In spite of some setbacks, such as overbooking vendor spaces, and not having a large enough building for all of the activities, we managed to make our 2010 Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally a success! At yesterday evening’s closing ceremonies, the audience let us know that they had a good time, and we really appreciated their support.

I’m a natural ham and thrive on the attention, but Miss Terry is never comfortable getting up on stage. During the opening and closing ceremonies at our rallies, she let’s me drag her up there, but she’d be much happier just doing what she shines at, working quietly behind the scenes, taking care of 1,001 duties to make sure the rally runs smoothly.

Last night when I had her on the stage, the audience gave her a standing ovation, and if anybody ever deserved one, it sure is Terry. Here is a rare picture of Terry up on stage, during our opening ceremony earlier in the week.

It’s late, and I still have a couple of hours of work to get done for tomorrow, so I’m going to share some pictures my buddy Paul Anderson took at the rally. Here I am enjoying a hug from my friend Marcia Jones. I sure do appreciate a pretty lady!

Our vendors all seemed to do well. Here are Bill and Janet Adams from Internet Anywhere, talking to Stu McNichol. Stu said Bill was able to solve a problem with his rooftop TV antenna when the techno-geeks at the network dropped the ball a couple of times.

Our vendors had all kinds of goodies for sale that no RVer can do without.

Here are our friends, Butch and Fonda Williams, who sell induction cookware, and make the most delicious almond toffee candy in the world!

Our rented tent was a busy place all during the rally, serving as a classroom, a place to socialize, and as a venue for our evening entertainment.

Our classrooms were filled with students for the many seminars we held.

Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School presented an excellent seminar on Testing Air Brakes.

For those looking for some adventure in their lives, the Beginning Kayaking seminar was popular.

This morning we’ll have coffee and donuts, sponsored by Mac McCoy, better known as Mac the Fire Guy. Then we have about 75 folks going out to tour the Heartland Recreational Vehicles factory, while others will be hitching up and heading off to their next adventures. Still others will be staying on here at Elkhart Campground through the Labor Day weekend, and quite a few will be here until the Escapees RV Club Escapade rally begins in a couple of weeks.

Terry and I will spend a couple of days wrapping up all of the paperwork from the rally, settling our bill with Elkhart Campground, and hopefully finding a few minutes to catch our breath.

But we won’t have a lot of time to relax, since we have to be in Hershey, Pennsylvania in less than a week to get settled in as vendors at the big Hershey RV Show.

Thought For The Day – Statistics show that at the age of seventy, there are five women to every man. Isn’t that a lousy time for a guy to get those odds?

I guess we’ve finally made the big time. There is at least one You Tube video of our Hoosier Honey beauty contest online. Check it out, and you’ll get a chuckle or two! Just don’t let your kids see it. Not because it’s dirty, but because if they realize how much fun us old farts are having, they might think we’ve lost our collective minds, and try to put us in a home somewhere!

Yesterday was another busy day at the Gypsy Journal rally at Elkhart Campground. We are running five one hour class sessions a day, with four different seminars offered in each session. That’s a lot to choose from! I presented two different seminars yesterday, Cemetery Stories, which tells some of the tales of lost love, mystery, and even humor, that we have found in burying grounds from coast to coast; and 100 Miles From Here, in which I demonstrate how RVers can find all kinds of interesting places to visit, and things to do within a 100 mile circle, from anywhere in the United States. It’s a perfect example of day trip adventures away from the RV park.

I also sat in on Roger Marble’s Genealogy 101 – Breaking Through Your Brick Walls seminar, and caught the second half of the Kayaking For Beginners seminar presented by Matt Streib, owner of Fluid Fun Canoe and Kayak Sales in nearby Bristol, Indiana. Our rally attendees all seem to appreciate having the opportunity to attend seminars on both RV and non-RV related topics.

At 7 p.m., it was time for our evening entertainment, a concert by the McKinney Washtub Two.

It was a fun filled show, with old songs some of us didn’t even know that we had forgotten, and favorites we all sang along to, interspersed with some comedy songs, jokes, and just an old fashioned good time.

Husband and wife team Whitt and Judy McKinney make music on everything from guitar and mandolin, to washboards, spoons, a flute, and even a kazoo!

They made a lot of new friends and fans with their performance, as was proved when we passed the hat for donations to reward them for their show. We are looking forward to having Whitt and Judy at another of our events in the future.

I was surprised during one of the sing along parts of the show when I realized that the beautiful voice I heard beside me was my good buddy Greg White. Among all of Greg’s other talents, he’s a great singer too! Is there anything that man can’t do?

