Everywhere we go in this great land of ours we find interesting places to visit and stories to share with our readers. We spent yesterday playing tourist here in west central Missouri, covering everything from Civil War history to a one of a kind canine.

Fifteen miles north of Higginsville is the historic Missouri River town of Lexington, once an important riverboat port. We wandered through town a while, admiring the handsome old buildings in the downtown area, and discovered that Lexington is the home of one of the twelve Madonna of the Trail statues that were erected from West Virginia to California to honor pioneer women. The first of these statues I saw was in Springerville, Arizona, near our old hometown of Show Low, and I have seen a couple of others in our travels.

The purpose of our trip to Lexington was to visit the Battle of Lexington State Historic Site, scene of a vicious three day battle in 1861 in which the town was wrested from Union control by volunteers of the ragtag Missouri State Guard.

The Oliver Anderson home, once called the “largest and best arranged dwelling west of St. Louis” was pressed into service as a hospital during the battle and changed hands three times before the bloody fight ended. Today the walls still show the pockmarks and scars of bullets and shell fragments.

From Lexington we drove 40 miles east to the charming little town of Marshall to check out a story my buddy Ron Speidel told me about a while back. It seems that back in 1925 a local man discovered that his bird hunting dog Jim was not just your regular mutt.

Jim had the amazing ability to do things like obey commands in several languages, he could pick a person out of a crowd by the color of their clothes (even though dogs are supposed to be color blind), he picked the winner of seven consecutive Kentucky Derby races, his owner could tell him the make, model and license plate number of a car and Jim would walk down the sidewalk and stop at the car indicated, he could determine the sex of unborn babies, and a host of other unbelievable feats.

Jim was examined by expert veterinarians who could not explain how he could do the things he did, and he was featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not and several national magazines. Today Marshall has a small memorial park dedicated to Jim the Wonder Dog, and it is a popular stop for tourists visiting the area.

From Marshall we returned to Higginsville and stopped at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site, once the location of the Confederate Soldiers Home of Missouri, which provided refuge for over 1,600 veterans and their families for nearly 60 years. The Memorial includes a cemetery where Confederate soldiers have been laid to rest, and a striking monument to the men who served the Lost Cause.

We’ll have feature stories on the Battle of Lexington, Jim the Wonder Dog, and the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in the next issue of the Gypsy Journal if you want to learn more about the interesting places we discovered on our outing.

It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun. I’d rather be out exploring the back roads and small towns of America any day than spending my time watching a ballgame or swinging a golf club.

Thought For The Day – It’s okay to fail. Learn from it and you will succeed.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Yesterday started out as a frustrating day.

In Sunday’s blog I wrote that when we bought fuel at the Paso Junction Sinclair truck stop in Pratt, Kansas they triple charged my debit card for over $472 in false charges. I called my bank and they reversed the charges, but Monday night they were back and the money was out of my account. After repeated calls to the bank and the truck stop, which acknowledges that the problem is on their end, now they tell me it could be up to 35 days before it is resolved!

I wanted to get an early start on the road yesterday morning, but instead had to run around finding a place to send out faxes of my receipts and the false charges on my account to both the truck stop’s manager and to my bank.

$21 in fax charges later, we finally got out of town only to get held up in a massive traffic jam caused by an accident just before the junction of Interstate 470 and Interstate 70. Why are drivers so dumb?  We were sitting still as emergency vehicles tried to squeeze past to get to the accident scene, and the cars would not move over to let them pass. Finally we got past the accident scene and got onto Interstate 70 for the short drive to the fairgrounds in Higginsville. We were greeted by George and Starr Sharrer, who have been parked here for a week in their fifth wheel. Soon afterward, Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour pulled in.

This is typical of the many fairgrounds around the country that RVers can take advantage of for low cost parking. For $10 a night we are getting 30 amp electric, water, and a dump station. What a deal! Here is a picture of the Geek’s motorhome at the fairgrounds, and another of our bus. If you have not checked out the many low cost camping opportunities in this country, order our Special 7 in 1 CD, which includes over 1,000 free campgrounds, fairgrounds with RV parking, casinos that welcome RVers with free camping, public RV dump stations, RV Good Guys, and more. It will save you a bundle.

Once Jim and Chris were parked, it was time to eat. We had dinner at Zybisco’s Bar and Grill, where it was Taco Tuesday, with three for $1.50. Terry said they were great. I had a huge one pound double bacon cheeseburger that even I could not finish! Terry pointed out the weight to me on the menu, but I was busy talking and didn’t hear her. Big mistake! It was yummy, but way too much for one guy to eat alone.

