The Summer 2015 RV Rally Circuit

Hi there, welcome back to our story. Our last episode ended on Sunday, July 19^th, when we moved from the Wisconsin Dells area east to the city of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, for the Monaco International Chapter rally, the first of three rallies this summer in Wisconsin. We traveled to to Manitowoc with our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson, who surprised us by showing up in Wisconsin for the rallies. We thought they were still work camping in Colorado, but they decided they had had enough and headed out to enjoy their new, to them anyway, motor home. After we got setup at the Monaco rally on the fairgrounds in Manitowoc, we went to a volunteer dinner and then home to relax.

Monday, July 20^th, we were, believe it or not, up at 5:30, yes a.m., and out the door by 7:30, heading for the shore of Lake Michigan to go on a five hour sport fishing trip. We both enjoy fishing, but don't do much of it because of the requirement to always get out of state licenses wherever we travel. We rarely stay in a state long enough to make it worth while to pay the fees. This trip had been setup by the wagon masters for the Monaco Rally and there were six of us from the rally that showed up to go out for the trip.

We were on a 28 foot sport fisher called the “Willie Bee” with the captain and his mate. They provided everything but the license, and Wisconsin is very reasonable with a two day license for just $14. The captain told us that other charter operators had said the fishing was good just off shore, so we never went more than a half mile or so off shore, and we just went back and forth across the mouth of one of the rivers flowing into Lake Michigan. We were fishing for trout and salmon and we were fortunate to be able to catch six big rainbow trout, each in the 12 to 14 pound range, one brown trout of about 12 pounds, and a big, 16 pound king salmon. The weather was OK, although by the time we came in at 1:30 there was a storm brewing and the waves were getting rough.  

Each of the six of us manged to land at least one fish, and there were several that got away. I lost two before I was able to get one into the boat. The captain said it was one of the better days he has had in the last couple months and we were very happy too. After they cleaned and filleted the fish for us, we walked away with about 10 or 12 pounds of very good looking fish to eat. After fishing we went back to the coach to rest for a while. We went out to dinner with the Wilson's about 6:00, but were too tired to visit with anyone. We were in bed by 9:30. The Mexican restaurant we went to was OK, but not the best. It had all Mexican staff, but the food was what I called a Wisconsin resident's idea of what Mexican food should be, Taco Bell lite. I guess being 2,000 miles from Mexico it shouldn't surprise us to find the food not quite up to our expectations.

Tuesday, July 21^st, we had a free day. Some parts of the rally started today, but there were no seminars or other obligations during the day. We had lunch at the coach and then went out with the Wilson's to do some geocaching. We ended up with eleven new finds and one DNF for a couple hours of caching. After caching we stopped at Walmart for some supplies before heading back to the fairgrounds. At 5:30 they had a beer and BBQ dinner at the pavilion, sponsored by one of the coach dealerships that brought some of their new coaches for display. They had hamburgers and brats, along with the fixings, all made by the same catering company, Festival, as we had for the volunteer dinner. Everything was great. About 7:00 the festivities were done and we went back to the coach and watched TV for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 22^nd, the first full day of the Monaco International Chapter rally. We were up and out early for an 8:30 meeting, in fact, we were early enough to surprise our friends and show up for breakfast at 8:00. At the Monaco rallies they provide breakfast and dinner for the four days when there is rally activity. We rarely make breakfast, but this morning we did enjoy our eggs and sausage. After breakfast we went to a meeting of the volunteer mentors. One of the features of Monaco International is that they arrange for volunteer members to serve as mentors to first time rally attendees. We were mentored at our first rally in Ashville, North Carolina back in 2006 and thought it a great idea. We have served as mentors for almost every Monaco rally since.

After the brief mentors meeting we got to meet our “mentees” at the First Timers meeting which followed. Ours is a couple somewhat younger than us that are from San Jose, California. They only travel for a few months at a time as they still have a teenager at home. They are a very nice couple, very outgoing and talkative, which we enjoy. We talked to them for a while before the meeting broke up and Jackie had to go to her Board meeting. Jackie is one of the Regional Directors for Monaco International. She is one of the two Regional Directors for Region 2, which is California, Nevada and Arizona. Her job is to contact new members of Monaco International whose home base in the region and welcome them to the club, and also serve as their point of contact to the Executive Board of MI. While Jackie was in that meeting I went back to the coach for a while.

When I got back to the coach I noticed that there were several people gathered around the large industrial generator that is posted next to our coach. For most of these motorhome rallies electric power is provided by generators rented by the rally and setup to provide 30 amp electric to the coaches. In this case our generator was acting up, the voltage going up and down and the engine surging. This kind of activity is not good for the electrical systems of our coaches, so most people, including me, chose to unplug from this “shore” power source and turn on our own generators until they could get it fixed.

Jackie finished her meeting and came back to the coach for a while and about 12:30 we headed back over to the building to attend a presentation by Mike Snell, the President of the Monaco Division of Allied Specialty Vehicles, the company that now owns Monaco. Mike has been with Monaco for over 20 years, surviving good times, bad times, the bankruptcy, and two changes of ownership, always bouncing back as the guy in charge. Mike talked for a half hour or 45 minutes about what was going on with Monaco, the problems with the company in the past and their plans for the near future and beyond. It was interesting, but not anything we didn't know at least a little about.

After Mike's presentation Jackie went to another presentation by Mike that he puts on for women only. The idea is to get the woman's perspective on coach design and appointment. He does the same with men only tomorrow. After that we had some down time, so we picked up our mail, which we had sent to the rally, and then spent a couple hours at the coach relaxing and doing a few chores. About 3:30 they had fixed the generator, so I switched back over to their power. It seemed to be working OK and we went over to the Keg party at the pavilion where the new coach display was. We chatted and visited with people until about 4:00 when we walked over to the dining hall to help setup the bar. Once they let people in at 4:30, Jackie went to our table to talk to the people we are mentoring and I worked behind the bar. The mentors always sit with their people on the first night's dinner and entertainment.

After the bar closed I got my salad and went over to the table, only to have to leave for a bit because the word was passed that the bad generator was acting up again. I went back to the coach, disconnected again and started our generator. I then went back to dinner. They started the evening by introducing all the dignitaries and officers of MI, then they had a very nice Military Tribute, honoring all the branches of service. Then dinner was served. Tonight was pulled pork and chicken with a raspberry sauce. Both were very good. They also had scalloped potatoes and corn on the cob. This caterer is outstanding and has really good food. After dinner they started the entertainment, which was a local country and western band. They were OK, but not outstanding and we got tired of it pretty quickly. We left after about a half hour and headed back to the coach where we relaxed until bedtime. They finally got the generator fixed again about bedtime, so I switched back to shore power again.

Thursday, July 23^rd, I went down to the events center about 10:30 for a seminar put on for men only by Mike Snell of Monaco. There wasn't anything new or surprising presented. After Mike's presentation we had the rest of the afternoon off, so we had some lunch and then went out in the car for some more exploring. We drove downtown and looked around some, then decided that we would go see if we could find the Elks Lodge. There was some conflicting information online about the lodge. The State Association web site indicated that there was a lodge here in Manitowoc, but some other websites talked about it as closed. We went to the address listed and found an old, abandoned golf club. The clubhouse was there, and you could see where the golf course had been, but it was all grown over and full of weeds. There was nothing on the building to indicate it was an Elks Lodge and it looked empty, but the picture on the State Association website showed that same building. We finally came to the conclusion that this had been the Elks, but it was now closed.

We did some more exploring, found one geocache just for fun, and then went to a couple of stores looking for coffee and a couple of other things that we couldn't find at Walmart the other day. Once we were done with our running around we went back to the coach and relaxed for a bit. About 4:30 we went over to the dining hall and helped get the bar set up. We worked the bar for happy hour and then sat down for dinner. 

We sat at a table with Gary and Ramona, as well as some first timers, one couple of which were also geocachers. The meal was wonderful again, with roast beef and baked cod, along with potatoes and veggies. After dinner they had a group called the Riverside Swing Band and they were outstanding. The majority of the audience stayed until the end of the show at 9:00. They did 40's and 50's music with lots of horns. They had a drummer and an upright bass, and the guitarist was the lead singer. They also had three horn players, sax, trumpet and trombone. They played a mix of early rock and roll and swing music and everyone really enjoyed them. After the show we went back to the coach and watched TV until bed.

Friday, July 24^th, we left the coach about 10:00 and went over to the events center to set up the room for our geocaching seminar. We put on a caching seminar at the Monaco rally in Pahrump earlier this year and they asked us back. We had about twenty people in the room, although most of them were geocachers already, there were still a couple of people there who were just interested in learning about the hobby. We put on an hour long seminar and it went pretty well. After the seminar we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while. We had lunch and then about 1:00 the Monaco service tech arrived to attempt some repairs on the coach. One of the great things about the Monaco International Rallies is that Monaco almost always sends a few service techs and a support truck, and also a parts trailer, to the rally. You have to pay for any parts, but the service labor is free. I had the guy adjust the front door on our coach, which has been giving us issues for a while. He also gave me a pretty good idea of what the problem with one of our slides is. It hesitates coming in and he told me it was most likely just the actual switch on the wall, given the symptoms I described. He didn't have any switches with him, but I can order one from Monaco parts and put that in myself.

At 4:00 we went down to the dining hall and helped set up the bar for the evening. At 5:00 everyone came in for happy hour and we had good time at the bar serving everyone. The bar is one of the fun jobs to volunteer for because you are always dealing with happy people. Free booze will do that. Dinner tonight was Wellington beef, but there was no bread coating like you normally expect on a Wellington. It was still very good. They also had sliced pork roast, potatoes and veggies. The entertainment tonight was an Elvis tribute group, Art Kistler and the EP Boulevard Show band. Art was a bit of hookey looking Elvis impersonator, he didn't look anything like Elvis and the wig was a bit over the top. However, he was a great singer and if you just listened to the music and not his silly impersonation moves, it was a great show. He was very personable and came out in the audience and walked around, flirting with the women, while he sang. Jackie got one of the dozen little teddy bears when he walked around singing “I just want to be your teddy bear.” We will save that for my new great grandson Josiah when we see him in September. About two thirds of the audience, including us and the Wilson's, stayed until the end of the show at 9:30. That is a really good indicator of a good show at these rallies where a lot of the people have an early bedtime and are not afraid of just leaving if the music is bad, too loud, or not their style. We went back to the coach, relaxed for a bit and went to bed.

Saturday, July 25^th, the last full day of the Monaco Rally. We were out of the coach about 10:30 and in the dining hall for the business meeting of the Monaco International Chapter. That meeting went for about 90 minutes and then they had a short meeting for those planning to caravan together from Manitowoc to Madison for the FMCA rally on Sunday. We are going to go with the caravan, so I stayed for that meeting. Jackie then had a meeting of Regional Directors and I went back to the coach and began to take down decorations and the screens in preparation for travel tomorrow. We have to be ready to leave with the caravan by 8:00, so I wanted to get as much done as possible today.

We had lunch at the coach and didn't do much in the afternoon after we got most things put away for travel. At 4:00 we went to the dining hall to help set up the bar and at 5:00 we were bartenders again. Dinner tonight was very good, it was prime rib, baked potatoes and veggies. The prime rib was outstanding. I can't say enough about the good food we had at this rally. There was no entertainment tonight, they just had some closing remarks and a few door prizes, none of which were won by anyone at our table. We were back home by 7:30 and watched TV the rest of the evening.

Sunday, July 26^th, we were up early and had the coach packed up and running by 8:00. We left our parking space and were directed to the caravan area by the parkers and lined up according to what kind of parking we had at FMCA. FMCA has electric, non-electric, volunteers, governing board, handicap and several other parking categories. The caravan pulled out of the fairgrounds right at 9:00 and had some assistance going through town from the Manitowoc Police Department. There were 31 coaches in the caravan, which makes an impressive line, but nothing like the 300 we had years back when the group went from Lancaster, California to Pomona. The caravan went pretty well, no accidents and not too much spreading out except at the very back where they had trouble matching speed. We were right in the middle of the group and it went OK. We had some help in a couple of the small towns and right angle turns from local police and sheriff's. The first half of the route was on two lane highway with lots of little towns and turns. Once we reached about half way the road turned into a limited access four lane divided road.

We arrived at the FMCA rally, being held at the Allient Energy Center grounds in Madison, Wisconsin, about noon. The parking people were supposed to have known we were coming, but they put us in a holding area where we sat for three hours before they finally figured out what to do with everyone. We finally got parked in our spot about 3:00. We seem to have a good spot, a paved parking lot quite near the activity areas. We have electric, but they won't run the generators until Tuesday morning, so we have to go with our own on-board generators today and Monday.

After we got the minimal stuff set up we drove into downtown to get something to eat. We had not had breakfast or lunch and we were starved. We found a nice bar and grill right across the street from the Capitol Building called D-Lux. We both had hamburgers and fries, but they were very much gourmet burgers. Mine was green chili, Jackie had one with wine sauteed onions. The food was very good, as was the service. After eating we went back to the coach and finished setting up. We had some new friends, Riley and Karen Caton, come over to chat, but they didn't stay too long. The Caton's were first timers at the Monaco Rally and they were geocachers, so we immediately had something in common. We sat together most meals and found them to be very nice people. After the Caton's left we watched TV and went to bed early because of our early start.

Monday, July 27^th, an early parking day at the FMCA Rally in Madison with no scheduled rally activities yet. About 11:30 we were visited by two of my cousins from Milwaukee. Bill and Barbara Benish drove in to visit us. One of my mother's sisters, whose nickname was Puss, and her husband Leo, had three kids, Bill, Richard, and Roger. Roger was the youngest and was the same age as me. When we still lived in Milwaukee, prior to 1960, Roger was my best friend and we spent a lot of time together. Roger was the youngest, Bill was seven years older and Rich was nine years older. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time with Bill and Rich at the time as they were teenagers when we were little grade school kids. Roger always had health issues and died 25 years ago. Rich died about a year and a half ago. Barbara was Rich's wife, in fact, Roger and I were ushers at their wedding in 1959. Bill's wife Karen died about a year ago. Barbara and Rich are the only members of the family still living.

I “rediscovered” Bill on Facebook a couple years ago, and other than my cousin Arleen I talked about earlier in this chapter, they are the only relatives from Milwaukee that I am in contact with. When Bill learned that we were going to be in Madison he told me that he would try to come to see us and bring his sister in law Barbara with him. The last time I saw Bill was back in the late 70's when my ex and I made a trip back to Wisconsin with my parents. Bill and Barbara sat and visited with us for a couple of hours before they decided they needed to get on the road to beat traffic. We talked a lot about family, some of whom I remembered, some names that sounded familiar, and some I didn't remember at all. It was a great visit and it was fun to see some old relatives again. Barbara has done a lot of ancestry work on the family and she is going to send me some of the family tree information.

After Bill and Barbara left we went out and got a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant called El Pastor. It had decent ratings on Yelp, but the food was mediocre at best and not very authentic. The service wasn't so hot either and I wouldn't recommend the place at all. We then stopped so Jackie could get a haircut and then we were off to Costco for a supply run. It has been a couple months since we were near a Costco, so we had a lot of stuff on the list. After we got back and put our frozen food away we drove over to the handicap parking lot and visited with Gary and Ramona for a while. We just stayed for a cocktail before heading back to our coach for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, July 28^th, the power from the outside generator came online just after 8:00, so now we should be able to run off of the external power for the rest of the rally. Before lunch we walked up to the events area just to look around. This is still considered an early parking day, so the only thing open was the information booth and after a few minutes we went back to the coach and ate lunch. After lunch we went out to do some exploring and geocaching. We drove around, looking at neighborhoods, downtown, and the University of Wisconsin campus. The campus here is huge, running for miles along a lake shore. We were able to get six new finds, and one DNF. We finally quit caching because the heat was in the 80's and the humidity was about 100 percent. We went to Walmart for some supplies and then headed back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, July 29^th, the first “official” day of the FMCA rally here in Madison. We went down to the events center about 11:00 or so to pick up our rally pins and let Jackie check out the crafts to see if she wanted to participate in any of them this year. She decided she didn't, so we walked back to the coach and had lunch. We went back to the events area again for our first seminar at 1:30. It was on beginning genealogy. I had done a little bit of genealogy on my family a few years back, but ran into some roadblocks and kind of dropped the project. Reconnecting with my cousins spurred my interest again, so we went to this seminar. It was very interesting and very helpful and I think that I am going to give it another try. The seminar sort of reinvigorated my interest and curiosity about “where I come from” again. After that seminar we came back to the coach and hung around until about 5:00 when we left to go to the Elks Lodge. We were planning on meeting the Wilson's and the Baron's there for cocktails and dinner.

The Madison Elks Lodge is nothing short of spectacular. It is a few blocks from the Capitol in downtown, right on the shore of Lake Monona, only about ten minutes from the fairgrounds. The building has a large bar and restaurant upstairs, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the lake. Downstairs they have a big ballroom, also with windows overlooking the lake and going out onto a large, lakeside lawn. One of the trusties of the lodge came over and greeted us and took a few of us on a little tour. He said that they had a wedding booked almost every weekend because of the great location and views.

The Lodge, #410, was chartered in 1898 and up until the mid 60's had a big building downtown. The City of Madison approached them and traded the downtown land for the lake front land,which they had just acquired, and in 1965 the lodge moved into their current building. The trustee told us it is one of the most valuable non-governmental pieces of property in town. We had a couple of cocktails and were joined by a few other people from the rally before the six of us headed in for dinner. The lodge had a dinner special of a half rack of ribs, potato and soup or salad for $10 and that is what five of the six of us ordered. The ribs were wonderful, very meaty and tender. It was quite a deal and very good. We all left and headed back to the fairgrounds about 8:00 and we stayed in and watched TV the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 30^th, we got out of the coach and up to the events area by 9:45 for the Full Timers Seminar, which is always put on by the Full Timers Chapter. This was the first time in a couple of years that I was able to be in the audience and not on the panel. I finished my two one-year terms of office as President of the Chapter this spring and the new president had to put the seminar together. The seminar went well and afterward we moved to another room for a business meeting of the Chapter. That meeting was well attended and we visited with several Chapter members we had not seen in a while.

After the business meeting we went down to the cafeteria they had set up downstairs and had lunch. The food was very good, although a little pricey, but we didn't have to go all the way back to our coach for lunch. After lunch we spent some time in the vendor area, which just opened this morning. We didn't buy much today, but did see a couple of things that I want to think about. After touring the vendors for the first time we went to a meeting of the Military Veteran's Chapter. That meeting lasted an hour or so and then we went back to the coach.

We made some cocktails and took our lawn chairs over to the Baron's coach where we had a small group of Full Timers Chapter friends gather for cocktails. We ended up across the street under a tree so we would have shade. We spent an hour or so with the group before getting in the car and heading back to the downtown area for an off-site event. Everyone who had registered for the FMCA rally got an email invite to an evening of food, drink and entertainment put on by the Entegra Coach company. Entegra is a new brand of luxury coach that emerged a few years back during the tough years of RV companies going out of business and merging.

The event was held at a place called Monona Terrace, which is a city owned conference and event center which was designed and built by Frank Loyd Wright back in the 50's Wright, who was a Wisconsin native, had been trying to get the city to build this place for twenty years before it was finally finished. There were about 250 or 300 people at the event, including the Wilson's, Baron's and several other couples we know. They had an open wine and beer bar and some very nice appetizer type foods like fried chicken, meatballs, egg rolls and other items. The food was excellent and we ate our fill and visited with some folks for an hour or so. They were also offering tours of the facility and there were a number of docents located at several places in this very large building to talk about the facility and Wright. After the tour we were shepherded back to the ballroom where Entegra put on a half hour presentation about their company and products. They then brought out a comic who put on an hour long show for the group. The comic, John DeVoer, was very funny and had everyone in the room laughing. I had seen him once on the TV show Last Comic Standing and remembered the name. The event ended about 9:00 and by 9:30 we were back in the coach to watch a little TV, ironically an episode of this season's Last Comic Standing, before going off to bed.

Friday, July 31^st, we didn't have any early seminar commitments, so we were able to relax with our coffee. About 11:30 we went down to the events area and attended the second genealogy session, put on by the same guy. Again, we picked up a lot of hints and ideas and are getting excited about restarting my genealogy project. After that session we went to another building to help with the ice cream social. The Full Timer's Chapter is always tasked with staffing the ice cream social at FMCA rallies, and for the last two rallies Jackie and I have been in charge. It was nice today to just go over, help out where needed and not have to make decisions or worry about setting things up.

After the ice cream, where we gave 3,000 people an ice cream sandwich in about 15 minutes, Jackie went to a woman's social and I went back to the coach, picked up my guitar, and came back to the arena for a jam session. It was kind of small, just four other performers, but it was a lot of fun. After a bit of practice playing with each other we had sessions where each of us got up and did two songs. If the other players were familiar, or could follow along, they would play too. We did this twice, so I got four songs in. There was an audience of about a hundred people and they were very nice and gracious, despite the fact that none of us were exceptional musicians.

After the jam session I went back to the coach, as did Jackie, and we relaxed for a bit. About 5:30 Gary and Ramona came over for cocktails. Gary and I went out and picked up a pizza from a local joint and we had cocktails and pizza for dinner. We chatted for a while and a little before 7:00 we went over to the arena for the evening entertainment. Tonight was a group called New Odyssey, which I know has played at a number of other FMCA events, but I don't think we ever went to see them. It is just three guys who have 30 different instruments on stage, and at one time or another each of them plays all of them. They have a wide variety of horns, including a tuba, banjos, guitars, a harmonica, even an accordion. They also throw in some comedy and they are an outstanding group, great music and great fun. We finally got back to the coach about 9:30, watched and little TV and then went to bed.

Saturday, August 1^st, another month in the record books. Today is the last full day of the FMCA Rally here in Madison. I got up and out early for the 9:45 Annual Membership Meeting of FMCA. Jackie didn't want to go. The meeting lasted about an hour, after which I went to vendors and bought some LED replacements for some of our kitchen fluorescent lights. I made one more pass through the vendors, but wasn't able to come up with anything more to buy.

We had lunch at the events center and then went to an afternoon meeting of the INTO Area of FMCA. Most of the chapters we belong to are part of the International Area, or INTO, so that is the Area meeting we try to attend. After the INTO meeting we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while. I took down the screens and outside decorations, getting ready to leave tomorrow. We had an early dinner and about 7:00 went over to the coliseum for the entertainment. Tonight was William Florian, a guitar player who used to be with the New Christy Minstrels and who is now out on his own with a drummer and bass player. We saw him last summer in Redmond at the FMCA Rally and he put on a good show. The show tonight was very much the same, but we still enjoyed it. We were done and back at the coach by 9:00 and watched TV until bedtime.

Sunday, August 2^nd, we noticed the coaches started leaving about 7:00 a.m. We were not in a big hurry because we were only going about 60 miles north, back up to the Wisconsin Dells for the last rally of this cycle, the two day 3T's rally. By the time we were packed up and ready to leave at 10:30 the parking lot was nearly empty. We arrived at the Country Roads RV park in Lake Delton at noon. Lake Delton is right next door to Wisconsin Dells, and not far from Baraboo, where we were two weeks ago. We got checked in and set up pretty quickly, but it was really hot. We decided to just stay home and try to stay cool. This 3T's rally is held after every FMCA Rally and gives the members two days to calm down after a busy rally. The 3T's are for To dump, To rest, and To do laundry.

There were fifteen rigs, 30 people, here for the rally and we met for cocktail hour at 4:00. A lot of our friends are in this chapter, including the Baron's and the Wilson's, both of whom came to the rally. About 5:30 we all got in our cars and went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We went to Sprechers, which is a German style restaurant with locations in several Wisconsin cities. I had the wurst platter, which had three different kinds of wurst along with red cabbage and spetzel, a German pasta. It was excellent. Jackie had jambalaya, which doesn't seem German, but was one of their specialties. She said it was very good as well. With 30 people it was hard to visit with anyone except the people right on either side of you, but we had a great time anyway. After dinner we went back to the park and the Wilson's and Baron's stopped over for a drink before everyone headed to their own coaches. We relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Monday, August 3^rd, we actually got up to go have breakfast. Jackie had been charged with baking some of the biscuits for the biscuits and gravy, so we just stayed for breakfast with everyone after delivering the biscuits. After breakfast we had a business meeting for the Chapter, which included voting in new officers. After the meeting we had the rest of the day off. We thought about doing laundry, but decided to let it go for another day and relax.

I spent part of the day playing around with our refrigerator. Our motor home is ten years old and we
have had problems, on and off, with the refrigerator since we bought the coach. In the first year we were in the shop three times getting the thing fixed. Each time they had to replace the cooling unit on the back of the fridge. This meant having to take it out of the hole, laying it down on the floor and changing the guts in the back. The fridge weighs about 250 pounds, so it is not an easy task to take it out and then put it back. The last time it went out was in February of 2010. The refrigerator was out of warranty from the manufacturer, so our extended warranty paid for the repair, less the deductible. Since it was not a factory repair the service guy installed an after market cooling unit that he said was much better than the factory units. It did go five years, but it is on it's way out now. The fridge is barely cooling and I fear we are about to be fixing it again, or replacing it with a residential refrigerator. That is a direction that a lot of people have gone, for the reliability and the fact that the RV refrigerator pose a fire hazard from overheating. There have been a lot of RV fires over the years started by a malfunctioning refrigerator.

At 4:30 we met with the group for cocktails and at 6:00 we had a nice pot luck dinner in the pavilion at the RV park. The rally hosts cooked some chicken breasts and everyone else brought a dish to share. The meal was very good and everyone had a great time. After dinner we went back to our coach and relaxed in front of the TV for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, August 4^th, the rallies are over for this summer. We met everyone for coffee and breakfast at 8:00. They were making waffles too, but we don't eat breakfast and didn't have any waffles. After saying goodbye to everyone we went back to our coach and packed it up for travel. We left the RV park around 10:30, headed south to Rockford, Illinois, about 130 miles or so. We were traveling with the Wilson's and they were going to stay at the same park with us for three days.

We arrived at the Blackhawk Valley Campground around 1:00 or so and got set up in an hour or so. We are parked right next to the Wilson's. The phone service is terrible, but they have decent WiFi, so we will be able to stay in touch. We were lucky to get a spot with a hole in the tree cover just big enough for us to get a satellite feed. The Wilson's were not so lucky. As soon as we got set up we loaded the car with our laundry and headed to a laundromat. We also stopped for a burger at a local place called Beef-a-Roo. The food was pretty decent, way better than the chain stuff. We got our laundry done and were back at the campgrounds by 5:30, but we were whipped, so we had a cocktail and relaxed the rest of the evening. The refrigerator has officially died and I am working out some alternatives in my head.

This ends the two-plus weeks of rallies and marks a good spot to close this chapter. We are making every effort to deal with our dead refrigerator without panic or worry. Until the next time, remember the words of author and therapist, Virginia Satir. Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference. As the English say, Keep Calm and Carry On. See ya soon.