Arizona is an amazingly diverse state. Those unfamiliar with the Grand Canyon state might think that is it all cactus and sand, and there is certainly no shortage of desert here, but there are also towering mountains that are covered with dense forests, and snow capped much of the year. This explains Arizona’s climate, where you can build a snowman in the morning in the high country, then drive a few hours and have a cookout wearing shorts and T-shirts in the desert that afternoon.

We had temperatures in the 80s in Apache Junction just a couple of days ago, here in Kingman I dug our Olympian catalytic heater out of one of the bus bays to keep us warm last night, and our daughter called yesterday to report snow at her home in Show Low. I told her that had better end soon, because we want to get over there and spoil those grandkids, and Grandpa doesn’t approve of being in the snow.

A while back I listed some of my favorite RV blogs and websites, and readers keep asking me for more. There are so darned many that I could spend hours a day just trying keep up with them all, but for your reading enjoyment, here are a few more that I check in on often:

White Truck Blog – Bob and Jan have converted a vintage 1965 White semi truck and a moving trailer into a beautiful home on wheels, and share the stories of their travel adventures.

Hitch Itch - A great collection of RV blogs and information can be found on this site. Give yourself plenty of time to explore it, because it has a lot of good information and links.

Backroad Chronicles - Our friends Joy and Phil have been faithful Gypsy Journal supporters for years, and their blog is always fun to read.

Traveling USA – Bob and Donna have wandered America from coast to coast, and I enjoy seeing the country through their eyes.

Moon River And We – Bob and Molly are wonderful people, and I always enjoy checking in with their blog to see what they are up to.

So what are we up to? Terry and I are going to take a day trip up to Nevada today to touch base with Aunt Bee’s Mail, the mail service that handles our business mail, and to check out an RV that we are interested in. I always enjoy the trip up to Lake Mead and across Hoover Dam. It has some of the most dramatic scenery in this part of the West. One of these days we want to camp at Lake Mead and do some kayaking on its awesome blue water.

We have a terrible internet connection here in Kingman. It’s one of the few places we have been where our Verizon air card is darned near useless. About half the time we get knocked offline when we try to open a website or even an e-mail, and it’s incredibly slow all of the time. So I’m going to close this post and try to get it online before we lose our connection yet again.

Thought For The Day - The successful person will learn from their mistakes and try again in a different way.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We pulled out of Pacific Manor in Apache Junction just before 10 a.m. yesterday, got on the 202 Loop and followed it west to Interstate 10. Even though it was a Sunday morning, traffic was fairly heavy and we were grateful that we had decided not to wait until today to leave for Kingman.

We left the interstate at the 303 Loop, a nice two lane road with light traffic, and followed it north a few miles to U.S. Highway 60, which took us into Wickenburg.

Whenever we set out on a trip, even a relatively short 225 mile journey like this, I always try to have two or three alternative stopping points in case we need them. You never know when weather or mechanical problems can put you off your intended schedule.

The weather forecast had predicted strong winds later in the day, and we figured if the wind became a problem we’d stop at the Escapees North Ranch RV Park, a few miles from Wickenburg, for the night. But there was just a slight breeze, and it was coming from behind us, so we hooked up with U.S. Highway 93 in Wickenburg and kept on rolling. It’s not often we get a tailwind, even a slight one, and I didn’t want to waste it.       

We were a little concerned about how our bus would perform on the trip, because we’d be doing some climbing, and the temperature was in the mid-80s. On a couple of hills we slowed down quite a bit, and I had to downshift into second gear and run the radiator misters, but we managed okay.

About 110 miles north of Wickenburg, we hooked up with Interstate 40, and just as we got onto the highway and turned west, the wind really started blowing hard, slamming us broadside. It was another 18 miles into Kingman, and I fought the wind every inch of the way. If we would have been much further from our destination, I’d have found a place to pull over and wait until the wind died down.

