Geeks on Tour Blog

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Goshen, Indiana

Anybody here a fan of Firesign Theatre? It's actually one of the things that got me and Jim together way back when. We both knew the lines and would repeat them in unison:

"How long since we left Goshen?"

If you go to RV rallies much, you end up in Goshen sooner or later. One year we spent a couple of months there, attending rally after rally. Why? Goshen is right next to Elkhart, Indiana and the whole area is where many RV manufacturers are located. It is the RV capital of the world. The Elkhart county fairgrounds are in Goshen and provide plenty of parking, display, and meeting rooms for rallies. And ... lots of railroads and trains. It's just not a campground without the whistle of trains passing by, and Goshen has them aplenty.

We were there for the Discovery Owners RV Club.

We thought our clocks must be wrong since these were the only people there when it came time to start our Google Photos seminar. We are accustomed to 100 or more people. I think the rest decided to go golfing?! So, Jim got in the picture twice to make it look like more! :-)

My favorite thing is helping people with their phones, one-on-one.

The view from our booth in the vendor hall.

A wonderful thing about attending rallies is the entertainment. We try to take advantage and attend whenever we can. The Singer/Guitarist called Bat was spectacular. One guy with a 12 string guitar, a great singer and fantastic entertainer. Check out his website and and book him for your even if he's anywhere in the area.

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Thursday, September 13, 2018

Our YouTube studio in the back of our van

GeeksOnTourTV is an active YouTube channel. We have a video podcast called What Does This Button Do? We call it a weekly show. We don't always do a new show every week, but at least twice each month we produce a 45 minute educational show. It includes live video, screenshare and closeups on phones.

When we're on the road, we produce the show from the back of our Van. Our "Van" is a fully equipped Roadtrek 210 RV. It's 21 feet long and the back is normally our bedroom. To convert it into our YouTube studio, we need to:

Remove the bedding
Convert the bed to a couch
Put up the table
Add computers, cameras, and lights

Here's a little video documenting the process:

And, here's the show we did from that location:

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Sunday, September 09, 2018

Have I told you how much we like Walmart?

They're no dummies! When you use Walmart's parking lot for your campsite overnight, you're bound to go shopping. We park overnight at Walmarts all the time and we've always spent money shopping there.
There's always a Walmart. When we're on the road and just getting from point A to point B, it's very comforting to know that we'll always be able to find a place to park along the way. We use the Allstays Camp & RV app, or the website Allstays.com to find the Walmarts that allow overnight parking.

Walmarts are a convenient place to park, when you're not in a "camping" mood, you just need a place to park and sleep.

Walmarts are familiar, you know it's OK to park there, you usually see one or two other RVs there. You can almost always find a level spot. There are lights overnight, there are some security vehicles that occasionally patrol, you can come or go at any time, and - if there's anything you need it's right there.
Thank you Walmart for making lengthy travel less stressful.

Cracker Barrel

Another of our favorites for a stop-along-the-highway is Cracker Barrel. Nice parking lot, some lights, usually pretty quiet, and you get dinner AND breakfast! Allstays.com also shows us all the Cracker Barrels.

We stayed in Walmarts and Cracker Barrels with our big RV as well as our current little RV. Whatever type of RV we had, what we don't do is set up camp. Walmart or Cracker Barrel are NOT campgrounds, they are overnight parking. Do not get out your camp chairs. Do not set up your grill. Do not put your jacks down on the asphalt and do not put out your slides. You should be able to drive away with only needing to open the curtains on your front windshield.
When I see the jacks down on a big rig in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel lot, I am so tempted to go knock on their door and tell them they are being very disrespectful. Those jacks can actually damage the asphalt. The parking lot was not designed for this use. These RVers can ruin it for the rest of us. Their actions have caused some stores to say, "No more." No more overnight parking allowed for anyone because of the actions of a few.

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Friday, September 07, 2018

Deja Vu - Springfield, Illinois Fairgrounds

In June we had a rally in Sedalia, Missouri, then traveled to the next one in Allegan, Michigan. That took us right thru Springfield, Illinois where there's a very nice campground at the fairgrounds. In September, after having flown to the Caribbean and back, driven to Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma, we found ourselves right back on that same route. So we stayed in the same campground.

In June, we stayed several days, did tourist things, and produced one of our YouTube shows. This time it was just 2 nights. We got the exact same site as last time, can you see why? Hint: look in the sky.

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Wednesday, September 05, 2018

Tulsa, Oklahoma

When we completed the Safari rally in Shawnee, it was the beginning of September and we were on part two of our summer tour. The next rally was in Goshen, Indiana and we had 9 days to travel the 900 miles to get there, so we weren't in any hurry.
Here' the map from our RVParky plan-Summer Tour Part II. How do we make this plan? See my article about planning road trips.

Summer Tour part 2, as planned with RVParky.com

If you read that article, you'll see that we also like to use Allstays.com to find places to stay - especially Elks lodges - and Roadtrippers.com to find interesting things to see and do.
With all those tools at our disposal, we decided to just travel 100 miles after leaving Shawnee and go to Tulsa, OK. There was an Elks Lodge with electric hookups for us to stay, and an Aquarium to go visit.

What we hadn't planned on was Jim feeling ill. We think it had to do with the corn on the cob he ate at Chili's the day we arrived in Tulsa, but we really have no idea. And, it was an ill-feeling that he's never experienced before. He just stopped eating. He wasn't exactly nauseous, but he just had a total loss of appetite. The really weird part was he got claustrophobic - he simply couldn't be inside the RV! He had to go outside, he was restless. He got up in the morning - made coffee - then went outside and sat in a chair, or went for a walk. This is a problem! How does eating something bad affect your brain? What else could it be? When the feeling didn't go away after 2 days, I started looking for a health clinic. We were in luck! Within a few miles of the Elks lodge was St. Francis medical center, including a walkin clinic. They were fast, efficient, and had all the equipment to perform blood tests and ekg's right there. They couldn't find anything wrong with him. That put our minds at ease, and we went about our lives. Within another couple days, he was fine.