As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, I wasn’t sure if we could get out of Show Low Campground because the weekend storm had made the roads so soft. But with very high winds predicted for today, we decided to give it a try.

Dee, the new campground manager, and I walked over the soft patches, and he suggested that if I kept well to the left side, where it was a bit firmer, he thought I could make it.

So after Miss Terry did the final proofing of the new issue of the Gypsy Journal and I made the necessary corrections, I fired the bus up and unplugged the electric cable, while Terry quickly secured things inside. Then I gave our PressurePro system a quick scan to be sure our tires were properly inflated, and we made ready to pull out.

As I approached the soft section of roadway, I did as Dee suggested and kept well to the left, made a running start at it and sailed right through. At one spot I felt the right rear wheels trying to bog down, but I maintained steady pressure on the throttle and got through just fine. After a quick stop at the dump station to empty our waste tank, I filled our fresh water tank and pulled out of the campground.

My daughter Tiffany had come over to see us off, and she rode in the passenger seat for the short distance I had to go to a place where Terry could pull the van up behind us to hook it up. I don’t know what I did, maybe it was the huge windshield right in front of her, or sitting so high off the ground, but when I swung into the parking area at the lake to hook up, the poor kid turned green and about lost her cookies.

Speaking of Tiffany, my little girl turns 27 today, and I really wish we could have been there to help her celebrate. Happy birthday, Tiffany. No father in the world could love a daughter as much as I do you, or be more proud than I am of you. You’re a wonderful young woman, and every minute I spend with you is a treasure I hold deep in my heart.

We were on the road at 1:30 p.m. and had a good run north to Holbrook, where we got on Interstate 40 and scooted east past the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, where brilliantly colored sandstone formations delight the eye.

Just before we crossed into New Mexico, a beautiful 1947 Cadillac cruised past us. I wondered if it was somebody exploring old Route 66 in a classic car, and I recalled the trips Terry and I had taken over the Mother Road in our vintage Corvette years ago.

We had that rarest of all phenomena for RVers, a tailwind, that hopefully helped our fuel mileage just a tiny bit, as we passed Gallup and Grants, and several Indian casinos stretched out along Interstate 40. We stopped at the Dancing Eagle Casino for fuel, and recalled a night we spend boondocking in their parking lot a couple of years ago.

We’re not much into gambling, but in our travels, we have spent the night in several Indian casino parking lots across the country. We appreciate the free boondocking opportunity, if they have a truck stop the fuel is usually cheaper, and we’ve found that their buffets are a good place to have dinner after a long day on the road.

We made it into Albuquerque about 6:30 and pulled onto the State Fairgrounds, where our pals Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety, and Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum greeted us. As soon as we were parked and had the van unhooked, the four of us headed to the local Golden Corral for dinner. We’ll be helping Al and Mac out at their booths at The Rally for the next few days.

This is Affinity’s big annual soiree, and we’ve never attended one of their events. Affinity is to the RV world what Wal-Mart is to the retail world, less the benefit of free overnight parking. They seem to have their fingers in every pie in the industry, and we’re interested to see how the rally goes.

One final thing before I sign off. I got an e-mail from a lady whose husband is an RV technician in Nixa, Missouri, asking me if I thought RVers these days are keeping present RVs and maintaining them to conserve their money, or taking advantage of the current soft market to upgrade to a new (or newer) unit. I asked about this in a couple of my seminars at recent rallies, and the greatest majority, almost unanimously, said they are hanging onto what they have and investing in maintenance and upkeep. How about you? Post a comment below and let us know your thoughts on this.

Thought For The Day – Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

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It’s a good thing that fulltime RVers write their schedules in Jello, because right now, we’re wading knee deep in it!

We had planned to leave Show Low Lake Campground on Wednesday and drive to Albuquerque to get settled into the vendor parking area for the big Affinity rally. However at this point, we don’t know if we can even get out of the campground!

Before we arrived, the city began laying sewer lines in the campground, and for whatever reason, the project seems to have come to a halt. But the heavy equipment used on the project tore up the dirt roads in the city owned campground. They put gravel on top of the worst stretches of the roads, and we had no problem getting into the campground, or going up to the dump station last week.

