A couple of months ago, some readers chastised me because I said that as much as I adore my two granddaughters, and while I love playing with them and spoiling them, at the end of the day, I send them home to their mother. My motorhome sleeps two,  I was told that I was missing out on one of the greatest parts of being a grandparent by not taking the girls on short trips with us.

Okay, here’s the truth – I wouldn’t mind taking the girls on an outing, but I just don’t want them exposed to the kind of people who run around the country in RVs. It’s bad enough that I have to hang out with them!  

The crowd loitering here at Elkhart Campground right now is a good example.  They may look like responsible citizens, even adults at first glance, but if you peek under that thin veneer, you’ll find the world’s oldest juvenile delinquents.

If you don’t believe me, just look at what they did to Bob and Molly Pinner’s car yesterday evening!

Now, nobody is naming any names here, but my confidential sources tell me that the miscreants responsible for this include some names that are very high up in the hierarchy of the Escapees RV Club.

It’s bad enough to toilet paper the outside of somebody’s car, but the inside too???? Have they no decency?

Bob and Molly took it all in stride, because they’ve been known to have to call somebody late at night to raise bail money too! Bob tells me that there will be payback, and somehow, I don’t doubt that at all!

The scary thing is that Al Hesselbart from the RV Hall of Fame Museum, and Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School, were the ones who drove up in the car, with Just Married signs in the back window! I bet that raised some eyebrows going through town!

I don’t know what Al and Dennis are doing here, but I think they’re either fixing to consummate their marriage, or negotiating their divorce!

When I was a young man, my Daddy told me to stay away from women like this! I’m sure glad I ignored the old man!

This is what happens when cousins marry and have children!

So there you have it. Would you want your grandchildren exposed to people like this? They’d go back to pre-school and start running a loan shark racket on the playground!

Why, even I, at my advanced age and with my strong moral fiber, have been known to be late to Sunday School if I spend Friday night with this bunch!

Thought For The Day – Of course I’m against sin; I’m against anything that I’m too old to enjoy!

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Whether we’re in our motorhome or our van, whenever time allows, we always prefer to travel the two lane back roads wherever we are going. A Denny’s or a Flying J truck stop are pretty much the same, whether they are at an interstate highway exit in Arizona or Tennessee.

But on the back roads you see the real America; the small towns, the neat farmsteads, the old courthouses with their Civil War statues, the fields of corn, and the roadside produce stands. You can’t travel as fast on the back roads as you can on the super highways, but why would you want to, anyway? There’s too much to see along the way.

Yesterday we drove back up to Allegan, Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer. Our route took us up State Route 40, through the small towns of Marcellus, with its handsome old houses and storefronts; and Lawton, where the beautiful old stone railroad depot is now home to an American Legion post.

We passed a lot of farm fields, those roadside produce stands I mentioned above, and several lakes. I’d like to get our kayaks wet up here, and I bet there is some good fishing in these waters too!

I always like driving through the busy little town of Paw Paw, just for the name if nothing else. Paw Paw is the home of the St. Julian Winery, which offers free tours and wine tasting.

The Paw Paw Police (as opposed to the cantaloupe cops), have a neat old 1950s-era police car that we had hoped to get a picture of, but it wasn’t in its usual parking place, so we’ll have to try again one of these days.

We enjoyed the ride up to Allegan so much that, once we loaded the new issue into the van, we drove right back to Elkhart along the same route. (Of course, it’s the shortest and easiest route, so that helped too.

How would you like to spend the morning driving through all that pretty scenery I just showed you, and come back to find this parked next to you? No, the Beverly Hillbillies didn’t get a motorhome and hit the road, that’s my buddy Greg White’s American Eagle. Greg managed to scrape up his bay doors on a boulder or a panhandler, I forget which, so he took them off and our pal Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint is fixing them like new again. In the meantime, I just had to pick on Greg, because you know what they say, you can take the redneck out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the redneck.

I was feeling a bit droopy by the time we got back to Elkhart Campground, so I laid down for a little nap, and woke up when my friend Orv Hazelton called to tell me he and his lovely wife Nancy had arrived and were parked next to us. We went over to check our their beautiful new Allegro four-slide diesel pusher, I fussed over their little mutt Duffy, who is almost acceptable for a wannabe dog, and then the four of us went out to dinner. We haven’t seen Orv and Nancy in quite a while, and it was nice to have some time to visit and catch up.

When we got back to the campground, I wanted to take a little walk, and then go inside and get caught up on e-mail from the day. But before I could, a series of folks stopped by to introduce themselves, say hello, ask about the rally, and to  talk about my Bad Nick Blog posts. I’m afraid I can’t remember everybody’s name, but they included Phyllis Schell,  and subscribers Gary and Elaine Regelman. My apologies to those whose names I missed, but my brain capacity is a bit exceeded right now.

I finally managed to get in a couple of laps around the campground, stopped to visit with some folks along the way, and got back to the Winnebago in time to check out the new series Hardcore Pawn on True TV. We managed about 20 minutes of the half hour episode and changed channels. It’s obviously an attempt to cash in on the popularity of A&E’s Pawn Stars, but we both felt that it pretty much sucked. We won’t waste any time on it.

Thought For The Day – If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.

We got a rude awakening yesterday when we got the keys to the building here at Elkhart Campground where we plan to have our vendor booths, seminars, and evening entertainment. We have outgrown it before our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally even starts! 

As soon as Terry and I started measuring the big new room where we expected to put our vendors and hold the entertainment, we looked at each other and both said “oh oh!” There is no way we could even put all of the vendors in the room, let alone be able to cram in seating for 300+ people for the evening door prizes. We goofed, plain and simple. We overestimated the size of the building available to us, and underestimated the number of people who wanted to attend the rally.

We scratched our heads, then called our pal Greg White and had him come over and take a look. I didn’t really think Greg could build another building in twelve days, but I have seen him do some pretty remarkable things, so who knows?  He walked around for a while, paced off the length and width of the room, did some mathematical calculations in the air with his finger, then scratched his head, and said “Yep, you goofed!” I can always depend on Greg to cut right to the chase.  

Now what?

We can expand the vendor area into a second room, and we can make that work. But there’s still the matter of where to put all of those folks in the evening.

I’m nothing if not resourceful. As the old saying goes, I’ve done so much with so little for so long, that I can now do almost anything with absolutely nothing. We are arranging for a huge tent, which will be set up on the tennis courts in front of the rally building, and that will be the venue for the evening events. It’s not perfect, but as long as the weather cooperates, it will work.

Every time we hold a rally it’s a learning experience, especially when we hold one in a new location. And we’ve certainly learned a lot this time around!

If we ever hold a rally at an RV park again, and I’m not sure we ever will, we will just collect the rally fees, and have the campground handle all of the reservations. At this rally, we were supposed to collect all of the camping fees, and pay Elkhart Campground for each RV attending. But some people made their reservations directly through the campground, some booking a whole month, and it has resulted in a logistical nightmare.

Plus, because the campground is open to other folks during the rally, we have had a lot of people who are going to be here who want to attend the rally events, but can’t understand why they should pay the rally fee, since they’re here already. They don’t understand that it costs us a lot of money to put on an RV rally. Besides the facility rental, insurance, morning coffee and doughnuts, and now hundreds of dollars to rent a tent, there are the costs of printing rally seminar schedules, the door prizes we buy to give away, sound system rental, and a lot of other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. When I told a couple of the people that they would have to pay the rally fee, they were pretty upset. But this is a business, and we have to cover our costs, plain and simple.

Oh, I’m just venting. We’ll get it all worked out, and I’ll probably only have to sell two or three pints of blood to have enough fuel to get out of town. Like I said, it’s a learning experience.

The good news is that 99.99% of our rally attendees are fantastic people who are able to roll with the flow, and if we have to have the evening events in a tent, they’ll slap on the mosquito spray, carry over their chairs, and sit down and have a great time. As for that other .01 percent, well, they’ll do some learning too, right?

Bad Nick has been busy too, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled Out At Last. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – When you’re finally holding all the cards, why does everyone else decide to play chess?

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Back when we were doing the bus conversion thing, we knew several bus nuts who took their coaches to Mexico to have them painted. We never considered it, because even at bargain Mexican prices, we just didn’t feel comfortable taking our MCI into Mexico.

Yes, I know that a lot of RVers, even some of my blog readers, enjoy traveling in Mexico. and sing its praises. That’s fine for them, but it’s not our thing. I’ve seen some Mexican paint jobs that looked pretty good, but I’ve seen some really botched ones too.

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one this bad until yesterday, when we stopped in to visit with Michele Henry at Phoenix Commercial Paint. Michele told us that this Country Coach was painted in Mexico, and by the time its owner was back across the border, the paint was blistering and peeling on the bumper.

Soon afterward, the gel coat on the rear cap started bleeding through. All because of a lack of good preparation before they started painting, and shoddy workmanship.

So yes, the owner saved some money by going south of the border to get his coach painted. But like most things in life, you get what you pay for. With the great work Michele and her crew do, for so much less than what other shops charge, I don’t know why anyone would drive all the way to Mexico and take a chance on getting  a paint job like this instead.

Here is one of Michele’s employees buffing a motorhome she is finishing up on. Now that’s a good looking paint job! We keep saving our pennies, and one of these days we may be able to have Michele work her magic on our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage.

Yesterday we dropped off the new issue of the Gypsy Journal at our printer in Allegan, Michigan, and since Greg and Jan White had never been up in that area, they went with us. Jan really liked all of the pretty country scenery and small towns we passed through along the way.

