We have a nice end parking spot and they left lots of room between the coaches - not always the
case at rallies. Best of all, the power was already on - at most rallies you have to wait a day or so for the electric to be turned on. A couple days before we came to Salem the front air conditioner decided to quit working. Fortunately, it is not too hot here in Salem so we can get by until the service guy can come around.Monday there wasn't too much going on at the rally so we went to downtown Salem to do some shopping. Among other things we went to the Verizon store to get new phones. We were eligible for upgrades and Jackie's old phone hasn't been quite right since it accidentally went swimming in a glass of wine while we at Spectacle Lake.
Tuesday was the first full day of events. We went to a couple of seminars and did some shopping in the vendor area. I also reported the malfunctioning A/C unit to the Dometic representative at the rally and he came out that same morning and fixed the unit. He had to change a part and it has been working well since. It was still under warranty so it didn't cost us anything. We are also waiting for the Monaco Coach technician to come by to take care of the service needs we reported when we arrived at the rally. At the Monaco rallies the company will have techs come out to fix two items. Labor is free but you have to pay for parts if you are not under warranty anymore. The last couple rallies we have had trouble finding things for them to look at - the problem with having a fairly trouble-free coach I guess!
The next four days were spent primarily going to classes, looking through the new coach display and hanging out. The nice thing about the Monaco International rallies is that the rally fee includes breakfast and dinner for four days, as well as nightly entertainment. We don't do mornings, so the breakfasts are no big deal, but the evening dinners are excellent. There is an open bar for an hour before dinner starts. Monaco brings in a catering service from Florida that they have used for years. Their food is excellent. Nice salad bar every evening and a buffet with
two choices of entree. One does not go thirsty or hungry at a Monaco rally. On Friday night they introduced all of the new coach buyers - they sold 33 new coaches at this rally - and had drawings for them. The new coach buyers could win amounts ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 in the drawing. They had two $10k, two $5k, a few $2k and the rest were $1,000. The goal of Monaco corporation is selling new coaches to 10 percent of the attendees and they came very close on this one. There were about 350 coaches attending and they sold 33 new ones.Friday afternoon they brought a water hose by so we could fill the fresh water tank and the "honey wagon" came around and dumped our tanks so we would be all ready to move right to Redmond to the FMCA rally without having to stop along the way to dump tanks. About half the coaches are going to caravan from Salem to Redmond. We went with the caravan last year in North Carolina and it was a pretty dramatic sight, almost 200 coaches going down the highway nose to tail. This year we are not going with the caravan because we are meeting five other couples from the Desert who are going to the FMCA rally.
We got up early on Saturday morning and were on the road to Redmond by 7:30 a.m. The drive was very easy, little traffic and only modest mountain grades even though we were crossing the Cascades. It took us exactly three hours to make the trip. We met our other traveling companions in the Wal Mart parking lot just outside the Redmond fairgrounds. We met up with Bill and Lynette, Bob and Gloria Baron, Steve and Gail Schmidt, Dick and Mary Moore, and Ken and Judy, friends of the Baron's. The six of us then had our own little mini caravan into the fairgrounds to ensure that we would all be parked together. After a little snafu with the rally parking people we got settle in by mid afternoon. It seems that when we pulled out of the Wal Mart parking lot we managed to stick our little group into the middle of the "formal" caravan of the American Coach Owners Club. The parkers got confused and had to pull us into a holding area for about 20 minutes until they figured out where to put us. No power until Sunday morning, but the generator is working fine so we have A/C - it's quite a bit hotter here in Redmond than it was in Salem.
Barry and Colleen Cohen, our best buds from the Desert are on their way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and planned the trip so they could spend a couple days in Bend, just South of Redmond, during the time we are in Redmond. They called us late Saturday afternoon to tell us they were in Bend, so we and Bill and Lynette drove down to see them. We all went to the Bend Elks Lodge for dinner and had a good time visiting.
Barry and Colleen came up to Redmond on Sunday afternoon for a pot luck picnic with the rest of the Desert Rats and we had a grand old time. We BBQ'ed burgers and had a lot of other side stuff. Chuck and June McCubbins also came
over. They are vendors, selling plaques and frames for RV owners, but used to live in the Desert. They are old friends of Barry and Colleen, and Jackie and I have known them for a number of years. We see Chuck and June at most of the rallies we go to, but Barry and Colleen had not seen them for about six months. After the BBQ a number of us partied in our coach. Barry and Colleen ended up staying the night on our hide-a-bed rather than drive all the way back to Bend late in the evening. They got up early Monday morning, drove back to Bend, and left for Idaho.Monday starts the FMCA rally and I will write about our fun here later in the week. Bye for now.