When the concert ended, we chatted with folks for a while, and then Greg and Jan drove us to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was after 9 p.m., but during rally week we just can’t get away any earlier. Fortunately, we have so many good friends like Greg and Jan, Mike and Elaine Loscher, Donna and Stu McNichol, and others too many to list, that look out for us and make sure we don’t forget to eat, because we’re so worn out at the end of the day.

Tomorrow is our last full day of the rally. We’ll kick it off with coffee and donuts, courtesy of Explorer Insurance and MorRyde RV Suspensions. I’ll be doing two more seminars today, The Reluctant RVer, which helps new and wannabe fulltimers get over their second thoughts and last minute cold feet; and Laugh Your Way Across The USA, which is brand new, and will be just a collection of the funny and goofy things that have happened to us as fulltime RVers, or that we’ve seen along the way. 

It’s been a busy, fun week, and it’s not over yet!

Thought For The Day – The most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”

Can you be exhausted, footsore, and ache over every inch of your body, and still be having a fantastic time? You can if you’re running a Gypsy Journal rally!

Yesterday, after morning coffee and donuts, furnished by Bradd & Hall RV furniture, I spent part of the morning checking up on our vendors and seminar rooms to be sure everything was going well. Then late in the morning I did my Gypsy Journal FAQs seminar, an informal chat in which I tell the audience how we began our 12 year traveling and publishing adventure, why we do things the way we do, and what we see for our future.

I couldn’t get away for lunch, so Greg White grabbed a sandwich for me while he was out running errands, and in the afternoon I sat in on Roger Marble’s excellent Beginning Genealogy seminar.

At 7 p.m. we had door prizes, and then the real fun began. First Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School, in his pumpkin persona, took to the stage to act like…well, an orange version of Dennis Hill.

I eventually had to climb up on stage and put a leash on Dennis, because the crowd was having way too much fun! He’s wearing the world’s one and only orange Gypsy Gathering T-shirt.

Then it was time for the highlight of the evening, our Hoosier Honey Beauty Contest. Six of the most bizarre looking women, who had been pretty run of the mill middle aged men an hour or so before, strutted their stuff on the stage to win the coveted crown.

When he (or she) isn’t breaking hearts or creating nightmares for men nationwide, this is Al Hesselbart, author and historian for the RV Hall of Fame Museum. The things you don’t know about your friends until a cheap 99 cent tiara is on the line!

I miss my momma, but not that bad, thank you just the same!

Here’s a face that only a mother or a cellmate could love!

During the contest, I had to lecture several of the “ladies” on decorum. Apparently keeping their legs crossed is a real problem in their world.

Here are all six of our contestants, waiting for the audience to decide the winner by popular vote. Be still, my heart!

And the winner is Carmalita Camelback, aka Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour!

Here is Denny Orr checking out our new Beauty Queen. I’m not sure what Denny is thinking, but forget it buddy. There’s not that much booze in the entire world!

After the beauty contest, the “ladies” collected donations from the audience for the Escapees CARE program. Our winner had a lot of money stuffed in her bodice.

All told, we raised $450 for CARE. Here I am presenting it to Brenda Neil from the Escapees RV Club.

It was a busy and fun day, and today we get to do it all over again!

So yes, I’m sore, exhausted, and ache in places I didn’t even know I had. But I’m sure having fun!

Thought For The Day – We all have to get older, but growing up is optional.

Somebody please note for future reference that I was up and outside of our motorhome before the sun was up Monday morning. While that may not be quite as momentous an occasion as when man first walked on the moon, in the little universe that revolves around me, it’s pretty darned close!

Miss Terry and I got the registration building opened up, and Mike and Elaine Loscher were right behind us, ready to help get everybody signed in for the rally. Mike and Elaine are such great friends and loyal supporters, we don’t know what we’d do without them.

Here is Mike, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to greet the day! I never completely understand anybody who can smile that early in the morning. There has to be something terribly wrong in his mind!

Before long the folks started filing in to pick up their name badges and door prize drawing tickets. We saw a lot of friends who have been at previous Gypsy Journal rallies, and also quite a few new faces who are joining us for the first time.

Here are Connie Anderson and Elaine Loscher, manning the registration table. It’s okay, Connie, I have that same lost and confused expression on my face a lot of the time!

And what’s a Gypsy Journal rally without a lot of fun and laughter. I’m not sure I even want to know what set Dave Damon and Connie Anderson off in this picture, but knowing these two, it couldn’t have been pretty!

In the vendor room, things were starting to get busy, as folks shopped for all kinds of RV goodies and gadgets. Bill and Janet Adams from Internet Anywhere took advantage of a quiet moment between customers to catch their breath. From automatic rooftop satellite dishes to wireless routers, Bill and Janet have just what you need to get connected on the road.

