Gypsy Journal Rally, Case Grande, Arizona

I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long for an update. We have been busy. Last Monday we left Mesa and traveled 75 miles down the road to Casa Grande, more specifically the Pinal County Fairgrounds, site of the Gypsy Journal Rally. Nick and Terry Russell, who write the Gypsy Journal newspaper, sponsored this event.

I love rallies. . . like-minded people all meeting together and visiting and attending workshops/seminars all devoted to helping us live better on the road. We met new people and renewed old friendships. A lot of the members of the Class of 2005 were in attendance, so we got to see them all again.

I must say, though, I only made it to breakfast (donuts and coffee) once. Getting up and being there at 7 a.m. was too much like having a JOB! Who needs that? So I skipped that, fixed my own, and attended other sessions as I wished.

The most fun we had was watching the movie "RV" together in the big hall. All of us RV'ers together watching this movie. We laughed so hard. We had seen it before, but there is something about watching that movie with other people who identify so much with the little things only RV'ers would find funny. It was such a great time.

On one trip to Coolidge, Arizona, to get our mail, we toured the Casa Grande Ruins. These dwellings of Indians were inhabited around 1300 and were gone by the time the first Spanish arrived. It is a rather large area, with only a few remaining ruins, but the park service has built borders to identify where structures were. In addition, there were some mounds and a “ball field” that have survived unmolested for these centuries.

We were joined at the rally by our friend, Dave and his dogs, Max and Jazzbo. Dave lost his wife last year, so we were glad to see him out. We certainly enjoyed Max’s frisbee catching. Max is a border collie extraordinaire. He is amazing. It seems he understands everything Dave tells him. He gets his own toys out of the motorhome and knows the difference between his ball and his frisbee. He never tires of frisbee catching and his concentration is amazing. . . course border collies are known for this. Jazzbo, Dave’s other dog, is an elderly gentleman who loves to be loved and stands attentively while Max runs after his toys. Jazzbo used to enjoy his ball, but arthritis is bothering him, but like our Neal, he doesn’t complain. . . just moves slowly. He is a sweetie.

We ended the last night by a large group of us going to Cold Stone Creamery and getting ice cream. The business had included in our rally packet a "buy one, get one free" coupon and we weren't going to let it go to waste. We had a bit of a wait, but we all got our ice cream. The kids working at the creamery sang and goofed off a bit while making our sundaes. They were really sweet and seemed to be having a lot of fun all the time they were working hard.

The weather at the rally was atypical again for this time of year. We had blowing sand one day, a freak windstorm another night, rain, cold, and heat. That about sums it up. Whew. The best weather was today when we left.

Oh almost forgot. Last year we had a Datastorm installed at Escapade, but it was never configured correctly and we have had more and more trouble with it. Just so happens that Bill Adams, Datastorm guru, was at our rally. He came over and worked on our system and I am happy to say we haven’t locked up once since then. Everything is working well and we are grateful he had time to help us! It is working like it's supposed to now.

Till next time. . .

Dale