Do you remember that famous line? It made actress Bea Arthur a star in the old 1970s sitcom Maude, and in its time, it was as common as Archie Bunker’s “Stifle” order to his wife, or “Sit on it” from Happy Days.
Well, in yesterday’s blog I wrote about how I was gloating to my cousin Berni Frees back in Michigan about our pretty blue sky, and how nice the weather is here in Apache Junction, Arizona. Guess what? Yesterday evening God put on a beauty lightshow, as streaks of lighting illuminated the mountains, and thunder rumbled across the Valley of the Sun, followed by rain! It was just God’s way of reminding me who’s in charge. Okay Big Guy, I get the message!
We had a real treat yesterday. We spent some time visiting with two of our favorite RVing friends, Ed and Alice Allard, at their park model in Sunrise RV Resort, a couple of miles from our place.
We have known Ed and Alice since very early in our fulltiming days, and we have run into them at RV parks, rallies, and all kinds of places, in every corner of the country. Some of these encounters have been planned, and other times fate has just put us in the same place at the same time. When this happens, it’s never hard to spot my buddy Ed, since he’s about seven feet tall (okay six feet eleven inches, but let’s not quibble).
And we’ve had some near misses too. One time we pulled in Country Roads RV Park in Lake Delton, Wisconsin, only to learn that Ed and Alice had left not more than a half hour before our arrival. Another time, we were northbound on U.S. Highway 31, headed toward Fisherman’s Landing RV park in Muskegon, Michigan, and our cell phone rang. It was Ed and Alice, who had just passed us going in the opposite direction. They had left Fisherman’s Landing, and were headed to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana, which we had left a couple of hours earlier! Serendipity, my friends.
I wrote in a blog a while back that we sure missed our Olympian Wave 8 catalytic heater, which we left in our bus conversion for the new owner, and Ed had e-mailed me to say that they had an Olympian Wave 6 that they no longer used, and we were welcome to it. What a wonderful gift! Thanks Ed and Alice!
After we left Ed and Alice, we stopped at some local RV parks to drop off sample bundles of the Gypsy Journal. Or at least we tried to. The problem in Apache Junction and east Mesa, as in a lot of snowbird locations, is that what they call RV parks usually have about 75% park model trailers, with just a handful of RV sites. We’ve been at this a long, long time, and we know our potential market. Folks in park models are not usually into traveling as much as our reader base is, and we get very few subscribers from places like that.
We did drop off a couple of bundles, but by then it was getting late in the day, and Terry’s mom called to say that our bedroom day/night shades had been delivered, so we headed to her parents’ house to pick them up. They were the last remaining things we needed to complete the insurance claim from our burglary and vandalism. We’ve never installed day/night shades, but the folks at the RV repair shop that did the rest of our work told Miss Terry that they are easy to replace, and she, as always, is confident that she can handle the task. I’m the eye candy, all I have to do is stand around and look pretty while she does the work.
Thought For The Day – Have you noticed that they are making adults much younger these days?
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Hang in there Nick I know how hard it is to have to look good all the time, Maybe you could hold the bag of screws.
Closed on our house last night and will move into our bus on the 28th and begin our fulltime adventure. We retire on 08-31-10 (229 days)
C U DN the Road
LRW
Adults much younger? Ay, mate, they are!
Nick,
You 2 were easy to see with your bus, however, its a another ball game now!!
How about a PINK racing stripe all the way around that Winnie ???
Keep up the good work–we are enjoying it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I installed the day/night shades in our bus and it wasn’t that hard to do….i am sure Miss Terry will be able to handle it. :>)
We noticed also that while in Apache Junction that most of the RV parks had mostly park models. However, the park we stayed in, Shiprock Park was all RVs, except the owner had brought in a couple of park models just for display. It is not a very big park, only about 100 sites, but was scheduled to be full by the end of January.
Thanks again for having an informative and interesting blog.
Paul
Maybe you can stand back and take pictures to show us how it is done.
Hope you stopped at Meridian RV Resort in AJ! Meridian and Shiprock are the only two who have only RVs…no park models…and there are a slew of fulltimers who have never heard of Gypsy Journal. We’ve been spreading the word but you could do much better. Our Activities Director, George, is putting together the February calendar and one of your seminars sure would be a great addition!