Our Rig Among The Others In The Vendor Parking Area
We made our way from Zanesville, Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky for “The Rally” put on by Good Sam.
We signed up to be parked in the vendor parking area, as David does a lot of consulting with various vendors. Parking there made things interesting as we were parked on asphalt, during 90 degree days, in a black coach, on 30 amps of power. For those of you who do not know, 30 amps of power would run a maximum of 2 air
conditioners (out of 3). Without turning on our fridge, as that is a residential fridge and only runs on electric, or anything else that is electric. So on these hot hot days, we could only get our coach down to 80 degrees.
Whisper Reading My Kindle
As you can see, the cats were fine. Whisper spent the days reading my Kindle and napping.
The Rally In Louisville, KY
New Coaches On Display At The Rally In Louisville, KY
Dish Network was a major sponsor of this rally. With David’s background in audio video and now an avid rver, he consulted with Dish on their new RV friendly “Pay As You Go” platform. It was nice seeing Dish Network finally have a large presence at an rv rally.
The rally itself was smaller than it has been in the past. I’d say most of the floor space was used up by the new coaches on display and the Camping World and Good Sam areas. Smaller vendors did not seem happy at the layout (that Good Sam changed the day of the show) and the lower turnout.
David At The Dish Network Booth
David Was In Awe At An Off Road Vehicle That Was On Display
David was also in awe of this off road “rv”. No…he does not want one. It was just pretty cool to see. I mean really, look at how tall this sucker is compared to David.
We saw our friends at ShadePro and boy what timing that was. It just so happened that our main awning motor was going. The last few times we’ve tried to bring in our awning, it struggled. Well, Dometic wanted over $600 just for a motor! We’ve always wanted different arms on our awning and with ShadePro doing installations right on site, our fate was sealed.
So we scheduled an installation of new awning arms that came with a new motor. Yeah!
Let me just say, these guys are great. Not only did they have to replace the awning arms, they also had to re-wire the whole system. In 90 degree heat mind you, on asphalt.
The fabric on the main awning we kept because their was nothing wrong with it. Why fix it if it ain’t broke, right?
We did however have them replace the fabric over our front door awning. For some reason, Gulfstream put white vinyl over the front door of a black coach. ShadePro was able to match the fabric that we had on our main awning and replaced the white fabric with that new fabric.
ShadePro Putting On Our New Awning Arms
Our New Awning Arms And New Matching Fabric Over Our Front Door.
We are very happy with how this came out.
Another nice thing about parking in the vendor area is you can meet some very nice people. We met some nice people who sold the Aero Cosmetics Wash Wax that David absolutely loves. Put it to you this way, our coach, as you know, is black. It is also 5 years old and has over 55,000 miles on it. Yes, all these miles we’ve put on ourselves.
Anyway, in the beginning David was killing himself washing the rig all the time. Once he found this product a few years ago at another rally, he decided to try it. Ever since then, he can not say enough good things about this waterless wash/wax. Everyone thinks our coach is brand new the way it shines and glimmers.
So back on track…these people sell this product and we introduced ourselves and told them how much we liked the product. Well, we hit it off and hung out with them every evening the rest of the rally. After the rally they were heading to Goshen, IN for another rally and we were heading home. We’ll see them again at the Indianapolis FMCA rally at the end of August.
Rallies are not only a good place to meet new people, get service work done and see some neat products but they usually have some good entertainment too. This years rally was no exception. The Rally had The Gatlin Brothers, Burt Bacharach, and Sheryl Crow. Now, the Gatlin Brothers and Burt Bacharach are a little out of our age group. We did not attend these concerts.
But Sheryl Crow? Heck yeah. We went to that one.
Sheryl Crow Concert At The Rally In Louisville, KY
She was a great performer. The first couple of songs were a little loud until they got the levels worked out, but other than that, it was great! We don’t think they had time for a sound check, hence the off balance and loudness in the beginning.
Sheryl Crow Concert At The Rally In Louisville, KY
Sheryl Crow Concert At The Rally In Louisville, KY
Sheryl Crow Concert At The Rally In Louisville, KY
I wish it was easier to get good pictures at a concert, but alas, it is not. These unfortunately are the better of the bunch.
David And Brenda At The Sheryl Crow Concert
In the end, “The Rally” was fun. We met some great new friends, saw Sheryl Crow in concert and got new awning arms.
I wonder what Indy will hold for us?
I’m guessing that big off-road thing is a “Marauder”. Yeah, I kinda want one, but I’d settle for a tricked out duece-and-a-half. ;)
No…I really want one of these… http://rallyfighter.com/ Check it out, you get to help build it over a week and they are only making 2000 of them. This is REALLY COOL and if we lived in Texas or somewhere out their, I would be considering doing this. How many people can say they built their own car. (I know some can…but come on…it’s not normal.)