Family & Friends: April 2008
By Ben Bryer, F298847
Thirty members of the Carolina Ramblers chapter gathered at the Burlington, North Carolina, family business of Bob and JoAnn Hahn October 26 through 28, 2007, for a different kind of chapter rally. At this event, motorhome drivers and their significant others “” better known as the copilots “” traded seats in the cockpit, giving copilots an opportunity to learn how to maneuver their coaches.
After everyone got their motorhomes parked on Friday evening, we dined and heard about the driving activities planned for Saturday. We also had an opportunity to drive our coaches over an open service pit area to inspect the underside for repairs, lubrication, and general observation.
Most of the copilots had taken the “RV Driving Safety Program,” a “classroom” course presented at area rallies or FMCA international conventions. However, they had not actually driven a motorhome.
Bob Clark, Bob Hahn, and Fred Yezek were in charge of setting up the driving course. After our Saturday morning meal we gathered for a meeting to learn what was expected of the new motorhome drivers. First-time drivers could pick a copilot (it could be a significant other or someone else) for their first driving experience. They were told, jokingly, that each pilot who was not picked as a copilot (mostly husbands) would be locked in a nearby building that did not have any windows.
As it turned out, each new pilot picked significant others to be their copilots, which came as a surprise to many of us. A good supply of pain remedies was available for those who may have needed them.
During the meeting, concerned looks appeared on many of the new drivers’ faces. Once the course was explained and each driver was given instructions, they got into their driver’s seats, buckled their seat belts, put the motorhome in “Drive,” and away they went. What a sight it was to see.
At any one time there were 12 to 14 coaches driving forward, backward, parking, and leaving the area to maneuver the nearby interstate. We are very happy to report that not one incident or mishap occurred. After a few moments of nervousness at the beginning, they were driving like experts with years of experience.
We are still trying to wipe the smiles off of some of the new pilots’ faces. There were many relieved smiles on the new copilots’ (husbands’) faces, too. All of the new drivers did a great job. Now if they have to drive the coach in an emergency, they will be able to do so.
Needless to say, there was much discussion among the new driving teams during dinner that Saturday night. The room was filled with talking and laughter, with each new pilot discussing their experience with others at the table.
For many of these first-time drivers, it was what they really wanted to do but until this rally just hadn’t known how to make the commitment. We are very proud of our Carolina Rambler copilots for a job well done.
A big “thank you” goes out to our hosts and co-wagon masters for the weekend, Bob and JoAnn Hahn, who allowed the use of their facilities. Sharing the co-wagon master duties for the weekend were Wilma and Don Coram and Fred and Kathy Yezek.
The Carolina Ramblers suggest that other chapters plan a rally to do the same thing with their copilots. We are fortunate to have had this opportunity, and we all appreciate it. We all had such a great time.
Nick and Terry Russell’s Gypsy Life
By Pamela Selbert
Nick Russell smiled as he recalled the day years ago when, fresh out of journalism school and applying for a job, he was told by an Ohio newspaper editor that he would never live to see his byline in print. Fortunately for him, things worked out differently, and his name has appeared above numerous articles and on the cover of six books. But in that long-ago moment, he said, he could see his life’s dream “going down in flames.”
Nick, now 55, grew up in Arizona and Texas along the Mexico border, where his father had been a mounted officer with the Border Patrol. Consequently, the family often moved from town to town.
“I was always the new kid at school, which was hard,” he said. “It turned me on to books and reading.”
It also convinced him that his future lay in writing books, not just reading them. Nick acquired much of his schooling while in the military, he said. He served in Vietnam and was a firearms instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point upon his return stateside. As we chatted, Terry, his wife of 10 years, brought out a photo from the 1970s showing a very buff young soldier. Upon seeing the photo, Nick grinned, saying, “As you can see, I was a few pounds slimmer then.”
After finishing his military time in 1974, Nick moved back to Toledo, Ohio, where his father, by then retired from the Border Patrol, was a police officer. It was during this time that he was told he would never be a writer, so he decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a cop.
“I tried it, and I was miserable,” he said. “That’s when my dad told me to go live my own life; be the writer I’d always wanted to be.”
Nick moved out West and began attending the University of Arizona to finish his journalism degree.
After moving back to Arizona, where he said he always knew he would return, Nick worked for a time as a criminal investigator in the attorney general’s office. Later, while living in Washington and Oregon, he developed a handful of free “weekly shopper” papers and small-town weekly newspapers, then again returned to Arizona, this time starting a community newspaper in Show Low, a quintessentially Western town perched atop the Mogollon Rim near the eastern edge of the state. Before long the paper’s circulation had reached 15,000. By this time Nick’s bylines had piled up. Fortunately, his father, who Nick said was always his champion, got to see his son’s first byline just a week before he died.