Gayle Longwell was busy manning the Passport America booth. Passport America is the nation’s largest discount camping club, and we have belonged since before we hit the road fulltime, over twelve years ago.

Jean Damon sells 303 products to help protect your RV and to keep it looking like new, and she is also an excellent masseuse. After our rally in Ohio last year, Jean gave me a massage, and I was so relaxed that I could hardly walk back to our Winnebago afterward!

Russ and Debbie Davis are a fun couple who sell all kinds of personalized items, including these great insulated tote bags. They donated some of them as door prizes at the rally.

We met Gay Miller from Coyote Sales at our very first RV rally, years ago, and have been friends ever since. Gay and her husband Ben sell Pressure Pro tire monitoring systems, Wilson trucker antennas and amplifiers for cell phones, routers, and a lot of other great high tech goodies.

At 3 p.m. we had our Welcome get together, followed by an introduction to all of our vendors. Then, after a short break, Dennis Hill, Denny Orr, Frank Hinman, Mac McCoy, and Daryl Lawrence sat in on our Ask the Experts panel, in which the crowd could ask questions about every aspect of RVing, and take advantage of a couple of lifetimes worth of accumulated knowledge.

At 7 p.m. we drew names for door prizes. Greg White spent over two weeks collecting door prizes from local merchants, mostly restaurants, and we passed most of them out, to give people time to use them before the rally ends. We have a lot more door prizes left to go!

By the time the door prizes were over, Terry and I were both really dragging. We grabbed a quick dinner, then spent what was left of the evening writing the blog, printing some of our RV guides and booklets, and were in bed much earlier than usual.

Today we’ll finish registering any late arrivals, start our seminars, and this evening will be our Hoosier Honey Beauty Contest. I guarantee that will be a hoot!

Thought For The Day – Marriage is a relationship where one person is always right, and the other is the husband.

Please be careful where you walk, because my butt’s dragging and I don’t want you to step on it! And our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally doesn’t even officially start until today!

Yesterday was the early vendor set-up day, and my friend Mike Loscher and myself were over in the big building a little after 9 a.m., getting a couple of final details wrapped up, before we opened the doors and let the vendors in to start getting their booths ready for the rally.

It’s great to see so many of our vendor friends here for the rally. We’ve worked alongside many of them for years while operating our own vendor booth at RV rallies coast to coast, so we understand what vendors need, and try very hard to provide it for them at our events.

Here is our pal Daryl Lawrence from Lawrence RV Accessories. Daryl has a brand new item, the Tire Traker Tire Pressure Monitoring System, as well as the excellent Progressive Industries Electrical Management Systems, which we have used for years, both in our MCI bus conversion, and now in our Winnebago diesel pusher.

You can see all kinds of goodies at an RV rally, from safety items like the automatic engine bay fire suppression systems that my pal Mac McCoy sells, to camping chairs and other goodies to make your RV travels more fun and more comfortable.

Flags Galore is offering every kind of flag you could ever want to find, in every size imaginable.

Dwane and Janet Trannum from Almost Heaven Micro Fibre spent most of the day hauling their inventory in and stocking their booth. I sure hope they sell a lot, because I don’t want to have to help them carry it back out to their van!

John and Karen Knoll stopped by the RVSEF weighing site here at Elkhart Campground to have Rick Lang weigh their truck and fifth wheel before they parked on their assigned RV site for the rally.

By the end of the day, everybody had worked hard, and most of the vendors were set up and ready to go. I locked the building up about 5 p.m., and then Dennis Haddix from Makarios RV and his pretty wife (whose name escapes me, I’m afraid) pulled in. They had the bed of their Itasca motorhome covered with inventory for their booth, so I opened the building back up long enough for them to unload enough that they could get through the night. Dennis is also the founder of ChatRV.com, a relatively new online forum for the RV community.

Of course, no RV rally has officially started until Red and Beth from Too Crazy Ladies have their booth set up and open for business!

Today is the official registration day, and Miss Terry and her crew of hardworking volunteers will be busy getting everybody checked in, passing out name badges, and answering questions.

One nice thing about having the rally at a campground instead of a fairgrounds is that we don’t have to have a parking crew. The folks just stop at the RV park office and check in, and Bob and Gita send them to their RV site.

When we were visiting with campground owners Bob and Gita Patel late yesterday afternoon, I think they were feeling a bit overwhelmed, but also delighted. They said that this rally will be the first time in all of the years that they have owned Elkhart Campground that they will be completely full! That should help their bottom line a little bit!

Thought For The Day – Count your life by smiles, not tears. Count your age by friends, not years.