Hinkley is about 60 miles North of Minneapolis on I-35. The RV park was part of the Grand Casino Hinkley complex and was very nice. This stop was for the Full Timer's Chapter rally. We had about 20 coaches. The first night they had a nice potluck dinner in the clubhouse. Tuesday night's dinner was at the casino. Part of the rally fee was used to buy tickets for the buffet - I have to say that the buffet at the Grand Casino was one of the best casino buffets we have been to. A good variety of very well prepared food. If you're ever in the area, try it.Wednesday was game day - the rally set up a couple of games and most everyone played. I was eliminated pretty early in the bean bag toss, but ended up on the winning team for the "snakes" game. That's the one with the two golf balls on a string. That night we went back to the casino and Jackie and I sat down at the Let It Ride table. They had a $1 minimum bet which is a low as I have ever seen on that game. After about 15 minutes Jackie hit a full house and ended up winning over $400 with just $1 bets out! Yea! I played for over two hours and only ended up $5 down.
On Thursday the 3rd we left Hinkley for Rochester, Minnesota. Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic, is about 60 miles South of Minneapolis. It was about a 130 mile drive and we had to go through the Twin Cities to get there. Fortunately, we went through at midday and used the
bypass route so the traffic wasn't too bad. The Rochester rally was for the Elks International Chapter of FMCA. At least one member of each coach family in this chapter has to be an Elk in good standing. We had 35 coaches at this rally and the park was quite nice, although the clubhouse building had no air conditioning and it was pretty hot and humid. Unfortunately, the rally masters had coach problems somewhere in Kansas while en route to the rally and couldn't get there. A couple of members stepped up and filled in so things went fairly well. The first night was a pot luck, then the rally had caterers for the next three days for breakfast and dinner. The food was pretty good. One thing Rochester had was one of the coolest water towers I have ever seen - a giant cob of corn right in the middle of town!The rally masters had recommended a couple of tours, one to the Mayo Clinic and one to an Amish town (Harmony, MN) about 60 miles Southeast. We really didn't want to do either one so we went out on our own adventures. On Friday, which happened to be the Fourth of July, we went out geocaching with our friends Lu Verne and Gary Underhill. They were the one's who had really got us interested in the sport at the last Elks International rally in Lancaster back in February. We had never been team caching before, but we ended finding 8 out of 10 caches - not too bad for an afternoon. Rochester was having fireworks at the city park in the evening, but we decided not to try to fight the traffic and crowds and just stayed in the campground and chatted with folks.
On Sunday, the last night of the rally, we set up the karaoke stuff in the clubhouse and had a couple hours of singing after dinner. We only had a couple of singers, but for most part they were good
and most people stayed until about 8:00. After that people started drifting off so we closed up shop.On Monday, July 7th, we packed up and headed to Willmar, Minnesota for the Monaco International Rally. Willmar is located about 100 miles West of Minneapolis. We probably look forward to the Monaco rally the most because we know a lot of the folks, they always have good catered dinners and an open bar. YEA! On Tuesday we spent some time looking at the new Monaco coaches in the display area. We have been to most of the seminars at past rallies, so we had some time on our hands. We found a 40 foot Camelot with a new floor plan that we really liked. It had the mid kitchen, bath and one half and a nice computer desk in the living room. It also had the big mid coach entertainment center.
Unfortunately, we made the mistake of discussing how much we liked the coach within earshot of one of the Beaudry salesmen and he was on the hunt. We actually told him to give us some numbers but after a day and a half he couldn't come closer than $130,000 difference, so we told him we weren't interested. He finally gave up. We were a little miffed because the first "offer" he came up with was to give us about $25,000 under wholesale book for our coach and sticker price for the new one. We laughed and asked if he was serious and his response was to say, "let me go back to the boss and see if I can do better." I hear Beaudry is going out of business, selling out to Lazy Days. Not surprising.