But with the rain and snow we had over the weekend there are a couple of places where it has gotten so soft that our van began to bog down when we went out to run some errands, and even my daughter thought she was going to get stuck when she came in with her car yesterday. I can’t see how our heavy old bus can possibly get out.

I discussed this with the campground hosts yesterday, but they don’t seem to feel it will be a problem, because “hopefully” it will dry out. There is a second exit, all on hard packed roadway which we could easily use, except they have several large rocks blocking it right at the paved road. I asked if they could be moved, and all I got were blank stares.

To add to the mixture, Wednesday’s weather report calls for strong winds across northern Arizona, with gusts up to 60 miles per hour. There is no way I’m going to be driving in those kinds of conditions!

So our options are to either leave tomorrow and drive to Albuquerque, or at least part way, or to sit it out and hope the winds calm down by Thursday. The problem there is that we could well get hung up in the long lines of RVs coming into the rally, and from what I’ve heard in the past, that can be a real nightmare, and not have time to get in and set up before the rally starts on Friday morning. Also, Wednesday may bring more rain or snow to Show Low, which would only make the campground’s roads worse.

Meanwhile, I have the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to send off to the printer, and by the time we get back from Albuquerque (if we ever make it there), it will be ready to stuff into envelopes and send out.

Between visiting with my daughter and her family, and getting the paper finished, we’ve sure been busy. We don’t let any grass grow under our feet, or our wheels.

Thought For The Day – The whole world changes when your attitude does.

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Well, depending on which internet weather report you want to believe, we are either going to have several more days of wet, cold weather, alternating between rain and snow showers; or we are going to see sunshine and temperatures in the low 60s this week. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out.

I spent most of the weekend working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal to get it ready to send to the printer this week, and I have to tell you, I’m very pleased with my new Dell computer. It is so much faster than my old HP desktop that it makes the job go much easier.

One of the big issues facing new fulltimers is what to do with all of their stuff. Some pitch it, some sell it, some give it to their kids, and some store it. Most of those who store it eventually get tired of paying those monthly fees and finally get rid of everything if they stay on the road very long.

Even then, we all keep finding things we no longer want or need, and wonder why we have hung onto them for so long. Yesterday while I was busy writing, Miss Terry went into a sorting and separating frenzy, and we ended up carrying boxes of books, clothing, leftover crocheting supplies, kitchenware and other stuff out to the van to take to one of the local charity thrift shops. I’m sure we lightened our load by a couple of hundred pounds at least.

And that was mostly just in the bedroom! We still have the rest of the bus, and all of the bays underneath to sort through. The great thing about a bus conversion is that you can carry a ton of stuff. The bad thing about a bus conversion is that you can carry a ton of stuff, and usually do!

I also took a break from my writing and sorted through a stack of travel brochures and assorted magazines I’ve been carrying around too long. For the life of me, I don’t know where a lot of the things we have come from. I found a little booklet from the post office about stamps dedicated to veterans and the military. I decided to keep that one to look through before I dispose of it. But old brochures for places we have visited and done stories on already went into the trash, along with more from places we won’t go to anytime in the near future.

I’ve carried around a lot of clipped out magazine articles on places we want to visit for a long time, always planning to scan them into one of my external hard drives, but I never seem to get around to it, so I think most of that will be headed for the dumpster in the very near future too. As it is, I have about three lifetimes worth of places on my Must See list already. It’s time to make some room in my file cabinets.

Thought For The Day – The trouble with doing nothing is that you never know when you are finished.

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Okay, what’s with all of this winter weather? We had a dusting of snow on Wednesday night, and I did some sniveling in spite of my best intentions to take it like a man.

But yesterday morning we woke up to about three inches of heavy, wet snow covering the campground here at Show Low Lake! It snowed hard off and on all day long.

I think the weather gods are testing me, and I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to fail. I’m about to throw a screaming, foot stomping tantrum, and it’s not going to be a pretty thing to see!

I have wheels under my house so I don’t have to see that nasty, cold stuff. And as much as I love my daughter Tiffany and my two granddaughters, warm weather better get here soon, or those wheels are going to start rolling, and they’ll be waving bye bye to me.