Of course, I had to save room for dessert. We walked a couple of blocks down Higginsville’s Main Street to Sweetz, where owner Jeni Bayens fixed us up with ice cream and other goodies. Before seeing the error of her ways, Jeni was a nutritionist. Now she’s hustling ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries. Personally, I think it was a great career choice.

Jeni’s 10 year old son Casey was a cool kid that I enjoyed visiting with. I didn’t know I could have loaner kids all over the country like I do loaner dogs. Why didn’t anybody ever tell me that? I could have saved a ton of money on child support!

Casey may look shy with his eyes downcast, but he’s just keeping his eye on the showcase full of goodies like chocolates covered strawberries, chocolates covered licorice, and even chocolates covered jalapenos (jalapenos?) to make sure I didn’t sneak one out!

Thought For The Day – Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

It’s a good thing that we don’t spend more time with Terry’s cousin Carolyn and her husband Mel because it’s really hard on my waistline. Yesterday, Carolyn made Mel a chocolate cake, and I just could not in good conscience let him do to his skinny little body what I’ve done to mine, so I helped him eat a goodly portion of it. Hey, with me the damage has already been done, and besides, what are friends for, right? Don’t worry about it Mel, let her keep right on baking. I’ve got your back.

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that we saw a very nice 38 foot 2001 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage diesel pusher at a local dealer over the weekend, and yesterday we went back and took it for a test drive.

Wow! We were impressed! Heck, let’s be honest, we fell in love! We’ve looked at a lot of very nice RVs over the years, and several that we could be comfortable in, but this one really stood out. It just screamed “Buy me!” My Dad used to say, “When something is right, you just feel it,” and this feels right to us.

It handles like a dream, has a ton of upgrades, rides great, and would work just fine for our needs. I had never driven a rig with the 330 horsepower Cat engine in it before, and I was really amazed at how well it got up to speed coming onto the freeway. Miss Terry also took a turn behind the wheel, and was very pleased with the way it drove.

They made us a very good offer, and we are going to look long and hard at putting a deal together. Several things would all have to click at once, including the sale of our bus to a person who has expressed a strong interest in it. So we’re not there yet, but if the stars all align just right, we just may be able to pull it off. Wish us luck.

Some of you may remember my April 23^rd blog, in which I wrote about an RVer who had a headlight out on his pickup truck while we were in Albuquerque for the Affinity rally. He stopped at an auto parts store to buy a replacement light, and on the way back to the fairgrounds a policeman pulled him over and, after asking him several times if he knew he had a headlight out, which he acknowledged, and showed the officer the replacement light. The officer then gave him a summons, and told him that if he had said he did not know the light was out, he’d have only received a warning instead of a ticket. As I wrote in the blog about the incident, I really didn’t feel that was right.

The other day I got an e-mail from the gentleman who received the ticket, telling me that he was so upset he hung around and went to court to fight it, and won. He said the judge told the officer that he was sure the local police had better things to do that bait honest citizens into admitting guilt to a minor infraction, and then giving them a ticket for it.

I’m usually a very strong supporter of law enforcement. I come from a family full of cops. But this time around I have to agree with the judge. I think justice was served.

Thought For The Day – Middle age is not user friendly.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

The purpose of our visit here to the Kansas City area is to spend some time with Terry’s cousin Carolyn and her husband Mel, two of our favorite people in the world.

Mel and Carolyn are completing the final steps to becoming fulltimers, and yesterday they took us to see their Heartland fifth wheel trailer, which they have in a storage lot just waiting to hit the road. Even though the slides were in and we could not get the full effect, we were impressed with how nice it is, just as we have been with all of the Heartland products we have ever seen. Mel says just a few more weeks and they’ll be on the road, and we know they are both itching to get out here and join in on all of the fun!

Two RVs that are on our very short list of rigs we’d like to have to replace the bus with are a Winnebago Ultimate Advantage or Ultimate Freedom, and there was an Ultimate Advantage in the same storage lot, which I pointed out to Mel and Carolyn. Just for the heck of it, when we left the storage lot, Carolyn drove past the dealership where they bought their trailer, and there was a used Ultimate Advantage sitting on the lot!

Even though it was Sunday and the place was closed, we decided to see what we could see. The bays were unlocked, and we checked out the impressive amount of storage space, and somebody said “It’s too bad the door is locked, or we could see the inside too.” Just being silly, I pulled out my key ring, and stuck an old key I have carried around with me for years into the lock. This was not a Winnebago key, in fact, it was originally for a small fireproof metal storage box, but it unlocked the door!

