The FMCA Rally is over and what a week it was, a very active
week in fact, filled with seminars, socializing, and entertainment. The entire experience was both exhilarating
and totally exhausting. My poor brain
was taxed to the max by the end of it all, but I am more educated about
coaches, how they function and their upkeep.
The cherry for me was meeting new friends and chatting with
different folks who shared their various RV-ing experiences. RV-ing is a chosen lifestyle, and without a
doubt, RV-ers are a friendly, fun-loving and helpful group. And many are an inspiration for as I
discovered, age is not a factor when it comes to continuing with this
lifestyle. There were surprisingly many
folks who were quite a bit older, more our parents’ age, and still traveling in
their RV’s. Others had disabilities but that did not prevent them from enjoying travel either.
To give you an idea of the scope of this rally, picture a
gigantic fairgrounds facility of over 500 acres, filled with approximately
1,300 coaches of attendees parked side by side in the expansive parking lots,
plus 300 more coaches of vendors and seminar leaders. Then picture several large buildings within
the campus where for four consecutive days, we RV-ers attended educational and
informational seminars from early morning until late afternoon. Picture too over 150 exhibitor booths showcasing
all the latest merchandise specific to RV’s, and another large section devoted
to showcasing the latest and newest in RV’s.
Now picture hundreds
of folks milling about like ants all over the campus, making their way
to the next seminar or to the booths to buy yet more gadgets and stuff for the
RV; folks on bicycles transporting themselves around the grounds; folks riding trams
and golf carts that whizzed around continuously between the parking lots and
the buildings. The entire campus was a beehive of activity
from early morning (starting off with donuts and coffee at 7AM) until late at
night after the evening's entertainment.
By the time we returned to our Alpine every evening, I was
exhausted from all the new information, the heat (it was in the high 80’s and low 90’s),
and from all the walking. We did however
get our exercise as it was a good ¾ mile walk from the Alpine to where the seminar
buildings were located, and we walked that path many times in a day.
The choices and selections of activities and seminars were
overwhelming for first-time attendees like us, all cataloged in a 96-page book listing
all the seminar topics, the different vendors, and nightly entertainment
schedule. There were also optional
sight-seeing tours available but for us the primary focus was to learn as much
as we could about the inner workings of our home on wheels, so we remained on
the campus the entire time. Perhaps next
time we will have more time to leave campus and be tourists.
It felt like I was in school again. Seminars began at 8 AM (far too early for
retirees, surely?), lasted about an hour and half, and continued into late
afternoon. The topics were many, covering information on all things technical, mechanical, and cosmetic regarding RV's as well as other topics of interest about touring, exercise, cooking and more.
On average there were 35 seminars per day, beginning
on Thursday and running through Sunday morning.
They all sounded interesting to us and it was sometimes difficult to
choose. When several technical topics
were offered at the same time, I was the backup for Michael, attending seminars
he could not, and learning more than I ever intended about tire pressure
issues, RV absorption refrigeration, or electrical systems. This coach is one complicated house and
vehicle rolled into one!
In between, as time allowed (and there was not much of it),
we visited the exhibitor booths, checking out the merchandise that is absolutely
necessary for coach owners! Let’s just
say that for Michael this was like being a kid in a candy store, as he selected
several “boy toys” like an electronic
tank gauge, a tire pressure monitoring system, a quick coupler for the water hose, special lubricant
for some important engine part, and the all-important scan gauge designed for
large RV’s . Christmas came early this
year.
We also purchased the correct fire detectors for RV’s after
attending two fire safety seminars, an important topic if you have 20 seconds
in which to exit a burning coach. There
are of course emergency exit windows in every coach, but it is also good
practice to have an escape route planned.
One of the fire safety seminars was hands on, and yours truly
volunteered to climb out an exit window, lowering myself onto Michael’s strong
and sturdy shoulders below. Coaches are
tall and exit windows are high off the ground.
In a house you have a lot more time and more exits to get out in case of
a fire. Living in an RV, we were
reminded, is a lot different from living in a house and time is a critical
factor. And fire drills are an important
consideration, in addition to being aware of where fires are more likely to
occur. The best motto is to be prepared.
A few other seminars we attended covered topics about RV refrigeration,
suspensions, towing, technology, microwave convection cooking (and yes, it
seems to be a little different in RV’s mostly because of voltage), full-timing,
tire care (a major investment), RV weight and tire safety, and RV electrical
systems. It is in fact surprising how
much there is to learn and understand about large RV’s, as we discovered first
hand this past winter when our inverter needed to be replaced (a great story
for another post).
Our Alpine group was mostly parked together and in the late
afternoon, we gathered for a social hour, pizza dinner and a pot luck. It was a great way to relax and share what we did that day. Then in the evening, we would
head off to the scheduled entertainment.
Western music singer Mary Kaye performed one evening, and Hermans’
Hermits the following night. Peter
Noone, who is 67, looked amazing. I didn’t
expect him to be so funny as he entertained us with various quips and stories, my favorite his droll account of how as a young and upcoming star he dreamed to one
day perform at the Fairplex in Pomona, Building 4, poking fun at all of us and
the venue.
Well, his "dream" came true as he entertained an
appreciative audience reliving, if only for a short spell, their youthfulness and
teenage years, belting out “I’m Henry the 8th I am…” and “Mrs Brown
you’ve got a lovely daughter..” amongst the many other hits of the time. He ended
the concert with my favorite, “There’s a kind of Hush…”, taking me back to my
bedroom in Johannesburg, listening to the very song on the radio. It was a terrific concert.
Another feature of rallies like this is that if you need
repair work done, there are usually folks who are on campus to do that. We watched the various service and repair trucks circling around
the parking lot area where we were all housed.
It gave us the opportunity to have our awning fixed. You may recall the windy adventure we had
driving through the Mohave last year on our way to Pismo when the gale-force
winds began to unfurl the awning. A knowledgeable and friendly young man fixed a gear that had finally
stripped. It saved us the bother and
trip to find an awning repair shop and the awning now unfurls and folds up smoothly again.
By Monday morning, the parking lot resembled more of a ghost
town as little by little, everyone moved off. Before heading out, we had an appointment to have our
coach weighed (it is after all every woman’s dream to be weighed!). Each tire was weighed independently to
calculate the correct tire pressure based on the heavier of the two tires on
that axle. The weight in RV’s is not
distributed evenly because of the location of slides, refrigerator and kitchen
cabinets and appliances. Correct tire
pressure is essential to preserve the life and longevity of the tires and avoid blow outs, and though we have weighed the Alpine at truck stops, it did not differentiate between individual tires.
And as the parking lots emptied out, it was a great
opportunity for me to practice driving the Alpine (Paula are you reading
this?!!). I got behind the wheel and took the old gal for a spin up and down the rows. It was surprisingly easy to
drive the coach, certainly a lot easier than I had anticipated.
And now it’s time to relax, catch our breath, catch up on sleep, and digest all
that we have learned and experienced.
Next stop: a quiet RV
park within a stone’s throw of the Fairplex where we will stay for a couple of
days before we begin the trip back north and home.
Here are a few more memories:
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| approaching the Fairplex gates on Tuesday |
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| Alpines gathering in the staging area as we begin to arrive |
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| an escort leading us in convoy to our spot in Lot F |
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| Alpine row |
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| our badges - our Alpine group were the volunteers driving golf carts |
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Michael in front of the Conference Center where many of the
seminars were held, on this bright and still cool morning |
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| section where the new and some very fancy RV's were parked |
