Yesterday we had hoped to sleep in a bit, to catch up on all of the sleep we had missed during the rally, but we were both awake by 9 a.m., which was still better than the early hours we had been getting up during rally week.

It would have been nice to just relax all day long after our hectic week, but while we are busy with a rally, life goes on, and so do our other responsibilities to our business. So we had a lot of work to catch up on. I spent some time answering e-mails that had backed up, and updated both the Small Town Festivals calendar and the RV Rally calendar on our RV website. Miss Terry spent most of the day resolving the books for the rally, so we can settle our bill with Elkhart Campground. Hopefully we’ll have enough left over to get out of town afterward

There is a tremendous amount of paperwork associated with any RV rally, and it was compounded this time around because some attendees made their reservations through us, while others paid the campground directly. So Terry and Gita have been trying to get everything sorted out so we know who paid who. There were also several people who made their reservations through us, but then decided to take a weekly or monthly rate at the campground, so Terry has to get that all straightened out and issue refunds to those who paid us and then the campground. If we ever hold a rally at a campground again, we’ll just collect the rally fee and have the attendees make their reservations directly with the campground, to avoid all of this confusion.

Greg White has had the bay doors off the passenger side of his American Eagle motorhome for the last week or so, because Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint was repairing damage from an unfortunate encounter with a boulder out west a while back. During the early afternoon, he picked them up from Michele, and I helped him reinstall them on his motorhome. My contribution to the project consisted of helping to hold the doors in place while Greg bolted them to their struts.

During the day, several people stopped in to say hello, to thank us for all of the fun they had at the rally, and to say goodbye because they were heading out.

Our mail arrived, as well as a UPS shipment of three boxes of my books from the printer, inventory for our vendor booth at the Hershey RV Show. Included in the mail was the contract for our Western Gypsy Gathering rally, which will be March 7-11 at the fairgrounds in Yuma, Arizona. Make your plans now to attend. I’ll be posting a rally registration page in a few weeks.

For those who really want to plan ahead, our next Eastern rally will be September 26-30 at the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, Ohio.

About the time we finished going through the mail, Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour came over to say hello. Chris and Jim are going to spend the winter in Florida, and we made a tentative date to meet up with them at the Peace River NACO preserve for some kayaking while we’re in the area.

About the time Chris left, our pals Mike and Elaine Loscher arrived to take us out to dinner. These two are such great friends and supporters of our work that we should have been the ones buying them dinner, but they insisted.

Back at Elkhart Campground, I was getting really droopy, so I took a nap on the couch. Later in the evening Stu and Donna (Froggi) McNichol came over for a visit. We really enjoy these two, and never get enough time with them. They left about 10:30, and a couple of minutes later, Elkhart Campground owner Gita Patel called and said she wanted to stop in and give Miss Terry some delicious soup and rice cakes, a traditional Indian dish she wanted to share. We visited with Gita for a while, and when she left, I wrote the blog and got it ready to post. By the time that was done, we were both tired and ready to call an end to our day of “rest.”

Thought For The Day – One father teaches more than a hundred schoolmasters.

Friday morning we were up early again, serving coffee and donuts to our rally attendees, saying goodbye, and wishing them a safe trip to wherever they are headed next. There were lots of hugs as RVers wished us well, congratulated us on a great rally experience, and promised to see us somewhere down the road.

By noon, most of the RVs had departed from the Yuma Fairgrounds, usually after making a stop at the dump station on their way out, to empty their gray and black tanks. The place sure looked empty after being filled with motorhomes, fifth wheels, and travel trailers for two weeks, first for the Arizona Good Sam rally and then our Western Gypsy Gathering rally.

We waited until everybody else had pulled out before we made our trip to the dump station, and then we parked in the same back corner of the fairgrounds where we had been before the rally. As soon as we were situated, an installer from Redlands Truck & RV started installing a set of Koni shock absorbers on our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. Our motorhome rides pretty good already, but the new Koni shocks should make it even better. Thanks Keith Shumaker and crew, for your great service! Redlands was one of our rally vendors, and I was really impressed with them, as were many rally attendees who kept them busy with installations.