Actually, we have plans to leave Show Low Wednesday and go to Albuquerque to attend The Rally, Affinity’s big annual event. Then we plan to return here for a couple more weeks before we start toward Sedalia, Missouri for the Escapees Club Escapade rally.

Though we have some concerns about getting out of the campground. The roads are all dirt with gravel over them, and it has not been a problem so far. But right now the ground is so wet that when we drove over to Tiffany’s house yesterday afternoon, our Ford van wanted to sink in, and I could feel the rear tires starting to spin. Our bus weighs a lot more than the van, and the forecast is for more precipitation in the form of rain and snow showers between now and Wednesday. If we don’t get a break in the weather so it can dry up, we may be stuck for the duration.

Between now and Wednesday, I’ll be busy getting the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to send to the printer. This is our 10 Year Anniversary Issue, and I’m including some articles about our early days and how this dog and pony show of ours came to be.

Looking back, it amazes me that we have been fulltime RVers for an entire decade. It feels like we have just begun, and there is so much yet that we want to see and do. We cannot ever picture hanging up the keys as long as we can still climb behind the steering wheel and see to aim this old bus down the highway. It’s been a wonderful journey, and we’re just getting started!

Thought For The Day – Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

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Yesterday I got an e-mail from a woman who is getting ready to hit the road as a fulltime RVer. She wanted to know if I thought a woman traveling alone would fit in with the fulltime RVing crowd. I assured her that she would have as many friends out here as she wanted, both among the solo RVers, as well as RVing couples. This extended family of ours is always happy to welcome a new member in.

No matter if you are single or married, male or female, gay or straight, black, white, brown, yellow or green, you’ll find a home among the RVing community. In addition to the big RVing clubs like Escapees, FMCA, and Good Sam, there are dozens of smaller clubs, and special chapters of larger RVing clubs to meet every need or interest.

The Escapees RV Club has over 50 Birds of a Feather (BOF) groups, covering everything from amateur radio enthusiasts, to beaders, baby boomers, AA members, former police officers and firemen, disabled RVers, writers, artists, gays, woodcarvers, and families with children, to name just a few. The Family Motor Coach Association has its own sub-groups covering a wide variety of interests.

Solo RVers have many opportunities to socialize and learn from each other, including clubs like Loners on Wheels (LOW) and Wandering Individuals Network (WIN). Women RVers can find friendship and support with members of RVing Women, while those traveling with children might want to look into Family Campers & RVers (FCRV) and Families on the Road. For those with physical disabilities, the Handicapped Travel Club is a fine resource, offering many benefits to its members.

As I told my friend in my reply to her e-mail, she might be alone, but she never has to be lonely.

I am a big believer in education for new RVers. I always recommend that newbies attend an Escapees Boot Camp to learn the basics of RVing, and before Life on Wheels ended, I pointed them in that direction as well.

New  and wannabe RVers in the Saint Louis, Missouri area are fortunate, because my good buddies Ron and Brenda Speidel will be teaching their RV Fundamentals Class at Festus Elementary School, as part of Jefferson College’s Adult Continuing Education program.

The class is being offered for six weeks, April 7 – May 12, on Tuesday evenings from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Festus is located about 40 miles south of St. Louis, making it convenient for anyone in the metro area to attend the class.

Ron and Brenda have a background in education, and their classes always get excellent reviews. When they presented several of their seminars at our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally  last year, they were some of the best received at the rally.

The class provides a great opportunity to learn the joys of owning an RV and includes information on how to choose the RV best suited to you, as well as basic information on how to maintain the electrical, plumbing, and fresh water systems.  Emphasis is placed on safety, with instruction given on how to maintain tires and weight of the RV.  In addition, tips will be given for organizing and “green” cleaning the RV. Both beginning and veteran RVers are welcome.

For more information, you can call Jefferson College’s 24 hour customer service line at (636) 797-3000 ext. 144 or send them an e-mail at enrollCE@jeffco.edu. The college’s website is www.jeffco.edu.

Thought For The Day – My forgetter’s getting better, but my rememberer is broke…

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