We attended the rally celebrating the 30th
Anniversary of the Monaco International chapter of the Family Motor Coaching
Association (“FMCA”) this week. We’ve been going to these rallies on and off
since 2006, after we bought our current coach. These rallies are held the week
before bigger FMCA “conventions” once or twice a year (more on that next week).
We’d planned this part out before we left Arizona.
Accordingly, we had all of 9 miles to travel from Charleston to the rally
location, The Mill Casino and RV Park in North Bend, Oregon. Since we’ve stayed
in this area before, we knew the right combination of local roads to navigate
with the coach. It wasn’t worth hooking up the Rover, so Geri followed.
Like a lot of RV get-togethers, early arrival generally
yields better parking. We took advantage to a scheduled early slot on Monday,
even though Rally activities didn’t really start until Wednesday, and got a
spot in “Row 1”. It was a “low deployment” stop, with minimal gear needed. We
had electric service (30 Amp, but enough to get by with the relatively mild
weather) but made sure that our water was full and holding tanks were empty.
Water was available, but I couldn’t find my 1,000’ hose. (Photo plus: Albertville Hydrant.)
Our good friends Wayne & Eva, were also at the rally,
although they didn’t get in until later on Tuesday. We haven’t seen them in
quite a while as our travel schedules and directions have differed. We went out
to dinner on Tuesday night, to a local Japanese place (my sushi was fine but
the others’ entrees were less than expected). On Wednesday, we made a day trip
south to Bandon, a little seaside town, where we had lunch and some pretty good
dessert.
The Rally included breakfast and dinner Thursday through
Saturday, so we didn’t have to cook as much as usual. We took turns setting the
nametags out to reserve a table (it’s a sort of rally tradition, complicated).
Also included was evening entertainment, which was mediocre but not unexpected
given the part of the country and the budget for this kind of event (RVers are
generally “thrifty” types). On the last evening, leftover “drink tickets” were
traded in for unopened bottles of wine. We pretty much closed up the place with
the other couples at our table (Bernard & Wanda on the right, unknown
couple in the foreground, unclear where Wayne & Eva were).
At the end of the Rally, we had two days to get to the next
one and it was only 155 miles, so we decided to stay one more night. Fortunately,
the RV Park on site, with full hookups, cleared our right away and we were able
to move over easily. We had a nice view out the front window early on, but
things filled up quickly. We spent Monday cleaning up the coach, and Geri
caught up on laundry. Life on the road…
No comments:
Post a Comment