Once Rob, the Redlands mechanic, was finished with our rig, Terry and I, Greg and Jan White, and Mike and Elaine Loscher went to an early dinner at Chretin’s, a wonderful Mexican restaurant that Miss Terry pronounced one of the best she has been to in our travels around the country. That’s saying a lot! We had a pleasant meal, just unwinding, rehashing the rally events, comparing notes on what we did right, what we did wrong, and how we can make it better next year.

Back at the fairgrounds, we said our goodbyes to Mike and Elaine, who are leaving early today, bade Greg and Jan goodnight, and headed inside for a quiet evening just trying to let the kinks and aches seep out of our bodies.

We were in bed much earlier than usual, turning off our cell phones and vowing not to open the curtains today until at least noon!

It’s been a busy week, a great rally, and we’re sure glad it’s over! Thanks to everybody who came, and especially to our hardworking volunteers!

Thought For The Day – Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Today the early birds will be arriving for our Western Gypsy Gathering rally here at the Yuma Fairgrounds, and we expect to park about 135 RVs, including vendors, early birds, and our rally staff. So you can see that we have a big day ahead of us.

Of course, what would an RV rally be without rain? The weather has been beautiful for the past two weeks, so it stands to reason that yesterday the wind began to blow hard, and today we’re supposed to have as much as one inch of rain! Our poor parking crew is in for another soaking! But at least the rest of the week looks good.

The wind blew so hard yesterday that everything is covered with a film of sand, and no matter how much you wipe your feet before you go inside, you can hear the grit under your shoes on tile floors.

Speaking of grit, a piece of crud just a little bit smaller than the Rock of Gibraltar blew into my right eye yesterday, and I’ve been trying to flush it out over since. Ouch! I can handle the arthritis pain that has been growing in my fingers and joints, and the constant nagging ache from an old back injury that I have lived with for years, but when I get something in my eyes, I’m the world’s biggest wimp! I’d rather get a fishhook stuck in my finger than something in my eye.

Yesterday Stu and “Froggi” Donna McNicol arrived as the last of our advance staff. We have known Donna for years, having first met her when she came to Life on Wheels when we were teaching there, and we formed an instant friendship with her. A couple of years ago Donna and Stu became a couple, and while we knew him from their blog, 2 Taking A 5th, we had never met Stu in person until yesterday. I knew if he could win my friend Donna’s heart, he must be a pretty special guy, and as soon as he climbed down out of their truck, I knew I had found a new friend. Stu has a great sense of humor and you can tell that he is what I call “real people.” No pretense, no BS, what you see is what you get, so take it or leave it. I like that.

Okay, ever since Bad Nick got his own blog last summer, I have tried to keep him from getting onto the RV blog much, but he just has to rant for a second, so please indulge him if you will. In Thursday’s blog, I wrote that we’re going to be very, very busy for the next two weeks, and I asked folks to please not forward e-mail jokes, political propaganda, and stuff like that, because I just don’t have time to read them, and they fill up my e-mail box.

Most people have been understanding, but there have been a few that have ignored my request and continue to send me a half dozen or more a day. I know these are all regular blog readers from their frequent comments, so I can’t decide if they missed that post, or they just don’t care, but either way, it irritates me. But the one that really ticked me off is the fellow who has sent me a whole lot of stuff, and prefaced every one with a note to the effect of “Nick, I know you’re real busy, but this is just too good to pass up!” That gentleman’s stuff will forever after be automatically routed to my spam folder.  Hey kiddies, I like a good joke as much as the next guy, but don’t people like this have a life away from the computer?

Speaking of Bad Nick and his blog, he has a fun new post titled The Dumb A$$ Report. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Everyone who lives, dies. But not everyone who dies has lived.