Mel thought that was funny and I told him it was my magic key, because in the past I have used it to unlock everything from storage boxes and padlocks to pickup camper shells. Just being a goofball by then, I walked over to another used rig, this one a three year old Allegro Bay diesel pusher, and even I was shocked when my key unlocked it too! I bet that makes you feel real secure when you lock your door and leave your RV for a while, doesn’t it?

I have had car keys that worked in the same model of cars before, and I had my pal Butch Williams install his special tubular locks on our bay doors a while back, because I know there are just a few key codes for them and if you put any ten RVers together, it’s a good bet somebody’s keys will open most of the bays. But I’d like to think that when Miss Terry tucks me into bed at night, the boogey man has to at least work a little bit to get inside!

I wasn’t too worried about the local constabulary coming to carry us away, because Mel and Carolyn have done enough business with this dealership that they have a very good relationship with them.

We really liked this particular Winnebago, and the price is right too. We’re not quite in a position to make a deal yet, but we’re close enough that I may go back to the dealership and talk to them while we’re here. But if we were to get it, or any other coach for that matter, you can bet that the first order of business would be to get custom locks installed!

So how secure is your RV?

Thought For The Day – Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

You’ve heard me say many times that our plans are set in Jell-O, and so it was yesterday. We fired up the bus, checked our tire pressures on our PressurePro tire monitor, emptied our holding tank at the dump station at the Meade, Kansas city park, filled up with fresh water, and pulled out about 10 a.m.

I had told Terry we’d have a short driving day, stopping either at the Elks lodge in Pratt, Kansas, a distance of about 95 miles, or maybe we’d turn north at Pratt and go up to Russell, on Interstate 70, which would have made it a 185 mile day.

On May 4, 2007 an EF5 tornado tore through the small town of Greensburg, destroying 95% of the community and killing eleven people. The National Weather Service estimated the winds from the tornado reached 205 mph. Today the hardworking citizens of Greensburg are rebuilding their community, and implementing “green” technology to save energy and help protect the environment.

Here is a link to photos of the town after the tornado hit, but on our drive through on U.S. 54, there was little evidence of the disaster. We wanted to stop and check things out off the main highway, but it was a cold, dreary day and I had a trucker climbing up my bumper, so we kept on moving.

By the time we reached Pratt, my fuel gauge was down below my comfort level, so I passed the turnoff to U.S. Highway 281, which would have taken us to Russell. We stopped at the Paso Junction Sinclair truck stop, where I bought fuel, and we decided to just continue on east on U.S. 54.

We passed through Wichita, where we have some folks who keep inviting us to stop for dinner, but we wanted to get to the Kansas City area to see Terry’s cousin Carolyn, who has been having some vision problems and may eventually need surgery. (I think Carolyn’s eye problems started after we visited last summer, and she saw me in my tighty whitey Fruit of the Looms. I guess if you rub your eyes that hard, it’s bound to do some damage!)

In Wichita we got onto Interstate 35 and drove north through the Flint Hills, arriving in the Kansas City area right at 5 p.m. I was afraid we’d get caught up in rush hour traffic, but on this Saturday afternoon, traffic was light. We pulled into the Grandview, Missouri Elks Lodge just as they were hosting a wedding reception in one side of the building, and holding the monthly mouse races in the other side. We’ve stayed at some friendly Elks lodges over the years, but I think this place tops them all. Everybody in the huge crowd seemed to take a moment to say hello and welcome us. We would have liked to have visited more, but we were pretty worn out, having covered 375 miles, a lot more than originally planned when we left Meade!

Back in the bus, I logged onto the internet to check e-mail and to check my bank account, as I do every day. I’m glad I did, because I discovered that the Sinclair struck stop in Pratt hit my debit card for three separate charges, two for $236.14 and one more for 256.98 (the actual amount of my fuel purchase), for a total of $729.08!

I immediately called my bank’s fraud line and reported the problem, and after checking the transaction record online, they stopped payment on the two bogus charges. Folks, check your records often, you never know what somebody is up to!

We have never had a problem in making online transactions, but several times when we have handed our cards to a clerk someplace, as I did yesterday, this has happened. It may be just dumb human error or it may be fraud, but whatever it is, I don’t want to be a victim.

Thought For The Day – Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber and not the toy.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally