We can tell it’s a holiday weekend, because the traffic is terrible in this little mountain community as people escape the heat of the desert and come up here to cool off. Up until now, besides the campground host, we have usually been sharing the Elks campground with only  one or two other RVs.

But beginning yesterday, we have seen one RV after another pulling into the campground. We have a Class C Grayhawk parked two sites over from us, a beautiful new Newmar diesel pusher is behind us, another motorhome and a big fifth wheel are a few sites down on the other side, and there are a few others scattered around.

Compared to commercial RV parks, we still have lots of room and privacy, but it has been interesting to see so many new arrivals. I don’t know how many are here for extended stays, and how many are just here for the holiday weekend, but since they all seem to be retired, I don’t think they have to be anywhere in a hurry.

I seem to find a way to get into mischief everywhere I go. Case in point, Friday I went up to the Elks lodge to extend our stay. As with every other lodge we have been to, registration is done at the bar, and there was an older lady there registering for a campsite at the same time. I have never met a stranger, so while they were completing our paperwork, I said hello and asked where she was coming in from. She said Tucson, and I mentioned that it must be getting pretty hot down there by now. She must have thought I was trying to pick her up, despite the 15 or 20 year age difference between us, because she said “Look, I’m married, okay?”

Ouch! And here I thought I had my very own cougar! When I got back to our Winnebago and told Terry and my daughter about the incident, they both had a good laugh at my expense.

Hoping to avoid all of the holiday traffic, yesterday we hung around the motorhome all day. I dumped our black tank, and spent most of the day doing genealogical research online. I was surprised to learn about a daredevil in my family tree. On the Genealogy Bank website, I discovered an 1889 newspaper article reporting that my grandfather, Joseph Russell, then a 16 year old boy, had jumped 110 feet into the Ohio River from a railroad bridge in Cincinnati, on a bet. The story said he was uninjured, and I had to laugh as I remembered my mom saying things like “If so and so jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” If I had known this back then, I could have shot back “Why not, Grandpa did!” On second thought, maybe not. My mom was little, but she was feisty. She may have thrown me off a bridge for smarting off to her!

While I was goofing off, Miss Terry was hard at work, hanging this Levolor blind in the window over her workstation. The three windows in the front of the motorhome are much larger than the ones she already did in the bedroom and bathroom, and the first one was a learning experience. Hanging the blinds is not as easy as the folks at Lowes would have you believe.

But Terry loves a challenge, and she’s so darned stubborn that she never gives up. So even though she had to do some physical contortions to get to everything, and she had to back up and attack the problem from a different angle a time or two, the result came out great, don’t you think?

We are really pleased with the new look they give our Winnebago. Terry has two more windows to go, and she said the lessons she learned on this one will make those a little easier. 

I may not have accomplished much yesterday, but Bad Nick was working just as hard as Terry, pounding out a new Bad Nick Blog titled It Wasn’t About Slavery. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Rehab is for quitters!

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Tuesday morning we were up by 7 a.m., which is way too early for anybody with common sense, but we wanted to get up to RV Renovators in Mesa, Arizona to get our Norcold refrigerator recall work done. No matter how early I have to get up, my body has its own time clock, and I still have to post my blogs after midnight, so I didn’t get to sleep until after 2 a.m. I sure hated to hear that alarm clock ring!

Then, for some silly reason, I had the old Helen Reddy song I Am Woman going through my head all night. Don’t you hate it when some tune gets stuck on automatic replay in your brain and you can’t stop it? Geez, at least it could have been something by some artist I like, maybe Jimmy Buffett or Billy Joel! Then again, maybe I didn’t have Helen Ready singing to me all night long. Maybe it was Miss Terry, sending me some sort of subliminal message not to mess with the Boss Lady!

We left Tra-Tel RV Park in Tucson right at 9 a.m. and had an easy run north to Eloy, where we pulled into the Flying J for fuel. Our motorhome was filthy, and there is a truck/RV wash right across the street, and since the nice folks at RV Renovators had told us our job would be quick and easy, we decided to get the rig washed first. They did a great job, a wash, wax, hand dry, tire treatment, and Rainex on the windshield, all for $93. Hey, you couldn’t get me to do all that work for that little money! Ask Miss Terry, she’s tried!

Of course, since I had just gotten the coach looking all spiffy, every bug in the state of Arizona with a death wish decided to end it that morning, and by the time we got to RV Renovators, the front end of the motorhome was plastered with bug guts. Yuck. Hey woman, stop that damned roaring and bring me a wet rag so I can clean this thing!

Office manager Cinda Nelson gave us a warm welcome, and she’s so darned pretty it was worth the trip from Tucson just to see her. We have heard a lot of good things about RV Renovators, and I’ll tell you what, I was impressed. The entire crew is friendly, and they let us know that they really wanted to make us happy. Here are Cinda, paint and refinish specialist Jesse Hilaire, and service writer Eddie Clayton.

Bill, one of the techs, went right to work on our RV while Cinda gave us the grand tour.

RV Renovators does everything from RV service, to body work, windshield replacement, fiberglass repair, major upgrades, and overhauls. This Class C is getting new skin, and it looks like quite a project.

This motorhome is having a major rebuild. This is what your coach looks like with the slide out. Be sure to fasten your safety straps when you go down the road!

This Class A is getting a new floor installed. We may replace the carpeting in the front of our Winnebago with some type of laminate flooring one of these days.

Hmmm…. I wonder if Miss Terry would let me have this for a tow car? It looks like it would be fun to play with.

Cinda had told us our repair would take about an hour, but you just know nothing is ever that easy for me. Bill ran into a problem getting the refrigerator to come loose, and after a few failed attempts to figure out why it wouldn’t move so he could get behind it and do the upgrade, a phone call back east to a Winnebago expert revealed that not only is our Norcold attached to the side wall like in most RVs, it is also bolted down through the roof! So Bill got a ladder and went up on top, where he peeled away the caulking, removed the screws, and then a plastic cowling. Still no luck. The darned refer would not budge!

Further investigation revealed that the refrigerator is also sealed to the compartment floor with some type of silicone adhesive. When Winnebago builds a motorhome, they don’t cut any corners.

By then it was late in the day, and the folks here needed to get an authorization from Norcold for the extra labor involved, since this is billed as a “quick and easy” job. Of course, Norcold was closed by then, so that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.  Cinda, Bill, and everybody else were apologizing all over the place for the unexpected delay, but what the heck, things happen.  If you live the RV lifestyle, you have to be able to roll with the punches sometimes. It’s no big deal, we know we’re in good hands, and we don’t have to be anyplace special anytime soon.

They parked us behind the shop, inside a secure fenced yard, and gave us a key to the gate so we could come and go as we pleased. David and Lynn Cross, whom we met at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma in March, are here getting some work done too, and our motorhome is parked next to their beautiful Executive. We had 50 amp electric, and we were very comfortable. Today’s a new day, and I’m sure they’ll get things taken care of with Norcold.

One final note, I said in yesterday’s blog that Miss Terry and I were betting on how long it would take the Apple Store in Tucson to get my 3G iPad in, and Terry said they’d contact me as soon as we got to Mesa. Darned if she wasn’t right! A few minutes before we arrived at RV Renovators, they notified me that it had arrived. I need to have Terry start buying lottery tickets. She is woman, hear her roar!

Thought For The Day – Old age is when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too darned tired to bounce it.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally! 

As much as we love the fulltime RV lifestyle, we have never gotten over the hurt when it is time to say our goodbyes and move on down the road. We have had a wonderful week visiting with my cousin Beverly here in Tucson, but sadly, it is time to go.

There were tears all around yesterday evening when we said goodbye to Beverly. We promised her that we will return again next year when our travels bring us back to Arizona, and we’re already counting the days.

Today, assuming the predicted winds are not too bad, we are headed for RV Renovators in Mesa to get our Norcold refrigerator recall work done. After our experiences with an RV repair shop in Kingman, Arizona, and another in Show Low for this work, I have to be honest and say that I was a bit skeptical last week when Lucinda, at RV Renovators, said she would do her best to get the part we needed and get our work done by Friday of this week.

So I was very surprised, and pleased, when she called first thing yesterday morning to tell us that the part was in, and we could come in anytime to get the work done. A lot of folks have told us that RV Renovators are great to work with, and obviously they were right!

They tell us the recall work will only take an hour or so, and when that’s done we’ll go a few miles east to Apache Junction and find a Passport America campground near Terry’s parents’ house for a couple of nights, so we can visit with them.

From there, we’ll head back north to Show Low and see if we can’t spoil our grandkids a little more. I want them to be absolutely, adorably frustrating to their mom and dad when we take off for our summer travels. I tell my daughter that it’s payback for all of those sleepless nights my kids put me through when they were growing up.

Actually, Tiffany was a pretty good kid, and she’s grown into a fine young woman. (I have to say that, or she might leave her girls with me once I get finished spoiling them.)

I’ve had my name on the list at the Apple Store in Tucson, and they said they would contact me if the 3G iPad I want comes in before we leave town. Miss Terry is betting that they’ll wait until we get to Apache Junction before they get a delivery, but I’m holding out for it not happening until we get back to Show Low. I’d break down and just order one from Apple online, but my daughter is working during the day, and I don’t want some delivery driver leaving it on her doorstep.

Thought For The Day – When you do a good deed, get a receipt, in case heaven is like the IRS.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally! 

After several days of trying to breathe new life into my cousin Beverly’s aging Acer laptop computer, and trying several fixes suggested by Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour and my buddy Greg White, my two “go to” guys when dealing with computer technical issues, it was decided that it was time to go computer shopping.

So yesterday we took Beverly to Best Buy to look at what was available. Miss Terry and my daughter Tiffany both have Toshiba laptops, and they have been very pleased with them. So after comparing a couple of different machines, Beverly became the proud new owner of a Toshiba Satellite laptop with 4 gigs of RAM and a 320 gig hard drive.

Best Buy is a retailer for the new Apple iPads, and I have been checking in with the store every day or so in the hopes that they might get one of the 3G models in, but they sell out as quick as they get them. But I asked a salesman anyway, and as it turned out, he said they had one in stock, an open box item, with a $30 discount. I was reaching for my wallet when he told me it was a 32 gig model. Oh shoot, I want a 64 gig, because I know I’ll use the extra storage space. I was tempted anyway, but I have learned that it’s always better to wait and get what you want than to settle for less. Eventually the supply will catch up with the demand and they’ll be sitting on store shelves everywhere.

After we left Best buy, we stopped at IHOP for a bite to eat, and for the first time since Friday I was able to actually eat, though I only managed to finish about half of my meal. A few blog readers have written to tell me that they think I have been dealing with food poisoning, but I have dealt with this onion allergy for much of my life, and I’m all too familiar with the symptoms. I think it’s about history now, and hopefully it will be a long time before I have such an episode again. Thank you, everybody, for your concern.

When we got back to Beverly’s apartment, I spent an hour or so setting up her new computer, transferring her list of Favorites and photos of her granddaughters from the old laptop to the new one, and making sure she could get online okay with it.

Terry and I have really enjoyed having this time with Beverly. She is one of the special people in my life, whom I love very much.  Here is a picture of Miss Terry and Beverly I took the other day. What a pair of pretty ladies!

We’ll probably leave Tucson tomorrow or Wednesday so we can get up to Apache Junction and visit with Terry’s parents for a few days, and hopefully get our Norcold refrigerator recall upgrade done. Then we’ll head back to Show Low and spend some more time with daughter Tiffany and the grandkids for a while before we begin our summer travels.

While I was busy with Beverly’s new computer, Bad Nick was at his computer writing a new Bad Nick Blog titled New Gun Law A Bad Idea. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – If money is the root of all evil, why do churches always ask for it?

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally! 

Note to self – If we ever hold another Gypsy Gathering rally at a commercial campground, we will require attendees to make their own reservations directly with the campground. The original plan was that the campground would have us handle the rally reservations, but it has become a nightmare as some people make reservations with us, some make them directly with Elkhart Campground, and some make reservations for the rally dates with us, but separate reservations for the days before and after our rally directly with the campground. At this point we know we have 30 and 50 amp full hookup sites left, but neither we nor the campground know how many of each.

We don’t mark up the camping fees, but the campground has weekly and monthly rates that may be less than the rally camping rates, which has left us scratching our heads when trying to help attendees who may be arriving early or hanging around after our rally to wait for the Escapees Escapade two weeks later in Goshen. Plus, people don’t understand that if they want extra days, the daily rate does not include the 7% local sales tax.

Note to self – I really like the Koni shocks that Redlands Truck & RV installed on our Winnebago Ultimate Adventure motorhome after our Western Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma back in March. They give us a superb ride, the handling is great, and I would recommend them, and Redlands, to anybody.

Note to self – The Verizon internet service we’re getting from our air card here at Tra-Tel RV Park in Tucson is as slow as what we experienced a few months ago in Apache Junction. At that point, Verizon said it was because so many snowbirds were in Arizona, using up the bandwidth. Okay, that makes sense, but now it’s May, the campground is more than half empty, the snowbirds have packed up their RVs and hit the trail. So what’s their excuse now? We had much faster service in the small town of Show Low than we are experiencing here in the big city.

Note to self – I can’t please everybody, but some people ask so much that it’s not even worth trying, so don’t worry about it. I got an e-mail from a fellow who has been a regular blog reader and for the last couple of years, though we have never met. He is staying in a campground north of Phoenix, and is interested in getting a Silverleaf VMSpc engine monitoring system like I use in our motorhome, and has been asking me a lot of questions about how it performs. The other day he wrote me that he has the same engine/transmission combination that I do in our RV, and was planning to come to our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. He asked if he could borrow my Silverleaf system to use on his trip to Indiana to help him decide if it was worth the investment. My first response was no, followed by NO! I replied that I had never met him, I wasn’t in the habit of loaning expensive equipment to strangers, and that I needed it for our own trip to Indiana. I have pasted, in part, his response: “I bet you never shared your toys with the other kids when you were a kid either did you? I hate selfish people!!!! You wont see me at your rally or reading your stupid blog ever again!!!” Uh, okay, I’ll miss you (I guess). Where do these people come from, and how do they get my name?

Note to self – Whatever kind of onions I got into Friday were really, really nasty, because all day yesterday I still felt terrible and couldn’t keep anything down. There has to be an easier way to lose weight.

Note to Mom – It’s been a long time since you left us, but it was much too soon. I love you and I miss you every day. I wish you could have been here to know Miss Terry, you would have loved her, and I know she would have loved you too. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Thought For The Day – Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there. If your mom is still alive, be sure to tell her today how much you love her, because someday you will wish you could.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!