Things are really happening fast around here! The Yuma Fairgrounds is filled with RVs here for the Arizona Good Sam rally, and we have run into several of our friends who are here for that rally, and will be staying over for our Western Gypsy Gathering rally afterward.

Yesterday morning our friends Ed and Stevie Hackenbruch stopped by to drop off three containers of some of the most delicious, fresh, locally grown strawberries we have ever tasted. Yummy!

Unfortunately, before I could even taste one, I had to run up to the front gate of the fairgrounds to meet with the Good Sam folks about a couple of issues to make all of our lives easier.

Then I spent some time talking with some of the vendors, and those folks are our best advertisement, because they have convinced several of the other vendors for the Good Sam rally to stay for ours, too. We always try to make sure our vendors have a good show, and we let them know that we appreciate them for coming.

Our T-shirts came in during the early afternoon, so I picked them up at the fairgrounds office, and by the time I had them loaded into our van, I got a phone call that Greg and Jan White were five minutes out. Because the fairgrounds is not open to the general public and does not have RV parking except for rallies, we had to make special arrangements for a couple of our rigs to come in as part of our advance party. There is no way we could do everything that needs completed for the rally without our faithful volunteers. Greg and Jan will be busy the next few days collecting door prizes from local merchants, which is always a hard task, especially in today’s troubled economy.

Once we had Greg and Jan in and parked, volunteers Mike and Elaine Loscher came over to talk about some rally parking and registration details. Mike is our welcoming committee at every rally, and he does a great job of greeting folks as they arrive, and determining if they need to dump their holding tanks, need handicapped parking, etc. Terry says she could not handle the crowds at registration without Elaine’s calm, steady presence, helping her and the registration crew get everybody taken care of.  

Just about the time Mike and Elaine left, Bill Becker came by to pick up the T-shirts, so he and Mabel can start sorting and folding them. Did I mention how much we appreciate our volunteers?

As Bill was pulling out, Kelly Watkins, the fairgrounds director, showed up to ask if a couple of local organizations who hold evening meetings at the fairgrounds could still hold their regular meetings in the evening during our rally. Sure, why not? Kelly and his crew have gone out of their way to accommodate us. What goes around comes around, right?

The next order of business was to dump our holding tanks. It’s been about eight days since we last dumped, and we could have stretched things out a little longer, but we will only get busier between now and our rally, so we decided to get it done while we could.

With that chore out of the way, I pulled the Winnebago back into our parking area at the back of the fairgrounds, and before I could even finish hooking up water and electric, I got a phone call to come back up front. There was another problem.

Three RVs with folks from Canada had arrived and tried to bluff their way onto the fairgrounds by telling the Good Sam people that they were with our rally. Because other fairgrounds where we have held rallies do allow folks to come in early and stay, we have had some people who were confused and just showed up, expecting to be able to stay.

But this wasn’t the case. In fact, these folks were not even registered for the rally. They had just heard about it from somebody.  I explained to them that this week is the Good Sam rally, and if they wanted to pay to attend that, it was up to Good Sam, and then they could register and pay for our rally. I told them that only our advanced staff was allowed to stay on the fairgrounds. That’s when they assured me that they didn’t have to pay for either rally because the fairgrounds is public property and anyone can stay here.

I can handle confused people, I can handle stubborn people, and I can even handle stupid people. But freeloaders who play games really tick me off! That’s when Bad Nick came out! I told them that I didn’t want them at the rally. Then we discussed their concept of “public property” and my feeling about rude French Canadians (just the rude ones) in general, and them in particular. About then they decided it was in their best interest to leave and not come back.

That hassle finished, I went back to the motorhome, rounded up Miss Terry and our real advance staff, and we hunted down a Chinese buffet for dinner. By the time we had finished eating, I was more than ready to come back home and take my shoes off for the evening.