The next day we went to a luncheon for an FMCA chapter called Monacos in Motion. It turns out that they are a caravan club that does at least two member-led caravans per year. Most of the caravans are 5 to 15 days or so and go to various parts of the country. Since membership was only $20 we joined the chapter. May be fun at some point in the future to caravan with the group, and a lot cheaper than the commercial caravan companies, like the one we are using for Alaska next summer. Later in the afternoon we went to the Willmar Elks Lodge which was only a couple miles from the fairgrounds where the rally was being held. Nice friendly little lodge. We told the bartender we would try to come back later in the week with a bigger group.
On Thursday we just kind of hung around the coach most of the day. In the afternoon we went back to the Elks Lodge with four other couples for a cocktail. We had a pretty good time. Dinner that night was pretty good and the entertainment was wonderful. They had a group called Three Men and a Tenor. At first we thought they were some kind of opera group, but it turns out they were a 50's & 60's group with a real cute comedy routine too. One of the better non-name entertainment groups we have seen at rallies.
Friday was the last day of the Monaco rally and this is the day that Monaco puts on its various customer service oriented seminars. I went to a service seminar and a seminar with the head of design development, Pat Carroll. Jackie went to a women's only seminar, also with Pat Carroll. Pat is the VP in charge of all products made by Monaco and he is hysterical to listen too. He is very irreverent and gives basically smart ass answers to most questions and comments. However, he also writes every comment down and actually takes them into consideration when designing future floor plans and coaches. Very worthwhile sessions to attend - informative and entertaining. The evening dinner was the last of the rally and was the prime rib. We had finished the happy hour open bar period and the Monaco folks were just going up on stage to present cash checks to the folks who had bought new coaches at the rally. Monaco always gives away money at the rallies to new buyers. The weather had been on and off rainy most of the day, but we had no idea what was coming. Just as the Monaco guy took the stage we
heard the tornado sirens going off outside. At first the representative of the fairgrounds said not to worry, that the siren doesn't necessarily mean there is a tornado imminent. I stepped outside of the building and to the South of the fairgrounds there was a tornado coming down out of the clouds. This is only the second time in my life I have actually seen a tornado in person, and the last time was in Texas where the storm was about 15 miles away. This one was only about a mile and a half from us. I went back into the building just as the leaders got the word that there really was a tornado. They herded all of us (about 6 or 7 hundred people) into the bathrooms and locker rooms. (The rally activities were in a building housing two hockey arenas.) We stayed in there about 10 minutes and then they gave the all clear. By the time I got back outside the rain had stopped, the storm had blown over and we had a beautiful clear sunset. The tornado blew through the southern part of Willmar, destroyed two houses, a couple of turkey sheds and a barn. Only a couple minor injuries, no deaths. The path was only 1.5 miles from where we were parked. Close enough for me!Saturday morning, July 12th, we headed out from Willmar to St. Paul for the FMCA Convention. We had decided not to go with the caravan since we were going to be parking in the area set aside for FMCA Governing Board Members. Jackie was an appointed delegate to the Governing Board for the 3Ts Chapter. Since the caravans go to a different parking area we elected to go on our own. We left early, about 8:00 a.m. (yikes) so we wouldn't interfere with the gathering of the caravan. The Monaco caravans are usually several hundred coaches long, so we knew we would beat them to St. Paul. We actually got to St. Paul and parked slightly after noon. We were parked on a gravel lot at the North end of the fairgrounds. Since we were expecting some rain during the rally, we were glad for the gravel lot.
On Sunday we both attended some training seminars for new members of the Governing Board. The Governing Board of FMCA is very large, consisting of the Executive Board (five National officers and about 8 area vice presidents) and the National Directors. Each FMCA Chapter elects
a National Director and there are just under 500 chapters, so the Governing Board is about 500 strong. The Chapter also elects an Alternate National Director who attends if the National Director can't. If neither can attend, the chapter can elect a temporary delegate. That's what Jackie was for the 3T's Chapter. The Governing Board only meets once a year, at the summer convention. Monday was the day for the Governing Board meeting. I was able to sit in the spectator area and watch some of the proceedings. The meeting lasted all day. They started at 9:00 a.m., took an hour for lunch, and adjourned at 5:30 p.m. Both of us were amazed that this huge group was able to be very well controlled and disciplined to accomplish a lot of business, including cutting a half million dollars out of a seven million dollar budget with little shouting. This was a VERY well organized and run meeting.The next three days of the rally were fairly busy for us. We were able to spend some time shopping in the vendor area, found some time to go through some of the new coaches, and also take care of our various volunteer commitments. We had volunteered to help with the ice cream social on Wednesday. The Full Timers Chapter handles this project. We managed to give away nearly 4,000 ice cream bars in 20 minutes. Its amazing how many people will line up and wait 15 minutes in 85 degree heat for a 50 cent ice cream bar! We also tended bar for the Elks International Chapter's social hour and handed out 40th Anniversary cake for FMCA. By the time we were done with the cake thing both of us were covered in frosting. Again, 4,000 pieces of cake in less than an hour. Of course, there were about three dozen people working at it, but it really was fun because we were doing it with friends, again from the Full Timer's Chapter.