As a full-time motorhomer for the past eight years, Nick has written several RV-related how-to books. He and Terry publish a popular bimonthly tabloid newspaper called The Gypsy Journal, which is full of the couple’s off-the-beaten-path travel adventures, along with a Web site, www.gypsyjournal.net.
Nick and Terry currently publish the paper and Web site from their 1976 MCI bus conversion, which once was used by Grayline Tours.
The 40-foot coach, which is equipped with a Detroit Diesel engine, is still a work in progress, but quite an impressive one. Every square inch is carefully orchestrated for the best possible use of space. “We found the bus online, then went to Petal, Mississippi, to buy it,” Nick said. “We gutted it, and then I did the plumbing and electrical work while Terry made the cabinets, bookshelves, and floors.”
Nick calls Terry “the handy one” for good reason. She is a licensed glass contractor. She moved to the mountains of Show Low in 1981 with her four children and became the working manager at a commercial glass company there. Nick noted with pride that she was particularly adept at putting windshields in trucks, “better than most men could do it.”
The couple met when she placed her company’s ad in Nick’s White Mountain Weekly newspaper. Both were divorced at the time, but Terry still wore her wedding ring since she wasn’t interested in getting involved with anyone. Nick didn’t know she was single.
For his part, Nick said he had “been married twice and shot down twice, and you can get over being shot much easier,” and he vowed he’d never marry again. But that was before the day at the newspaper office when Terry overheard him lament the closing of a local bakery, because he was hungry for a brownie. She baked him a batch that night “” and several more during the following weeks, which eventually led him to ask about her husband. When he learned she was single, Nick invited her to dinner, after which they talked until dawn.
Their second date was at a local festival where, to raise money for charity, Nick had agreed to be the “dunkee” in a dunking tank. “For three hours I kept crawling back up on the platform after getting dunked in 52-degree water,” he said. “I looked like a blue Smurf afterwards, but had raised $3,000.”
That convinced Terry he was the man for her, and they’ve been together ever since. “He was such a good sport,” she said. “And in addition to being intelligent and a writer, he’s quite humorous “” he makes me laugh.” The two were married in 1998.
Soon after their marriage, Nick was involved in an auto accident that put him in bed for six weeks. Between that and a heart attack he’d suffered in 1986, he said health problems served as a wake-up call, telling him that the 80-hour work weeks he and Terry were putting in might not be the best way to spend their time.
“Life is short, and even if you die with the most toys, you’re still dead,” said Nick. “And all the money in the world won’t bring back lost time.”
So they began to talk about full-time motorhoming, and in 1998 they bought a 36-foot Pace Arrow Vision.
“Our plan was to hit the road and let my employees run the paper,” Nick said. “But things began to go awry, and we realized if we wanted to be free to travel we had to cut the strings.” So, he sold the paper.
“Then at the last minute I got cold feet,” Terry said. “I wasn’t sure that lifestyle was right for me.”
Grinning, Nick said, “I told her I was leaving June 1st [1999], whether she came along or not.” But Terry is a self-confessed “vagabond,” having grown up as the daughter of an Air Force officer. Of course, she did join Nick, and the Russells soon joined FMCA.
Eighteen months into the venture, Terry fell ill and was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer. The couple spent three months in Traverse City, Michigan, while she underwent treatment. Now cancer-free, she still goes back for annual checkups.
In 2001 the couple replaced the Pace Arrow with the bus they now own.
Nick came up with the idea of publishing The Gypsy Journal newspaper before they even hit the road. It would be “something fun, covering back-road travels, historical sites, oddball museums “” we’re both history nuts,” he said. The paper, which now has 10,000 subscribers and a 90 percent renewal rate, is published six times a year.
In addition, in 2003 Nick began teaching classes at Life on Wheels conferences, educational programs for RVers. He teaches courses with titles such as “The Frugal RVer,” “Work Your Way Across the U.S.A.,” “Meandering Down the Highway,” “RVing with a Goal,” “Be A Smart RV Shopper,” and “Highway History and Back Road Mystery.”
The Russells also make time to attend as many FMCA conventions as possible, and during their eight years of full-timing have participated in many gatherings. They also run their own events, called Gypsy Gathering rallies.
Both wholeheartedly agree that the motorhoming lifestyle has worked out well for them.
“I like the freedom,” Nick said. “And with the paper and the perks it provides, we do things for a living that others do for a vacation.”
“I like the more defined friendships that you strike up with other motorhomers,” said Terry. “They really are more like family than just acquaintances.”
Nick added, “We’re proof that it’s a great way to live “” and not only for retirees.”
To learn more about the Russells’ newspaper, Web site, rallies, and RVing books, go to www.gypsyjournal.net. Or e-mail them at editor@gypsyjournal.net.