When we left the printer, we drove to Portage, Michigan to have lunch, and browsed in a couple of stores; Gander Mountain for Greg and I, Bed, Bath and Beyond for Miss Terry and Jan, and Barnes and Noble for all of us.

Back at Elkhart Campground, I caught up on e-mail, and checked some of the RV blogs I try to read on a regular basis, then went for a walk around the campground. Or at least I tried to go for a walk.

First I noticed a couple trying to get a small refrigerator into their fifth wheel, and I stopped to give them a hand. Once we had it inside, I resumed my walk, and was stopped by a couple who wanted to talk about their frustrating attempts to have the husband teach the wife how to drive their RV. They both agreed that it wasn’t working, and I strongly suggested that they go talk to Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School. Some couples just don’t seem to be able to work together on things like that, and though the husband didn’t want to spend the money on a driving lesson (which is a great investment, in my opinion), I told him that it was a lot cheaper than a divorce!

I didn’t make it far before another couple called me over to their awning to ask about the seminars at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. They didn’t have internet access to check the schedule at the bottom of the Rally Registration Page on our website, so I tried to remember all of the seminars we have scheduled. But with some 60 different seminars, I couldn’t remember each and every one. They wanted to know about as many as I could remember off the top of my head, and they asked a lot of questions about several of the seminars. I told them that I’d have the finished schedules printed up ahead of time, so they would have time to decide which ones they wanted to attend. Then the husband said, “Oh, we won’t be here. We’re headed for Pennsylvania in a couple of days, and then we’re going to New England to watch the leaves changing. We just wanted to know what we’d be missing.” Huh? I’m straining my brain and slapping bloodthirsty skeeters just so they could do some mental window shopping? I bit my tongue, and wished them a safe trip.

We’ve got a lot to do in the next few days, including picking up the new issue from the printer on Thursday, stuffing all of the envelopes and getting them mailed off,  proofing the design for the rally T-shirts, deciding on the layout of the vendor building, and a lot more. And I’ll probably need a nap or two somewhere along the way!

Thought For The Day – If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

Yesterday we wrapped up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, our 68th issue. That’s a lot of travel stories!

Today we will take it to our printer in Michigan, and they will give everything a once over, print it on Wednesday afternoon, and we’ll pick it up Thursday morning. But we’re not done yet, we still have to stuff all of the envelopes and get everything in the mail. And when we get that all done, we still have an RV rally to put on!

My buddy Greg White hasn’t been sitting on his duff either! Yesterday he started calling on local businesses, collecting door prizes for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. There is no way we could hold a rally without all of our hardworking volunteers, and we really appreciate them!

While Miss Terry was doing the final proofing for the new issue yesterday, our pals Bob and Molly Pinner, and Mark and Dortha Hall stopped in to say hello. Bob and Molly are busy working on the upcoming Escapees RV Club Escapade rally, which will be held in Goshen, Indiana, a couple of weeks after our event. This is a learning experience for Bob and Molly, who will be the directors of next year’s Escapade, and we know that they will do a great job.

The weather has cooled off very nicely here in Elkhart. It was pretty hot the last week, but a cooler trend is starting, and yesterday it was very nice. I went for a little walk around the campground just before dark, or at least I tried to. But I ran into Dennis Hill from the RV Driving School and a whole crowd of other ne’er-do-wells that included Denny Orr, Mark Hall, Frank Hinman, Bob Pinner, and some other folks who I tried not be be recognized associating with in public.

They obviously needed adult supervision, so I hung around for a while, and I’m not sure if that didn’t just add to the problem! Finally the neighbors got tired of listening to us, so they sent out a horde of mosquitoes with orders to either chase us off or eat us alive. When I left at a trot, I think I saw them circling Frank for the kill, but by then it was every man for himself! 

There are already a lot of folks here for the rally, and more seem to be arriving every day.  We hope to have some time to visit with everybody before the rally starts.

Somebody who was looking at the rally seminar schedule on our website said that we have too many seminars, and it makes it hard to decide which ones to attend, or to have any downtime to relax and socialize.  When it comes to seminars at an RV rally, we believe that more is better, and we work hard to have plenty of choices for everybody. But we don’t take attendance at the seminars, so if you want to just hang out at one of the tables we’ll have set up just for visiting with your friends, that’s fine too.  Some people come to an RV rally to learn, and others come to see their old friends and make new ones. Whatever makes you happy.

We have had feedback comments that we should repeat the seminars at least twice at every rally, so if somebody misses one, they can catch it the second time around. But that would drastically cut down on the number and variety of seminars we could offer. There’s an old saying that says “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Our rallies keep on growing, and people keep coming back year after year, so I guess we must be doing something right.

Thought For The Day – The past is the past. Leave it there.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!