For several years, we have talked about going to an FMCA
Rally. We decided to go to this year’s rally in Gillette, Wyoming, the
Friday before it started on June 19th. One of the main reasons we decided
to go was we knew we would have to boondock (no hookups) and what better place
to learn about boondocking when you are surrounded by other boondocking RVs and
RV service techs!
We left Sheridan on Tuesday and arrived at the Cam-plex
facility in Gillette within a couple of hours. The coordination that took
place to get hundreds of motorhomes into the facility was impressive. I
thought we would have to wait because we were so late in signing up; but we
were in our boondocking site within 10-20 minutes of arriving at the facility.
Our biggest concerns about boondocking were not filling up
the gray tank and keeping the batteries charged. FMCA had “honey wagons”
from which you could pay to have your tanks dumped or fresh water filled; but
we were hoping to not need their services. I had cooked ahead of time so
we warmed up our meals in the microwave and we used paper plates and bowls to
keep dishwashing to a minimum. I like the not having to wash the dishes
part of boondocking. :)
In the area where we were parked, we could run the generator
from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm. The temperature was pleasant so we did not have
to run the air conditioners very much. We ran the generator when we were
at the camper mainly to keep the batteries charged.
On Wednesday, we went to several seminars with the most
informative being the one about batteries. On Wednesday evening, we went
through several of the new motorhomes on display.
On Thursday, Chuck attend seminars about Cummins engines and
Onan generators (what we have), I attended seminars about geocaching, driving
the motorhome, and internet connectivity, and we both attended a very good
seminar about fire safety. In between seminars, we very quickly went
through a few of the vendor exhibits that opened that day.
We spent most of Friday and Saturday going through the rest
of the vendor exhibits. This was the first time Magnum Industries had
been at a rally we attended so we finally learned how to operate the auto
generator start feature of our inverter…and it worked! With this feature,
we program the inverter to start the generator when the temperature reaches a
specified level (to cool the RV with the AC) or when the batteries drop to a
specified level (to keep the batteries charged).
Carefree Awnings was at the rally and after speaking with
them about our door awning not working after two motor replacements (one in
2007 under warranty and one in 2008 that we had to pay for), they told us they
have improved their motors and would send us a new motor for free. Cool!
After attending the fire safety seminar, we also decided to
replace all of our fire extinguishers with more effective foam-type
extinguishers.
Howard and Linda Payne (RV-Dreams.com) whose full-timing
rally we had attended in Hershey, Pennsylvania in September of 2011 were also
at the rally weighing coaches. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them
during the rally and after they had finished weighing more than 80 coaches on
Sunday.
The most excitement of the week came on Saturday when a
hurricane-like storm blew through and the aftermath on Sunday.
Thankfully, we were in the vendor exhibit building on Saturday when the storm
with 70+ mph winds, rain and hail hit. The pictures below were taken from
inside the building looking out toward the new motorhomes on display. It was a lot worse than the pictures indicate.
The awning was extended on one of these new motorhomes and
we watched it flail up and down and sideways. We just knew it was going
to rip off. There were some people inside the coach (not the place to be
during a storm like this) and they eventually got the awning retracted.
That new coach has a very good awning (or a now really worn-out one).
The wind and rain was so strong that it blew under the doors
of the west side of the building and got the floor soaked about 15 yards into
the building. There was so much hail it built up several inches thick
against the wall outside the building.
The Carefree Awnings exhibit (where we had been just a
couple of hours earlier) and Cummins exhibit on the north side of the building
were just about blown away.
When we got back to the motorhome, the hail was piled up on
the ground.
We thought sure our leak on the floor beneath the driver’s
window would be back. Surprisingly enough, the floor was dry and there
was no hail damage. The wind was so strong it turned our satellite dish sideways and we thought "oh no, here we go again with the satellite not working." I tried stowing it and it worked; and I later tried turning it back on and after several minutes it locked on to the satellite and worked. Thank goodness!
The real fun started on Sunday when everyone was supposed to
leave Cam-plex. We got a hint of how difficult it was going to be to
drive out when we saw a motorhome being towed out on Saturday evening after it
had rained. It was a muddy mess. What was really bad is this guy had been able
to get out but he came back after fueling his motorhome up.
On Sunday morning, many of the coaches in our area starting
moving out…or at least attempting to move out.
This Winnebago Tour that had been parked across from us got
stuck.
First, this truck hooked up to a Jeep tried to pull him out.
Then, a truck hooked up to the Jeep hooked up to the truck
tried to pull him out.
Then, these three Jeeps tried to pull him out with their
winches.
I didn't get it filmed in time but at first, one of the Jeeps started sliding toward the motorhome but then stopped. They tightened up the winches and with the help from the three Jeeps, he was finally able to get
out.
Look how deeply his rear wheels were sunk. You can’t even see
my feet!
All day long we watched motorhome after motorhome get stuck
and then need assistance either from the three Jeeps, tow trucks, or a tractor
to get out. I even saw this one guy try to push his motorhome as his wife
was trying to drive it out of the mud. Can you believe it? But I
know it was just an automatic reaction to try to help. Thank goodness he
didn’t get hurt.
You can see from the pictures below how muddy it was and the
ruts got worse the more people tried to get out.
We, along with about 15 or 20 other coaches in this area,
decided to wait until Monday to move. On Monday morning, we were not in
any big hurry to leave wanting to wait and let the ground dry out some
more. But a guy on a tractor from Cam-plex came by telling us that we had
to move out and he would assist us if necessary.
We got everything put up in the motorhome, started the
motor, and let it air up like normal. Then, Chuck watched as I retracted
the jacks which were about 4 inches deep in the ground. Fortunately, they
came up without any problem. After I brought the slides in, Chuck got
behind the wheel while I watched outside from the front of the motorhome to
alert him if the wheels started to spin. Thankfully, with many prayers,
he pulled right out without any problem.
After getting the car hooked up on the street, we said
good-bye to Howard and Linda and to our neighbors in a nice Newell who unfortunately
did get stuck trying to pull out that morning and needed assistance from the
Cam-plex tractor guy to get out.
Even with the ferocious storm on Saturday and all the mud,
we were very glad we went to the rally. We met a lot of new friends,
including Tony and Barb Pritchard (who we end up seeing again in a few days),
we got to visit with Howard and Linda, we learned how to operate the auto
gen-set on the inverter, we got a new motor shipped to us for our door awning
that had not worked in years, we didn’t come close to running out of water or
filling up the gray tank, our batteries didn’t go dead, we learned we could
boondock for several days, we didn’t get stuck in the mud, and we found out
later we got filmed in FMCA’s Gillette highlights movie (we are in it for a few seconds around 00:48 to 00:58):
We really did have a good time and learned a lot. I just don’t care to
boondock in the mud ever again!
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