Today will be just as busy as yesterday was, and I need a favor. For the next two weeks or so, please don’t send me forwarded jokes, whatever the latest internet hoax is, or feel good stories. I just don’t have time to sort through them. If you need to get hold of me, please don’t hesitate to e-mail, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. But please, no forwards.

Of course, Bad Nick has been busy too. Besides running off freeloaders, he posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled The World’s Biggest Ghost Town. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” – Mark Twain

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

Saturday night when we got ready to take our showers, we discovered that we had no hot water. Because we are on 20 amp electric here at the Yuma Fairgrounds, we’ve been running the water heater on propane, so my first thought was that we had run out of propane gas. I went outside and checked the tank, because I learned long ago to never trust the idiot lights on RV control panels. But according to the gauge, we had over half a tank.

That led me to the second possible cause of the problem, which I had suspected all along. I opened the cover to our Atwood water heater compartment, and sure enough, discovered several charred wires.

This had happened last October at Elkhart Campground on a very windy day. Apparently the wind had blown the flame from the water heater upward and it fried some wires, which caused the thermal cut-off to short out. That time, it was an easy fix to replace the thermal cut-off, which came two to a package. (Apparently, they fail on a regular basis.)

Saturday had been a very windy day here in Yuma, and apparently the same thing had happened again. This time around I replaced the bad wires and the cut-off, and rerouted the wires to the top of the water heater compartment, hopefully away from the burner, and secured them in place. That solved the problem, and we now have hot water again! I wonder if this is a flaw with all Winnebago motorhomes with the Atwood water heaters, or just something in our particular coach.

I’m not sure which is scarier, the fact that the water heater can apparently flame up like that, or me actually knowing how to diagnose and repair something!

I have had quite a few e-mails from readers wondering how our encounter with the armed burglar has affected us emotionally now that it’s been about three months. They ask if we are now uncomfortable boondocking in out of the way places, or if we now feel paranoid about the same thing happening again.

To be honest, I think that while the incident has caused us to be more aware of things, I don’t think we have changed our lifestyle at all, except for the fact that I never leave home without a “personal protection device.” I never again want to find myself facing a thug with a gun, empty handed.

While inside our motorhome, I feel totally secure. It’s pretty hard to break into one of these things undetected, and I am a very light sleeper, so I have no doubt that I’d be up and waiting to greet anybody who tried to get in while we were inside the RV. I think we both feel a little bit of apprehension when we are away from the coach and return after dark. It reminds us of what happened.

But you have to keep in mind that we had well over ten years of fulltiming behind us before this incident happened, and we could well go another ten or twenty years before anything happened again, if ever. Then again, it could happen tonight. But we refuse to live our lives in fear of what might happen someday. We prepare for the worst, but expect the best.

Our friends Joe and Vicki Kieva have a brand new book out, Personal Security Tips For RVers, which combines their 45 years of RVing experience with Joe’s law enforcement and security management background, to present a practical and useful look at safeguarding yourself, your home, and your RV while you are on the road. It’s an excellent guide, packed with common sense and real world experience.

The Kieva’s book covers everything from how to respond to a criminal confrontation, whether or not to carry a firearm in your RV, important documents to have in your RV, suggestions for creating an Emergency Notification Card for your wallet, and advice on how to obtain medical care while traveling.

You’ll probably never have a problem like we did, but accidents,mechanical breakdowns, bad weather, and illness can disrupt any RV outing. It’s always better to be prepared ahead of time. Personal Security Tips For RVers is a valuable first step in being prepared. You can order a copy of the paperback book at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/books.html, or download it as an E-book for immediate reading at  http://www.rvknowhow.com/ebooks.html#security

Joe and Vicki will be presenting their excellent seminar on Personal Security at our Western Gypsy Gathering rally next week, and I plan to be sitting in the front row. I’ll save you a seat next to me.

Thought For The Day – The true traveler is without goal. It is the absence of goals which creates the ultimate traveler.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally