Rick Lang from Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) called me yesterday morning to tell me that he and Joyce plan to be on hand at Elkhart Campground on August 29th to greet anybody arriving early for our Gypsy Gathering Rally so they can weigh their RVs if they want it done.
If you have not had your rig weighed before, or if it’s been a while, you should seriously consider having it done. The RVSEF crew are specially trained to weigh RVs, which is not the same as pulling onto a truck scale somewhere and calling it good. Rick and Joyce weigh each axle individually and you get a report that tells you not only your RV’s total weight, but also if you are too heavy on any corner of your RV. This is important information to know, and will help you adjust your load for the safest ride and longer tire life.
Speaking of RVSEF, there is still time to sign up for their excellent RV Lifestyle, Education and Safety Conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky June 3-6. This is your opportunity to learn about RV technical issues and lifestyle experiences from some of the top experts in the industry. You can find out more about this great program at the RVSEF website.
I also got a call from Too Crazy Ladies yesterday, confirming that they will be at our rally, making custom name badges for the attendees. Red and Beth are regular vendors at many RV events, and they have built up a huge following of loyal customers over the years.
I have had a lot of people asking if Elkhart Campground has WiFi service available. Yes they do, and it’s free, so you will be able to get online and surf the internet to your heart’s content.
There has been some confusion about the rally dates. The rally starts with RV parking, registration, and welcome on Monday, August 30th, and ends with hitch up coffee and donuts Friday morning, September 3rd. The rally fee covers camping Monday through Thursday night, but if you want to arrive early or stay later, Bob and Gita at Elkhart Campground assure me they will have plenty of room.
Terry and I plan to arrive in Elkhart about the first of August, so we can get all of the pre-rally work done. Then we’ll hang around for a few days afterwards, before we leave for Hershey, Pennsylvania, where we will be vendors and I will be speaking at the Pennsylvania Recreational Vehicle Show September 15 – 19. We won’t be able to make it to the Escapees 50th Escapade, which is September 12 – 17 in Goshen, Indiana. We’ll miss being with our Escapees family, but the Hershey show drew over 37,000 attendees last year, and we can’t miss the opportunity to introduce the Gypsy Journal to so many RVers who have never seen it before.
I have to say a belated Happy Birthday to my son-in-law, Jim Robinson, who turned 29 yesterday. Jim’s a fine young man, and yesterday we took him and Tiffany and the girls out to dinner to celebrate his special day. Of course, somebody let it slip to the waitress that it was Jim’s birthday, and they did the typical thing where several of the waitresses bring out a cupcake with a candle on it and everybody sang Happy Birthday. Jim is a low profile kind of guy, so the rest of us had fun watching him squirm as the center of attention.
Hey Jim, it only goes faster from here on out.
Thought For The Day –Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Just wanted to tell you that we left Elkhart Campground Monday after a month there. We used their Wi-fi a lot. Since we were only there at night, we didn’t want to deploy the Datastorm daily. The Wi-fi worked great. We were in two different sites, 400 on the east side and 410 on the west side in the rally section. The Wi-fi worked great for us.
Dale
We’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to have the Langs weigh us several times. Even if you don’t have a new RV you might be surprised at how many things you’ve added or moved since your last weighing. It’s worth the cost to us to know we are driving as safely as possible and to be assured we aren’t wearing out one side of our RV. Even the slides work better when your RV is balanced.
Before our first outing in January 2009 we had our rig 4-corner weighed “fully-loaded” (?) and we were slightly out of balance. We moved things around and managed to pick-up an additional 675 lbs. of “stuff” during our first year. During the March GJ Rally, we had the rig weighed “all 4-corners” again, and we were almost perfectly balanced. 🙂 Loads on the back wheels were exactly equal and the front left side was only 25 lbs. heavier than the right. Overall, we are still 2,495 lb. below max. Today we removed a few unused items before we head out again. We’ll see how we are now because we’ll be at Henderson’s Line-up in Oregon next week and will be weighed once again. As RVers should know, the load measurements are important in setting your individual tire pressures.