We had another busy day yesterday. I had a lot of work to get done, but I decided to cheat and go play for a while first. There was a gun show in Shipshewana, the Amish center 20 miles east of Elkhart, and I have wanted to get out that way and drop some bundles of sample issues of the Gypsy Journal at the campgrounds in that area, so I decided to combine business with pleasure.

Shipshewana, best known for its flea market, is an interesting place. In the past I have called it sort of an Amish theme town, in that you will see lots of Amish people in their horse drawn buggies and plain clothes, but also shops packed with tourists buying everything from overpriced quilts and crafts, to delicious cheeses. You can even (for a fee) take a ride in an authentic Amish buggy!

And Shipshewana is always a busy place! The main street through the business district is only a mile or so long, but it can take you a long time to cover that distance with all of the traffic. Cars, tour buses, RVs, buggies, Amish riding bicycles, and people on foot create an obstacle course that you have to be very careful to maneuver safely through.

After an hour or so of wandering through the gun show, and wishing I had kept all of the shooting irons I have sold over the years, I dropped Miss Terry off at E&S Sales, an Amish bulk food store, and then backtracked to drop off a couple of bundles of newspapers at the Shipshewana South Campground. There is also a Shipshewana North Campground a couple of miles north of town, which we had hit on the way in. The northern campground is never as full as the southern, which is within walking distance to everything in town, and both places are always clean and have friendly people in the office.

E&S was packed with shoppers, and when I caught up with Terry we spent a while browsing everything from a huge assortment of flour and other baking goods, to bulk candy and a dozen or more varieties of cheeses.

We had spent more time in Shipshewana than we had planned to, and when we left we stopped at a roadside produce stand, and when we left there, I told Terry I had to get right to work as soon as we got home. Yeah, right!

Dennis and Carol Hill from the RV Driving School had arrived at Elkhart Campground while we were gone, and as we pulled up we saw them and they came over to say hello and tell us all about their summer adventures RVing in Alaska. We just have to make that trip one of these days! Sometime during their visit, somebody mentioned dinner, and Terry and I realized that it was 5 p.m. and we had not had anything to eat all day long. So we piled into their car and went to Ryan’s Buffet for dinner and more good conversation. 

When we returned to the campground, Ruth Fleck and Linda Jensen were waiting at the bus. We had met them in Albuquerque at the Affinity Rally, and ran into them again at the FMCA rally in Bowling Green, Ohio a couple of weeks ago. We visited with them for a while, and Bill Joyce and Diane Melde wandered over to join in the party.

Finally, about 8 p.m., I excused myself and went inside to get some work done. Sometimes you just have to throw your plans out the window and go with the flow.

Thought For The Day – Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow.

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It seems like every time I turn around, we get news of the passing of someone else we know. I guess that’s what happens as we get older.

Unfortunately, we lost another dear friend yesterday, when Lue Reed passed away in California. We first met Lue over ten years ago in our first month on the road, when we attended Life on Wheels in Moscow, Idaho as students. Lue’s husband Dick Reed, is the founder of the RV Driving School, and we just seemed to click with both of them. Even then Lue was fighting a battle with Alzheimer’s, and though she didn’t always remember our names, she always knew Miss Terry by her pretty long hair.  

Lue was one of those sweet people who never had a bad word to say about anybody, and even if you had never met before, the first time she laid eyes on you, you were friends. I will always remember her gentleness and the smile that never left her face. Rest in peace, dear friend.

For a guy who makes his living with words, I never seem to know the right thing to say to someone at times like this, but Dick, there are a lot of us out here who care about you and share your loss. I hope you can feel all of our arms around you, surrounding you with love.

I spent yesterday doing the same thing I’ll be doing today and tomorrow, working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal to get it ready to take to the printer next week. I think the months are getting shorter, because it seems like I was doing this just a couple of weeks ago.

I may escape from the computer for an hour or two and drive out to Shipshewana to go to a gun show today, and Dennis and Carol Hill, who bought the RV Driving School from Dick Reed a couple of years ago, are due in sometime tomorrow too. They spent most of the summer in Alaska, and Dennis e-mailed me to say they had a hot grill and a big piece of halibut with my name on it, so Sunday I’ll have to drag myself away from my desk again for a cookout. Yeah, I know, it sucks to be me.

Thought For The Day – Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

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After reading yesterday’s blog, longtime reader Gene Teggatz suggested that maybe I need to consider having a sign made that says “Visitors Welcome Today” and a second sign that says “Visitors Not Welcome Today,” or perhaps a more diplomatic one saying “Please let me get some work done today.” Really, we don’t mind visitors dropping in, we’re pretty spontaneous and love to visit with folks most of the time.

Of course, there are those occasional few who would abuse even Saint Peter’s hospitality, and there has been a time or two, after somebody sat here for hours droning on and on, where I wished I had a sign that just said “Go Away!” But that doesn’t happen very often.

Yesterday morning started with an interesting e-mail seeking advice from a couple who will become fulltime RVers very soon. I get a lot of e-mails like this, and I’m always happy to offer whatever insight I can. But I had to demur on this one.

They plan to leave Chadron, Nebraska September 15^th, and head directly for Livingston, Texas to become official Texans. From there they want to go to New Orleans to see the French Quarter, and then on to Florida, where they hope to bounce around for the winter. They included an itinerary by date of where they hope to be and wanted me to tell them which RV parks to stay at for every stop, where were the best places to eat, what to see and do, and where to buy fuel along their route between now and next April.

I wrote back to tell them that while we have done a lot of traveling in our ten years as fulltime RVers, we haven’t been everywhere yet, so there was no way I could plan their entire lives for eight months! Heck, I most of the time I don’t even know where I’ll be next week myself!

By the time I finished with that e-mail, Dan and Karen Silverwood were at our door for a visit before they pulled out of Elkhart Campground headed for Ohio. They left about noon, and I decided to walk over to the campground office to see if any mail had arrived for us yet. There was a package from our mail service, along with a package for Ron and Brenda Speidel that they had asked me to watch out for, so I took it to keep at the bus until they arrive next week sometime.

On my way back to our bus conversion, I saw John and Alice Clark, the visitors whose names I could not remember in yesterday’s blog. They were very gracious about my social faux pas, and John even gave me a tour of their absolutely beautiful Newmar Ventana motorhome. I was so impressed with the coach that I went right back to the bus and brought Miss Terry back to see it for herself. Wow, what a rig!

Back at our bus, while Terry was doing bookwork, I worked on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal for a few hours, and then waded through a bunch of e-mails that had come in. No, I don’t want to meet hot college coeds; yes, we still have vendor openings for our Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally; no, I don’t want to send my banking information to that nice man in Nigeria who wants to deposit $10 million in my bank account; yes, we’re still looking for a motorhome, but not a two year old Prevost, thank you very much; no, I don’t want to meet any bored and lonely housewives; yes, the price of the vendor spaces at the Ohio rally includes all camping and rally fees; no, I already have a good watch and I’m not interested in quality replica timepieces; no, I don’t want to correspond with beautiful Russian girls seeking permanent relationships; no, I… well, you get the idea.

About 5:30 we walked down to the site where Bill Joyce and Diane Melde are parked in their nice Dutch Star motorhome and piled into the backseat of their car to go and meet our friends Terry and Dale Pace for dinner at their favorite restaurant here in Elkhart, a place called Heinnie’s Back Barn. This was out first time there, and we were impressed. The food was excellent, our waitress was a lot of fun, and we had a good time chatting over dinner.

Back at Elkhart Campground, someone pointed out this neat old homemade camper trailer, and though the light was fading fast, I managed to get a couple of photographs. That bright glow you see at the front of the rig is my camera’s flash reflecting off the red and white safety tape the owner applied to the trailer’s tongue.

We got back to the bus just as darkness fell, and I still had a few hours to work before bedtime. I wrote the blog, edited the Todays Hero Blog offering for today, and handled even more e-mails while Terry filled a bunch of orders that had come in the new mail delivery. Our life is never dull. 

Thought For The Day – Save the planet, have fewer kids.

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Yesterday I planned to chain myself to the computer and get a lot of work finished for the next issue of the Gypsy Journal. But you know the old saying, “if you want to hear God laugh, make plans.”

Early in the day I had a long series of e-mails and phone calls to deal with, and it seems like the minute I had worked my way through all of them, more came in. It was well after noon before I finished with the last of them, and then the flood gates opened and we had a long line of visitors coming by to chat.

I’m afraid I can’t remember everybody’s names, but there was a fellow from a fifth wheel parked down the road from us who wanted to ask some questions about the bus after seeing the For Sale sign in the windshield. Then somebody else came by to say hello and was gone before I got his name.

A few minutes later a nice couple who were at our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, and who I sponsored to join the Elks, came over. I’m embarrassed that I can’t remember their names, but right this moment I’m drawing a total blank. We had a nice visit, I knew who they were while they were here, but for the life of me I can’t remember now. So if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll forgive my early senility.

As they were leaving, Bill Joyce and Diane Melde arrived, Diane sporting an arm sling because she had fallen and dislocated her elbow a few days ago while in Minnesota. Ouch! We always enjoy spending time with Bill and Diane, and they have always pitched in to help us with parking at our Arizona rallies, working long hours to help get all of the RVs parked at the fairgrounds. We had a very nice visit with them, and they hadn’t been gone two minutes when Dan and Karen Silverwood were knocking on the door.

Dan and Karen are parked next to us in a beautiful Winnebago Vectra motorhome and they wanted us to take a tour of their coach. We were understandably impressed! Winnebago sure makes a good rig, and they are very high on our list of possible coaches to replace our bus with. Dan and Karen wanted us to go to dinner with them, but we had a previous commitment, so we had to beg off.

We also got to visit with Terry and Dale Pace before the day was over. We have known Terry and Dale for what seems like forever, and since they are from this area, we always run into them here at Elkhart Campground sometime during the summer.

That’s one of the great things about the fulltime RV lifestyle; no matter where we go, we run into folks we know and have things in common with. I always tell people it’s like living in a small town where we run into our neighbors in every corner of the country!

Needless to say, I didn’t get one word written yesterday, but we sure had a good time visiting with all of our friends!

Thought For The Day – The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough. Ignore them, they’re all idiots.

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I got an e-mail from a lady yesterday that told me she was heartbroken because they had just lost their beloved eight month old Jack Russell terrier when a coyote came into their campsite in northern California and made off with it.

She said her husband had yelled and thrown rocks at the coyote, but it just ran off with their puppy in its jaws, a sight that would haunt them forever. She said the campground hosts had warned them about coyotes, but they never dreamed that they would be so bold as to snatch their puppy while they were sitting outside in their lawn chairs.

We have seen this happen before in campgrounds. At the Verde Valley Thousand Trails preserve in Camp Verde, Arizona a couple of years ago, a couple put two little Shih Tzu dogs outside their fifth wheel in a fenced enclosure about eighteen inches high, and the local coyotes walked right into their campsite, jumped into the pen and grabbed the dogs.

While I’m very sorry for their loss, they have to understand that to the coyotes, these weren’t pets, they were just lunch, and their owners delivered it right into the predators’ living room.

You can’t blame the coyotes (or bobcats, foxes, and occasional mountain lions). They are just doing what comes natural to them, preying on something lower on the food chain. We brought our RVs and our pets into their territory and made them easy to devour. It happens all over the country, though it happens most often in the west. However, coyotes can be found from the deserts of Arizona to the forests of Michigan, and no matter where they come from, they have one thing in common; they all appreciate an easy meal.

And those are not the only critters that are standing in line to eat your critters. Bill Graves, in his America’s Outback column in this month’s Trailer Life magazine, writes about Central Florida, where the locals say the favorite food for the alligators in the region is small dogs. Eagles, hawks, owls, and even feral dogs will not hesitate to snatch small pets given half a chance. It’s all about survival of the fittest.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid the great outdoors and confine your RV stays to urban campgrounds. Especially since I have personally seen coyotes in city parks in downtown Seattle and Portland. Just use some common sense.  

If you love your pets, do not leave them unattended outside at any time, whether tied up or in a pen. And as the folks who lost their puppy yesterday can attest, even being outside with them is no guarantee of safety for your pets. Wild predators are fast, smart, and ruthless when it comes to filling their stomachs. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Or in this case, a Fifi or a Mr. Rags.

Thought For The Day – You have to at least try to live your dream if you want it to come true.

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