But we made it fine, and arrived at our friend Mike’s house just after 2 p.m. We got parked and hooked up in his driveway, and about the time I completed those chores the wind really got serious. All afternoon and evening it rocked the bus viciously, and we said a silent thank you prayer that it held off until we were safely off the road.

It’s good to be here with Mike, we always enjoy our time together. He and I go back more years than the two of us have fingers and toes to count, and there have been some adventures neither of us is willing to admit to, back when we were young and foolish. Now that we’re old and foolish, we’ve toned it down quite a bit, though. We’ve not gotten any wiser with age; we just don’t have the energy any more to pull some of the stunts we used to.

Thought For The Day - It’s terribly unfair that youth is wasted on the young.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Even though we really don’t need or want anything, we occasionally enjoy wandering through a flea market, just to see what’s being offered.

We spent some time yesterday afternoon wandering around the Mesa Market Place indoor swap meet, looking at all of the stuff offered for sale. I’m sure glad we live in an RV, because we don’t have room for all of the ceramic trinkets, cookware, cactus shaped water fountains, and other junk you can find in places like that.

Mesa Market Place is not your typical old style flea market, in that about 90% of the vendors are selling new items. You can find cheap tools made in China, foot massagers, incense, T-shirts with funny sayings (my favorite this trip said “Go Ahead And Whine If It Will Make You Feel Any Better), sunglasses, kitchenware, and all kinds of other merchandise. In my opinion, most of it isn’t worth hauling home, no matter how cheap they sell it for.

I did find a wide brimmed hat to keep the sun off my face and ears, and hopefully it will reduce the number of skin cancers I have to have burned off on my next trip to the V.A. hospital. Terry also got a good deal on some ribbon to use in a couple of crochet projects she’s working on.

More and more of the swap meets and flea markets we’ve seen around the country have moved away from the used merchandise and collectibles we enjoy looking at, and to the same cheap imported stuff we saw yesterday.

We were really disappointed on our first trip to the big Shipshewana Flea Market in Indiana several years ago. Since it’s located in the heart of Amish country, we expected handcrafted goodies, but most of what we found was bamboo back scratchers and such.

Back at the bus, I took a short nap, and then we visited with Terry’s parents for a while. Her mom is dealing with a nasty cold, so we didn’t stay long so she didn’t have to feel like she should entertain us.

Today we’re leaving Apache Junction, headed for Kingman, Arizona, where we’ll spend a few days visiting with my old buddy Mike Howard. Mike is a confirmed bachelor, and we try to stop in every year so Miss Terry can spoil him with home cooking and bake him a couple of batches of her delicious chocolate chip/pecan cookies. Of course, I’d hate to see Mike overindulge in sweets, so I’ll be sure to help him work his way through all of those cookies! What are friends for?

From Apache Junction to Kingman is about 225 miles, which makes for a good driving day, and about half of it will be on two lane roads, which are our favorite routes. 

Between our time in Casa Grande, then Tucson, and most recently Apache Junction, we’ve been sitting still too long. We’re eager to do some traveling!

Thought For The Day - Being kind is more important than being right.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

There is news on the RV industry scene. In a press release issued Thursday, Monaco Coach Corporation announced that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent with Navistar, Inc. in which Navistar will acquire certain assets and assume certain liabilities primarily associated with Monaco’s recreational vehicle manufacturing business. Navistar is a leading global manufacturer of commercial vehicles, military vehicles, diesel engines and related parts and services.

There are a lot of hoops to jump through before this is a done deal. But if it works out, hopefully it will keep at least one RV company from disappearing completely, and put some workers back on the job. With one RV manufacturer after another going belly up, we certainly need some good news for a change.

We spent most of yesterday hanging around the bus. I spent several hours promoting our new Honor A Veteran website by sending a publicity release out to VFW posts around the country, while Miss Terry did some paperwork, caught up on some laundry, and filled a couple of orders that had come in.

I’m trying very hard to get the word out about both Honor A Veteran and Todays Hero Blog, and I really appreciate all of you who have sent links to these new projects to the folks on their e-mail lists. It really does help a lot.   

