me because they waited to register, or expected to arrive at the rally without a registration, and still get a full hookup site.

I opened registration for the Eastern Rally April 10, and we immediately had several people register. And since then, almost four months ago, I have had a registration link in the blog and on our website, an ad in the printed edition of the Gypsy Journal, and constant updates on the rally, with warnings that the 50 amp full hookup sites were limited. So why am I the bad guy? Whatever happened to that old saying, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”?

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the folks at Elkhart Campground are scurrying to finish upgrading sites to make more 50 amp full hookups available. If they are able to get the job completed, folks can upgrade to them if they wish.

But trust me, you really can live for four days on a 30 amp site. We are currently living quite comfortable on a 20 amp circuit while parked in my cousin’s driveway. Terry makes her coffee every morning, my computer and wireless router are on all day long, and she has even done several loads of laundry! It’s all about energy management.

We’re in a hurry to get to Elkhart to get started on things there, but on our way south we plan to stop in Muskegon, Michigan to spend a couple of days with Berni and Rocky Frees. It’s been way too long since we had time with them, and we need a fix of the brand of pure insanity that only they can provide.

Bad Nick has been way too quiet for way too long, and when he gets that way, I get nervous. God only knows what goes on in his twisted mind. But he’s back with a brand new Bad Nick Blog post titled Screw You, WalMart. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Love your children enough to teach them self discipline, good manners, respect, and consideration for others.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Friday morning we left Traverse City, Michigan about 9:30 a.m. and drove about 56 miles south on State Route 37, a nice two lane road that passed through the Manistee National Forest, a land of dense trees and few people.

There were a scattering of canoe and kayak rental places along the slow moving Manistee and Pine Rivers, several lakes, some lodges, and a campground or two. I told Miss Terry we need to come back here someday and float the rivers, which really looked inviting. There was little traffic, and we used the occasional passing lane to get over to the right and let everybody get past us.

When we got to U.S. Highway 10 we followed it west 27 miles, through the little communities of Walhalla, Custer and Scottville. At one point Terry spotted two big deer standing on the left shoulder of the highway, and just as she told me to be careful, they bolted across the road right into our path. I had to do some heavy braking to avoid hitting them, and the incident upped our adrenalin level by quite a bit.

When we hit U.S. Highway 31 in Ludington, a divided four lane road, we turned south, and arrived at Fisherman’s Landing Marina and Campground in Muskegon a little after noon. We registered, dumped our holding tank, and backed into the same site we had a couple of weeks ago. As soon as we had water and electric hooked up and the inside of the bus arranged a little bit, we drove over to visit with Rocky and Berni Frees.

We always have a good time with these two characters, and this was no exception. We went out to dinner, and then returned to their apartment to play Mexican Train, our favorite domino game. In addition to their cat, they were babysitting a friend’s Chihuahua, and it was fun watching the two critters playing and chasing each other through the apartment. 

Saturday morning, while Terry and Berni had a girls’ day out, Rocky and I drove to nearby Grand Rapids for a gun show. Folks, I’m telling you, if you had invested your money in firearms instead of giving it to some stockbroker, you’d all be a whole lot better off today! I had quite a large gun collection before we hit the road ten years ago, and looking at how much the same guns I sold back then are going for now really made me hurt. Most are selling for almost double what I sold mine for, and some for even more! Try getting an 80 to 125% return on your investments anywhere else! Plus, playing with guns is a lot more fun than playing with stock certificates!

Of course, you do have to know how to buy them right if you hope to ever sell them for a profit someday. I’m not sure my pal Rocky really understands that concept.

Rocky was looking for a cheap beater shotgun to keep at the place where he parks his motorhome at a cousin’s place in the woods. He found one on a table at the gun show that had a price tag of $100 on it. “Do you think I should buy it?” he asked me.

I told him yes, but to see if he could get a better deal. Rocky asked me what he should pay for it, and I told him to offer the seller $75 or $80 and see what he said. I couldn’t believe my ears when Rocky said to the guy, “Would you take $75 or $80 for it?”

The guy looked at him a second and said “I’ll take the $80.”

We had a good laugh about that when we got in the car, and I had to explain to Rocky that given the option of two prices, you can just about bet that every seller in the world is going to take the higher of the two! If you’re shopping for a new RV or tow vehicle, I wouldn’t advise taking Rocky along to help you negotiate!

Thought For The Day – If you’re born again, do you have two belly buttons?

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Living on limited electric power seems to be a major concern for many RVers, and I have never understood why.

Time and time again I have had people ask when registering for our Gypsy Gathering rallies if we will have 50 amp power available. When I tell them that (depending on the location) we will only have 30 amps, or maybe even 15 amp power, they freak out. We have had more than one RVer cancel a rally reservation when they learned we don’t have 50 amp power. What has amazed me more than once is that they canceled on our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, after spending a week or two (or more) dry camping at Quartzsite! After that, even 15 amps is pure luxury to us!

Living on limited power is no problem if you understand how to manage your power consumption properly. We just spent a week parked in a relative’s driveway in Traverse City, Michigan plugged into 15 amp power. Actually, with the multiple cords we had to run to reach an outlet, I’m sure there was quite a power loss between the power outlet and our bus conversion. But we had no problems. We have a house style refrigerator that was plugged in all of the time, Terry made coffee every morning, and we used our computers, CradlePoint wireless router, and laser printer with ease. Terry even did a load or two of laundry and used our 110 volt apartment size electric dryer!

Of course, we did not use everything at once. When not needed, we turned the laser printer off to conserve power, and when she had the dryer running, we were careful not to use any more power than needed during the drying cycle. We never tripped a breaker and never felt like we were living on the edge.

One thing we always do when hooking up to a limited power source is to turn the battery charge rate on our Magnum Energy inverter/charger down to 10%. We don’t need any more than that, and the batteries charge up just fine while we sleep. Of course, we also have 540 watts of solar panels on the roof, and that helps too. But we got by just fine even before we had the panels. We also switch our gas/electric water heater to just gas to lessen our power needs. If we had an RV style refrigerator, we’d switch it to gas only to save power.

We have been to many different RV rallies where there were so many rigs hooked into the same circuit that we had 10 amps of power at best, and unless somebody insisted on making coffee in the morning, or fired up their curling iron, everybody survived. Of course, if somebody turned on one of the aforementioned appliances, there were circuit breakers popping all over the rally grounds!

At an Escapees Fun Days rally once, the fellow next to us insisted on turning on his air conditioner, which of course blacked out our whole line of RVs. He just couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of “roughing it” and earned himself some pretty bad karma from his neighbors by the time the rally ended.

Even if you always stay at RV parks and never plan on going to an RV rally or plugging into an electrical outlet on the side of some friend or relative’s garage, you should still practice living on limited power, just in case. You never know when some unexpected breakdown will find you parked at a repair shop overnight or for the weekend and all they have is a 15 amp receptacle you can use. 

I’m always amazed at the folks with big coaches who insist they cannot survive on less than 50 amp power. A couple of years ago, at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona, a rather obnoxious and overbearing “gentleman” was giving the poor girl at the ranger station grief because he insisted on being assigned a site with 50 amp electric. She explained to him over and over that there were no 50 amp sites in the campground, only 30 amps, but he was just not having any of that. 

Finally I interrupted and asked him why he felt he must have 50 amps. He looked down at me like I was the village idiot, put his hands on his hips and said, in a very condescending tone of voice, “Because, my good man, I have a 50 amp coach!” (By the way, if someone tells you he has a “coach” instead of an RV, there’s a good bet he’s going to be a jerk!)

I tried to explain to him that with a 30 amp dog bone adapter, he could plug in to the campground’s 30 amp power, and since the weather was very pleasant, he wouldn’t need his air conditioners. I even went so far as to tell him that the campground store had the 30 amp adapters if he didn’t own one.

He looked down at me again and said “Why, thank you, sir! Obviously I’m not as smart as I thought I was!”

Well, you know that Bad Nick wasn’t going to let that one pass, so he replied with a big grin “No, but you’re just as smart as I thought you were!” 

Thought For The Day – I do not intend to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

My cousin Terry Cook is very active in Scouting, so when he told me that a specially decorated RV is traveling the country to celebrate the Boy Scout’s 100 year anniversary in 2010, and that it would be in Traverse City yesterday, I accepted his invitation to go check it out.

The 32 foot long Class C, donated by Coachmen Industries, is scheduled to visit all 308 Boy Scout Councils in the lower 48 states between now and next February, when it will end its tour at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas. Fourteen teams of Scout leaders from different areas around the United States will take the RV on separate legs of the journey. Traverse City was stop 186 on the “Century of Values Tour.”

The motorhome is wrapped in a vinyl covering depicting the world of Scouting. The curb side of the motorhome has a map of the United States, with the different legs of the trip marked out. The driver’s side has a mural of old Scouting magazines and publications, the doors have the Boy Scout emblem, and the rear of the motorhome is covered with a mural depicting the history of Scouting.

The mural was created by artist Bill Morrison, a former Boy Scout who achieved the exalted rank of Eagle. Morrison has worked designing posters for Disney movies, and for Hollywood animation studios, including the one that produces “The Simpsons.”

The mural is anchored by a portrait of Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Scouting movement, and depicts important events and people associated with Scouting. The crew driving the RV presented local Scouting officials with a framed 24 inch by 36 inch copy of the mural. Then there was cake and punch for everybody gathered, which included local Scouts and Scouting officials, the mayor of Traverse City, and at least one State Assemblyman.

In all, the RV will cover more than 45,000 miles during its trip, and then will be donated to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. I spent a few minutes chatting with one of the fellows who picked the rig up in Cleveland, Ohio and brought it to Traverse City, and he said he had never spent any time in an RV before, but now he’s hooked. When I told him about our life as fulltime RVers, he was fascinated. He had no idea that people actually lived and traveled every day of the year in RVs, and he couldn’t wait to call his wife and tell her about it. Do we have another future fulltimer in the wings?

Terry and I have enjoyed our visit to Traverse City, but it’s time to move on. We will be leaving here today and driving about 130 miles to Muskegon, Michigan to visit with Rocky and Berni Frees for a few days. I’m hoping we can get our kayaks out on the water again, if the weather cooperates. We really enjoyed paddling with them when we were there a few weeks ago.

Thought For The Day – Humans are not the only species on earth. We just act like it.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally