My mother used to say that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I was reminded of that last week when we were at the Winnebago Customer Service facility in Forest City, Iowa.

Several of us who were having our coaches worked on were relaxing outside under the shade of a big old tree, solving all of the problems of the world, when  a couple pulled in with an attitude.

The way things work at Winnebago, if you do not have a scheduled service appointment, your name goes on a list and when you get to the top of that list, you’re the next one in the shop. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for these folks, because from halfway across the parking lot we could hear both of them reaming out the service writer because they were not going to be taken care of immediately, and to hell with everybody else who was patiently waiting their turn.

They didn’t have to wait all that long anyway, and when the service tech assigned to them came out to move their coach inside, we listened as they gave him a hard time, let him know just how important they thought they were, and what a hayseed he and anyone else in Iowa was. A couple of us listening in mentioned that we sure wouldn’t want to be talking that way to the fellow who was then going to drive away in our motorhomes and fix whatever we needed done.

That’s about like treating a waitress rudely in a restaurant. Come to think of it, I bet those two jerks have probably drank some coffee laced with spit in their time!

I was reminded of a fellow I ran into at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails Preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona one time, who obviously thought he walked on water, and Jesus walked one step behind him.

I was at the guard shack when he pulled up, blew his horn to get the attention of the young lady on duty, and then walked past several of us who were waiting in line to demand to be led to a 50 amp full hookup site and hooked up. She explained to him that they only had 30 amp sites, and that they don’t escort campers to their sites, to just go find one, and then come back and let her know where he was parked.

He was a rather large gentleman, who towered over the young lady, and he looked down at her and said “I don’t believe you heard me correctly, my dear. I am Mr. So And So, and I need a 50 amp site, and I need to be taken there now!”

Never being one who has ever been accused of shyness, I spoke up and said “Sir, why do you need 50 amps?”

He but his hands on his hips, leaned down toward me and said, “Because, my friend, I have a 50 amp coach!”

I replied “My bus is 50 amps too, but I just use a dog bone adaptor to plug into 30 amps. They have them here in the store if you don’t have one. You’ll get by just fine on 30 amps, it’s very comfortable weather here, so you won’t need any air conditioning or anything like that.”

He scowled at me and stood up in all his glory and said, “Why, thank you, my good man. Obviously I’m not as smart as I thought I was!”

Well, you just know that old Bad Nick had to get in on the fun, so I smiled right back and said “Maybe not, but you’re just as smart as I thought you were!” He stormed out, and all of us had a good chuckle at his expense.

Why do some folks have that need to put other people down? Does it really make them feel that much superior? Do they really think that they are that much superior?

I learned a long time ago that my mother was right, and that most people will bend over backward to accommodate you, if you just treat them with respect.

Fortunately, the RV lifestyle doesn’t have too many clods like that, but there are a few out there. I usually just ignore them, because I prefer to spend my time with all of the real people we meet who are busy enjoying life and accepting others as they are.

Thought For The Day – If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

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I got an e-mail from a lady yesterday that told me she was heartbroken because they had just lost their beloved eight month old Jack Russell terrier when a coyote came into their campsite in northern California and made off with it.

She said her husband had yelled and thrown rocks at the coyote, but it just ran off with their puppy in its jaws, a sight that would haunt them forever. She said the campground hosts had warned them about coyotes, but they never dreamed that they would be so bold as to snatch their puppy while they were sitting outside in their lawn chairs.

We have seen this happen before in campgrounds. At the Verde Valley Thousand Trails preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona a couple of years ago, a couple put two little Shih Tzu dogs outside their fifth wheel in a fenced enclosure about eighteen inches high, and the local coyotes walked right into their campsite, jumped into the pen and grabbed the dogs.

While I’m very sorry for their loss, they have to understand that to the coyotes, these weren’t pets, they were just lunch, and their owners delivered it right into the predators’ living room.

You can’t blame the coyotes (or bobcats, foxes, and occasional mountain lions). They are just doing what comes natural to them, preying on something lower on the food chain. We brought our RVs and our pets into their territory and made them easy to devour. It happens all over the country, though it happens most often in the west. However, coyotes can be found from the deserts of Arizona to the forests of Michigan, and no matter where they come from, they have one thing in common; they all appreciate an easy meal.

And those are not the only critters that are standing in line to eat your critters. Bill Graves, in his America’s Outback column in this month’s Trailer Life magazine, writes about Central Florida, where the locals say the favorite food for the alligators in the region is small dogs. Eagles, hawks, owls, and even feral dogs will not hesitate to snatch small pets given half a chance. It’s all about survival of the fittest.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid the great outdoors and confine your RV stays to urban campgrounds. Especially since I have personally seen coyotes in city parks in downtown Seattle and Portland. Just use some common sense.  

If you love your pets, do not leave them unattended outside at any time, whether tied up or in a pen. And as the folks who lost their puppy yesterday can attest, even being outside with them is no guarantee of safety for your pets. Wild predators are fast, smart, and ruthless when it comes to filling their stomachs. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Or in this case, a Fifi or a Mr. Rags.

Thought For The Day – You have to at least try to live your dream if you want it to come true.

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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.

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