Late in the afternoon we ran to the post office and made a stop at Safeway, arriving back at the bus just before Terry’s sister Lisa and her husband Jim arrived to take us to dinner at Red Lobster. Jim and Lisa are a hard working, busy couple and we never have enough time with them. But we always appreciate it when we can get together with them during our visits to Arizona.

I wrote last week that former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was going to be airing a segment on the Fox News channel from the RV Hall of Fame Museum in Elkhart, Indiana.

My friend Al Hesselbart, the museum’s historian and the author of the book, The Dumb Things Sold… Just Like That!, which tells the story of some of the milestones in the RV industry, said that he had the opportunity to meet Mr. Huckabee during the event, and that he is a genuinely nice guy who went out of his way to be friendly, and not in that smarmy glad-handing way most politicians have. Too bad we can’t get more real people to run for public office.

Thought For The Day - Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

A cold front dipping south brought very strong winds to Apache Junction, Arizona yesterday afternoon and evening. At our spot here in Pacific Manor, we are on an end site, with a six foot high block wall on one side and the rear, but even with that our old bus was rocking on its air bags so much it would have made a landlubber seasick! I told Miss Terry I wondered how much more we would have felt without the wall blocking the wind. I’m sure glad we weren’t out on the highway someplace.

We’ve been in some nasty winds while traveling, and the best thing to do is just find a safe place to get off the road and wait it out. We’ve done that many times, not only in high winds, but in other storms as well, and we’ve always been amazed at how many RVs we see still going down the highway.

We’ve also been in RV parks when the weather was dangerous, and seen RVs pulling out first thing in the morning. Why? Where do they have to get in such a hurry? I guess if you’re still working and have to get back to the job, it might be a reason. But I’ve seen fulltimers doing it too, and I just don’t understand it. I’m a dyed in the wool coward, and I avoid putting myself in dangerous situations any time I can. Life has enough hazards as it is, without driving into them.

Which reminds me – do you have a weather radio? If not, why not? They only cost a few bucks, and can save your life. Our CB radio has a weather channel feature on it also, and whenever we’re on the road and things start to look ugly, I turn it on to see what we’re heading into. I also monitor the CB to hear what the truckers say about the weather, and more than once we’ve heard about a bad situation up ahead and found a place to pull over and wait for things to clear up.

Our time here in Apache Junction is almost over, but we’ve enjoyed spending time with Terry’s family. Here is a photo I took earlier in the week of Terry sitting on the right, her sister Dani in the center and sister Lisa on the left, with her dad and mom, Pete and Bess Weber, standing behind them. That Weber family sure turns out some good looking women, doesn’t it?

A while back, my pal Judy Bayless discovered that I had about seventeen minutes a week that I was just wasting by doing things like sleeping and eating, so she turned me on to genealogy. Since then I’ve been playing around on the Ancestry.com website, and have found quite a few relatives, even a few that didn’t serve time in prison, much to my surprise.

The Mormon Church operates over 4,500 Family History Centers worldwide, with a tremendous amount of information on genealogy. You don’t have to be a member of the Mormon Church to research your family tree at these Centers, they are open to anybody free of charge. The staff at the Centers are happy to assist both new and experienced genealogists, and they do not promote church membership to visitors.

There is a large Family History Center in Mesa, and yesterday while Terry and her mom were out running some errands, I stopped by to see what they had to offer. Unfortunately, their computer system was down and I couldn’t get much done. But I can see that it is a great resource for anyone wanting to explore their roots. If you’re into genealogy and are spending some time in the Phoenix area, check it out.

Every week people ask me how Sandy Baleria is doing. Miss Terry and Sandy keep in contact by e-mail, and though it is a long and lonely journey she is on, she has managed to turn her grief over Dave’s loss into a positive thing to reach out to others who are suffering. You can read about it in my post on Sandy on my Todays Hero Blog.

Thought For The Day - Talk slowly but think quickly.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally