Last day here at Rally

We finished up the Rally Saturday night, we closed down the booth at 4:00 PM and by 4:20 we were out with all of our stuff.  We went out to dinner and when we came back the tent was empty, and all the booth s were down.  It sure didn't take the fairgrounds crew long to get everything out of the buildings.
We gave away 4 $500.00 Gift Certificates during our seminars. here were the winners.

 Winner of $500.00 for Guided RVing Tour Seminar Eddie Couch from Phoenix, AZ he used this for the Balloon Fiesta this year.  We will be looking forward to see him there.

 The winner of the Great River Road Seminar $500.00 Mike Terry from Soledad, CA

This is the $500.00 Winner from the Mexico Seminar Karen Corning from Indianola, IA

This one was for the grand Prize Winner is Karen Corning from Indianola, IA. She will have a choice of Rose Parade, Balloon Fiesta, or one of our 3 Mega Rally's.  This has to be first, the same person one two certificates.  I hope she uses them.

The last person to win one of the $500.00 gift certificates did not want her picture taken, so I hope she uses it also.  We did pretty good with only 920 rigs here, we sold 4 trips and a lot of them saying that they will see us in Quartzite, maybe they will buy a trip while we are there.  Jim & Cherrell have never been to Quartzite so this will be new for them.

Today we moved to a full hook up site here at the fairgrounds tell we leave for Quartzite on Wednesday morning.  The weather is still cool around here and we have had a few rain showers.  I am hoping that the gear box gets here tomorrow so that we can get it installed before going to Quartzite.

The gear box is all we have to replace, so I should be able to do it with no problem.  Cyndy & I will both be happy to get this fixed!!! 

Opening day at the Rally

You know after doing these for the amount of years we have, you really find out how many people you know that RV.  We had a guest from a few years ago show up at the booth today and it was great to see here again, I just wish I could of seen the six pack that went with her.  So now you ask what am I talking about, she has 6 dogs and all their names start with and "S", I am going to try and name them all Sammy, Stewart, Smiley and now I am getting old cause I forgot there names, sorry Sally.
We did see

that a lot of snow has fallen up on the hill side east of us for the last two days.  I am glad that by the time we head back this way that it will be gone, at least I hope it will be gone.

We got this picture taken this morning before anyone should up at the booth.  What a good looking crew if I say so myself.

 But these two keep Jim & I on our toes.  Again i would like to thank everyone that stopped by and said hello, there Was guest from our last years trip to Alaska, and few people that will be traveling with us to Alaska this summer.  I really like doing these rally because of the people.  One of those couples go back a long time and they are Tom & Barb

We worked with them at a Gypsy Rally, we had a lot of fun at those rally's. and these two help make it fun.  We are looking forward to all the other people that are here at the rally and hoping they stop by and say hello.  We have tow more days and then we will be off to Quartzite.
We got a phone call from the tech that looked at our slide out yesterday and he will hopefully have the new gear box here by Friday or Saturday.  I will call him tomorrow and hope he has some good news.  We have not open that slide and it is starting to get claustrophobic in here.   You don't realize how much one slide not going out can be such a pain.  Oh well it will be fixed soon.  More to come tomorrow.

Earthquake !!!!!!!

We got and early rock and roll this morning with a 5.4 Earthquake at about 6:42 AM.  Turbo was not happy with all the movement of the coach even though it only lasted for about 10 seconds or so. We haven't been in a earthquake in a long while so this one was a walk up for us.  It was really a nice ride.  One thing about living in an RV is we are can live with out power, water and the ability to up and move to a safer spot.  But today I don't think we will have to do that.  Beside there are over 500 rigs here at the FMCA Rally in Indio and none of them left so it must still be safe.
Today we got the booth almost ready, but with the rain coming we didn't want to get to much stuff set out because of the small leaks in the tent roof.  We got all of the tables set up and and the catalogs ready to put out in the morning.  Here is what it kind of looks like.

 If you look real close you can see that we have been getting a lot of rain here in Indio the last couple of days, by tomorrow afternoon we should have sunshine the rest of the show.  That will help keep things from getting wet.  I haven't seen it rain this much around this area in the last 3 winters we have been down here.  Glad it is letting up.  Hope we have a lot of people coming by the booth and maybe a few signing up for trips.

Moving Day to FMCA Rally

We were up early this morning to get ready for our big move today.  But first the boys have to go out for their morning walk.  On our route around the park we found this very cold Hummingbird setting on this rope.

He or she sat there with the boys running around so it must have been cold.  Even after we walked away it was still sitting there.
When we got back I got busy helping Cyndy get the coach ready to move.  After I got the heavy things inside put away it was time to head out side for those chores.   I got the water unhooked, and sewer dumped and unhooked.  About that time Cyndy asked for my help to get the right side slide put in.  As she was working the controls I pushed on the slide and it seemed to come in with a lot less thumping form the missing gear.  Now if the RV Repair guy will just call with good information.  Hope to hear from him today.

Here we are all hooked up and ready to pull out.  We were to meet Jim & Cherrell out in front of our park at about 8:30 AM.  They showed up right on time and it was time to hit the road for the long drive to Riverside Fairground for the FMCA Rally here in Indio, CA.  It was a long drive of just about 12 miles, these kind of drive days really wear me out with the tear down and set up can make a guy need a nap.
We got all checked in at the Vendor area and started looking for the boxes that were coming from the office.  We only had 2 and they were the banners and something we already had.  So we got the Banners hung up so they can relax and look good for the show.  That took all of about 15 minutes.  So we headed back to the rigs and called it a day.  Tomorrow we will finish sitting up the booth, we need to bring over 2 more 4 foot tables and hope fully the rest of the box's show up in the AM.
OK, I am getting a little pissed at Crandall Mobile RV Service, they were to call back this afternoon and I haven't heard from them yet and it is 8:00 PM, so tomorrow I will start my day getting a hold of them first thing.

Last Day at Palm Springs TTN

Today we did a little bit of running around after I got the fresh water filled up and Black Water dumped.  When we go to the FMCA Rally here in Indio they do not have water or sewer so I wanted to make sure all the waste tanks are empty and fresh water is full.  I even got air back in the air bags on the truck.  It will be a long drive but I will do the best I can to hold it under 60 while driving to the Fairgrounds here in Indio.
I had check on line and seen a few of our box's had shown up at the show.  Cyndy & I drove over their to make sure they were not left outside, because it is suppose to rain between tonight and tomorrow some time and I didn't want things getting wet.  After I got there everything was inside so I felt better.  Tomorrow after we move over here we will start setting up the booth with what we have here.  The rest of our supplies will be here between tomorrow and Wednesday, would really like it here tomorrow if I had my way.  So we will wait and see, it is amazing that out of 14 box's two have already made it here.
We did a little bit of shopping after we were done at the fairgrounds.  Cyndy was looking for some magazine hangers for putting them into note books.  After two stops one at Office Max and the other at Staples she did not find them.  Then she went to the web and found them right away, but will have to wait tell we get back to Washington before ordering them.
I am really proud of my wife and the things she has been doing on here embroidery machine, here is a couple of things she has got done today,

 Neat Snowman

 I know I have to work on the lighting a little bit better so shadows do not show up in the picture.

She is not sure what she will do with these but if I know Cyndy it will be used in something down the road.
Tomorrow we are meeting Jim & Cherrell out front of the park around 8:30 AM and heading over to the fairgrounds to start our year trying to sale a few trips on Adventure Caravans Trips.  Stop by and say hello, the FMCA Rally starts the 7th thru the 9th, look forward to see some of you that will be here.

Football Sunday

I enjoy watching the FOX NFL in the morning and listening to those old coaches and players talk about the teams and how they are playing.  Now to the most important game of the day, Seattle Seahawks and the Phoenix Cardinals.  It was great watching the Seahawks play one of their best games of the year by beating the Cardinals 36 to 6.
Now it was time to help Cyndy with downloading the patterns for her embroidery machine.  At first she had me almost baffled.  For some reason we could see them in the download file but could not open them, so I stopped working on it and fixed dinner for us while she was busy sewing.  After dinner a light came on, I could read the PDF files but not the PES files because I need to have the software for the embroidery machine up and running first then I can open them.  I almost had a headache from this one.  Glad to help my lovely wife get the files downloaded for her.  She is smiling and a happy wife makes a happy husband.
The other day we ran down to Steve's ATV Rental to get the LED lights off of the RZR we sold him.  I wanted to put them on the truck and remove the flood lights that I had on it.

These are the ones that were on the truck.

     Here they are mounted on the truck, I am looking forward to see how bright they are when it is dark.  Also looking forward to see how they work when out on the open road at night and lighting it up.

It looks like these LED lights will do the trick with lighting up the road for us at night.
Tomorrow we are hoping to hear from the mobile repair guy with some good news on the slide out gear box.  I know it is under warranty but sometimes you just have to get things fixed and then try to gt them to help you out.

January 2nd

Today was going to be the day we did some moving things around in the storage areas, so that we would be ready for the up coming two RV Shows.  One here at Indio for the FMCA Rally, and the other out in Quartize  for the big tent show.  But as all good plans go sometimes they go out the window for something else that mom wanted to do.  At about 10:00 AM Jim & Cherrell called and said lets go shopping.  So that is how my plans got changed today.
Our first stop was a Hobby Lobby, this has to be one of the biggest craft stores around, Cyndy and Cherrell both like this one better than the other craft stores in the area.  Jim & I kind of just walled around looking for the man cave but could not find it.  So then we just kind of hung out in the middle of isles while the girls look for the things they could not live with out.  I will say one thing, the store had one hell of a sale going on, but Cyndy could not find really anything she really need.  After a good two hours we headed out and went looking for a 99 cent store.  We did pretty good at this store after looking in every isle we came out with two bags of stuff and only spent $18.00, Cyndy did good here.
From there we went and got a Hamburger from our favorite McDonald, I really like there fry's, and Cyndy likes their Moca Frappes.  The four of us came out with a some what full belly and head down to the fair grounds to see if we can find out exactly were we will be going and make sure we don't get in the wrong place.  We talked to and old friend Jim who has been an FMCA volunteer for as long as I can remember.    He has been to a couple of different Mega Rally that we have been at and on at least one of our trips.  Anyway he gave us the information we were looking for and after about 20 minutes of talking we headed back to the coach.
When we got back the coach was nice and clean, the guy we had coming over tomorrow to wash it showed up while we were gone and did a great job.  So now all I have to do is catch up with him tomorrow to pay him the $60.00 for a fine job.
Now I am hoping tomorrow to get things packed away, because starting Monday there is a good chance of getting some rain.  Don't want to be moving things around with it raining, I need to lower the back door so that we can get things packed away.
Cyndy is busy getting all of her thread's cataloged so she knows what she has and may need!!!  Tomorrow she is going to embroider something so we will wait and see and I will hopefully be done moving things so I can watch Seattle play their last game of the season before the playoff start.