It’s time for an RV rally, those events that are a combination of party, education, party, trade show, party, information sharing and, did I mention that RV’ers like to have a good time and party? Just about every RV group has a rally of some kind during the year. We’ve been to large international rallies (international because 3 Canadian RV’s came) and we’ve been to smaller more intimate rallies. Our first experience with RV’s, even before we had bought an RV was with a group called Life on Wheels. This was not really a rally but it had many of the same aspects. They held a 3-day series of seminars on the RV lifestyle in Ankeny, IA back in 2007. It was one of the best introductions to RV’ing that I’ve heard of. Unfortunately, the owner of the company which put these seminars on died and with him went RV 101.
Last year we traded in for a Winnebago Journey, joined the Winnebago / Itasca Club and sent in our money for their 2013 rally. Gary and I don’t do rallies often but we do enjoy going to a rally every now and then to learn new things, buy RV specific products and meet people who share our lifestyle. Since we have a Winnebago RV, we thought we’d come to the annual Winnebago rally. We also mentioned to Cathy and Tom, who just bought a new Winnebago View, that they might like to come to learn all about it and talk to others who have the same RV.
Rallies are:
part learning experience - bring your note pads and pens on such topics as: Allison transmissions, toilet care, cooking in a microwave/convection oven, Digital cameras, Michelin tires. You don't think these sound exciting? Well, I’ll agree, they don't 'sound' exciting. However, and this is a big ‘however’, they are great learning experiences. Here you can talk with the people who build and repair Allison transmissions, which we have in our RV, and ask any questions you have. Here you can find all about how to keep your tanks clean, how to get love bugs off your windshield with a minimum of effort, how to get 10 years out of your Michelin tires, etc. Among others, Gary and I went to a seminar given by Bob Livingston who writes about RV care and tech issues for Motorhome Magazine. A 2-hour seminar just crammed with ideas.
part entertainment - big acts every night, small acts during the day.
part social hour - if you think happy hour is only at 5:00, you haven’t been to a rally. And, food, food food. Above is the Iowa section. Under the tent is the line for the food and in front are the prizes that we could buy tickets for. The prizes were donated and the money went for to charity. I put all of my money into the $50 Casey's coupon. Did I win? Need you ask? Nope.
part meeting new people - the people next to you in the campground, the person sitting next to you in the seminar, the person eating ice cream at the same time as you, the person standing next to you in the parts store. All of these people share our lifestyle and have adventures to relate and information to share. Gary met Bob one night when he went out to see what all the commotion was. The rally provides electricity to us but we do not have individual water hook-ups. Some rigs have been here for longer than we have and others have smaller water tanks. Here’s one way to get more water: hook up 6 or 7 hoses to the water faucet and string these hoses through the RV’s.
part store - where you can see what is available for RV’s and shop til you drop - or your wallet screams in pain. New products (we checked out a new kind of window treatment), replacement products (we replaced our tire monitoring system and our tow bar), fun products (my brother and sister in law bought a flag pole and 2 flags) and repair products (enough said).
The rally is being held in Forest City, IA, natch, and so, yesterday we convoyed up with Cathy and Tom arriving about 1:00. Here we met about 2000 or 3000 of our new best friends and waited in line with them for our campsite. It was an orderly process but there were lots of RV’s here. Above is a picture of the rally grounds. You can very definitely see Tom and Cathy, they are in the small RV to the left of the road going down the middle, on the right end of the front row. Tom says they look like the period at the end of a long sentence. Their view is of the trees in front of them and the green hills in back. Us, we’re way towards the back, to the left and in front of the red barn which is on the right of the middle road. See us? Yeah, right. Our view was of the hind end of the RV parked in front of us.
From our spot to theirs is 1/3 mile. How do I know? We walked it enough times to earn an ice cream or two. And, about that ice cream - it is from Scoopy Doo’s which is a store in downtown Forest City. We knew about Scoopy Doo’s before we came to the rally since we had stopped here after we had taken the Winnebago factory tour last summer with some friends. And, the ice cream is just as good as then.
Here is an RV in the classic Winnebago row. It is a 1975 21’ RV. Looks like it’s in great condition.
Monday we were in seminars just about all day and the same on Tuesday. Oh, yeah, we did meet for lunch but other than that, we saw each other only in passing.
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