In some ways, the venue at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds was nice because you could drive your own car just about anywhere on the property and find a place to park. This way you didn't have to rely on the shuttle service like we have had to at other rallies. The entertainment was fair. The first night was a hypnotist act which could have been pretty funny, but it didn't come across well on a large stage in a large arena. This type of act needs a smaller venue to be really good. The second night they had the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This is a country rock group from the 70's and I thought they were pretty good. Jackie didn't think too much of them, but both of us got a little ticked because half way through the act the FMCA folks had the sound people turn the sound down - and they did it in the middle of one the songs. On the one hand FMCA wants to attract younger members, then they do something stupid like that. I have seen t-shirts with the saying "If the music's too loud, you're too old!" I think that was pretty true here.
On Thursday we had the business meeting for our 100%ers Chapter. This is the chapter that I was Vice President of and consists of folks who reside in their coaches 100% of the time. About the only thing we had to do was elect new officers and I was elected as President and Jackie was elected as National Director. We will hold these offices probably for two years.
Friday was time to leave St. Paul and head for the last rally of this round, the 100%ers/3Ts rally in Faribault, MN. Faribault is about 40 miles South of St. Paul on I-35. Jackie and I were the wagon masters for this rally and had set up the RV park based on Internet information. We had
never been there before we arrived Friday. It turned out to be an OK park. Nothing really fancy or special, but all except one coach had full hookups and that was only because we added a couple of coaches after the original deadline date. We had a large clubhouse (more like a barn) to use for our activities and I think most folks had a good time. This was only a two day rally. On Friday the 18th we had a pot luck for dinner. On Saturday Jackie actually got up and served breakfast at 9:00 for 22 people! Saturday night we went to a restaurant in Faribault called the Depot Bar and Grill. This was another place that we found on-line and set up the reservations sight unseen. The restaurant was the old Faribault train station and was right on the railroad track. The manager was very accommodating and the menu they had on their web site indicated it might be a pretty good place. We also learned that if a train went by while you were in the restaurant you got two for one drinks. Problem was, after we got there we found that they had no clue how to handle a group of 22 people. They had one waitress assigned to our entire group and try as she might (and she did try) she could not get the orders in and the food and drink out in a timely manner. Most of the food came out cold and people were really unhappy. The majority of folks finally got fed and the food, once it came, really was pretty good. Then the train went by! Everyone in our group was hooting and hollering like they won the lottery. We all got two for one drinks and most people left happy. A group of us stopped at the Faribault Elks Lodge for a drink after dinner. I won a $50 pull tab ticket and one of the other members, Jan Alphonso, won a $100 pull tab.Sunday morning we packed up and headed for Spring Grove, Minnesota, down in the Southeast corner of the State. We were headed for the Hidden Bluffs RV Resort, one of our Resorts of
Distinction (ROD) parks. We are scheduled to stay there for two weeks. This is our decompression phase after a month of rallies. We arrived and found a lovely - if remote - RV park in the hill country of south Minnesota. I think we will like it here. Funny thing (for some of our friends who will know who they are), the resort is one of a small group of membership resorts called the "Midwest Outdoor Resorts." So, we are staying at an Outdoor Resort!Well folks, that's it for now. You have heard the saga of our summer rally tour. Until the next update, enjoy every day! We do!
