If you are a subscriber to the digital edition of the Gypsy Journal, check your e-mail inbox, because you’ve got mail. We finished the new edition yesterday, and late yesterday evening I sent out the link to all of our subscribers.
I think our readers are really going to like this issue. In addition to our regular columns, letters from our readers, and some of Miss Terry’s recipes, we will take readers on a visit to the last surviving antebellum plantation home in South Florida and tell you the story of a daring escape in the final days of the Civil War. Then you will learn about a young boy’s grave in the middle of a residential street and how it got there. If you are lighthouse fans like us, I know you’ll appreciate our story on Florida’s tallest lighthouse. Or maybe miles of unspoiled beaches are your thing. No problem, come along as we visit the beautiful Canaveral National Seashore. And history buffs will like our story about a visit to an old Spanish fort and the tale of not one, but two gruesome massacres that preceded it.
About the time I was finishing the last of the corrections from Terry’s proofreading, our friend Chris Yust called to tell us that she and hubby Charles were in Elkhart, along with Wallace and Wanda Lewis, longtime Escapees RV Club friends. They were all going to King Wa, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and Chris was calling to ask if we wanted to join them. Well, yeah!
We got hugs from Helen, the owner, the food was delicious as always, and the six of us had a great time visiting while we ate. Can you think of a better way to spend some time? I know I can’t.
There’s been an ongoing thread on a couple of Facebook RV groups about whether or not it is okay to put down your RV’s leveling jacks when you are parked on an asphalt parking lot at a business overnight. We never do that. We also never extend out our slide rooms if we can avoid it. And if you are going to put jacks down, please, please, please use jack pads or something underneath them. Square pieces of plywood work just fine.
If you don’t, this can be the result. Isn’t that a nice way to thank an RV friendly business for their courtesy in allowing you to park overnight?
Folks, WalMarts, truck stops, and other RV friendly businesses that allow us to dry camp in their parking lots overnight are not campgrounds. Arrive late, ask for permission, park on the far outside edges of the lot, and if you must run a bedroom slide out, do it over the grass edge of the parking lot. We’ve seen some real slobs over the years, and we’ve seen a lot of places that once allowed RVers to spend the night stop the practice. Yes, sometimes it’s because of local ordinances, which are often put in place due to complaints by area campground managers. But we’ve also known more than a few businesses who no longer allow RVers to park overnight because of abuses by these mobile “guests.”
Congratulations Miami Krieger, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of Birdsongs, the first book in my friend Jason Deas’ excellent Benny James mystery series. We had 77 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon!
Thought For The Day – It is our choices that show what we truly are far more than our abilities. – J. K Rowling
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Nick Russell
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