We had 221 RVs at the rally, and nearly 300 people who are staying in local RV parks here in Yuma came in on day passes. That’s a pretty good turnout, and we were very pleased with the numbers.

In looking over the feedback forms and the e-mails we have received about the rally, we see a common theme in them. The biggest complaints we had were about a lack of power. A lot of people said that they expected 30 amp hookups, but we seldom find that at fairgrounds or RV rallies. The 20 amp power more commonly available is enough to keep your batteries charged, but as soon as people start using coffee pots, microwave ovens, and curling irons, circuit breakers start tripping.

The noise caused by aircraft from the Marine Air Station was also a problem for some people, but there really isn’t anything we can do about that. But, a lot of people said that while the noise was somewhat bothersome, it was no big deal, and that they would rather put up with that than wading through the mud at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, or the noxious smell from the nearby dairy there.

There were some other issues raised and suggestions made for future rallies at this venue, and in a meeting yesterday with the fairgrounds management, I think we resolved most of them. Unlike the people running the fairgrounds in Casa Grande, the management here in Yuma is eager to earn our continued business, they listen to our needs, and they try to address them.

The fairgrounds is going to increase the electrical power available for RV hookups, as well as the number of “spider boxes” used to supply temporary hookups during rallies. They hope to increase the amount of electric available in the north parking area (Lot B), as well as bringing power to a new area where we should be able to park 30 or more RVs. 

Next year the rally will be March 7-11, right here at the Yuma Fairgrounds. We plan to have a food vendor on site, we will rent a couple of six passenger golf carts to shuttle people around, and we have arranged for the use of an extra building for vendor seminars, which will solve the problem of noise in the large vendor building interfering with seminars. Another complaint was low water pressure in the north lot, which has been resolved already. Apparently there was an underground leak, which they fixed Monday.

This rally was a learning experience, and we are putting those lessons to use.  I also obtained permission for our parking crew to come in a day early and dry camp next year, which will speed things up on Early Bird parking day.

This year’s rally was a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun. We’re already looking forward to next year!

Our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage really needed a bath, and Greg and Jan White’s American Eagle was just about as bad. So yesterday we had a mobile crew come in from Road Runner RV Wash, and they washed and hand waxed both rigs from the roof down. There are several companies that provide this service to the snowbirds here in Yuma, and they keep pretty busy. The cost for our 40 foot motorhome, including hand waxing, was $100.

Our van was coated in mud from parking RVs in the rain last week, and when I asked how much it would be to do it too, I was told $10. It costs me more than that  do the job at a car wash myself!

Today we are going to leave Yuma and caravan north with Greg and Jan. They have never been to Lake Havasu City or seen the London Bridge, so we’ll make a stop there to play tourist, and then we’ll go on to Laughlin, Nevada for a night.

We have reservations at the Thousand Trails in Las Vegas on Wednesday, where we plan to just relax and unwind for a week or two, while we wait for the weather to warm up in our old hometown of Show Low, in northern Arizona. Once we’re sure winter really is over in the high country,. we’re headed there for a much needed grandkid fix.

Thought For The Day – ‘Normal’ is just a setting on the dryer.

Like so much in the RV industry, our attendance at this year’s Western Gypsy Gathering rally was down considerably from last year. The 2008 rally had 254 RVs, and this year our top number was 157. But the folks who came sure had fun, in spite of the rain, mud, wind, and cold. Here is a picture our friend Bill Joyce took from the top of his RV, showing some of the parking area, and just one of the numerous mud puddles left over from the storm that hit early in the week.

Yesterday morning after coffee and donuts, most of the RVs pulled out, off to their next adventure, or in search of more comfortable parking facilities. The fact that a rabbit and pig show was coming into the fairgrounds as we were ending our rally (more of that double booking we appreciate so much), didn’t do much to make folks want to stay longer. By noon the greatest majority of rigs had left.

But a few of us are hanging around, at least for the weekend. We moved from the front of the fairgrounds to the back, to be away from the incoming activities, and our friends Sami and Earl Aeverman are parked right next to us. Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety is one space away on the other side. Several others from the rally are scattered around the fairgrounds.

Coming into the rally, I asked people to save their receipts for any purchases they made with local businesses, because I want to show the community leaders the money our one little rally brings to town. Even Terry and I were surprised. Judging by what I have seen from the receipts handed in, I estimate that each RV spent well over $300 in Casa Grande. That’s over $47,000 minimum, in one week!

Not to mention the many thousands of dollars Terry and I paid to rent the fairgrounds, or the revenue they made from RVs who arrived early or are staying over. Or the nearly $1,000 we spent on the pizza party, or the hundreds of other dollars we spent on door prizes, donuts every morning, and rally supplies. And we are just one small RV rally.

Yet, the folks who run the fairgrounds just don’t seem to get it. In a couple of meetings yesterday, I showed them the feedback forms from the rally, where one attendee after another complained about the poorly maintained buildings and grounds, the filthy restrooms, and inadequate water and electrical hookups. They acknowledge they have serious problems, but don’t seem to care about fixing them.

Another major complaint we had was the fact that when we started having our rallies here, we had the exclusive use of the fairgrounds for the week. But somewhere along the line they decided it was okay to double book events, and to rent RV spaces to the general public in the middle of our rally!

Since the powers that be here obviously don’t care about our business, we’ll just take it (and our money) elsewhere. The coordinators of other RV rallies who have been using the fairgrounds told me that they are also not returning. Our attendees made it very plain to us that they don’t want to come back, and unless major improvements were made in both the fairgrounds itself and the mindset of the management, we won’t be.

There will be a Western rally next year, like always, but we have not settled on a location or a date yet. We are looking at several different venues, so stay tuned. As soon as we have something finalized, we’ll announce it here.

After existing on four or five hours of sleep a night all week, Terry and I plan to turn off our telephones and sleep late tomorrow. We’ll wrap up some business here over the weekend, have dinner with some friends we didn’t get to spend enough time with during the rally, and Monday we’re headed for Tucson.      

Thought For The Day - I think, therefore I laugh.

And then the rains came.

What fun would an RV rally be without rain? Just as there seems to be an unwritten law that says every RV park in the United States must be located within a stone’s throw of a railroad track, that same governing body has apparently decreed that there can be no RV rally without precipitation.

We have been here in Casa Grande for almost a month, and I don’t think we’ve seen more than two or three raindrops in all of that time. But Saturday night it began to rain. And then it rained some more. And some more.

By the time our hardworking parking crew was ready to start work at 8 a.m., the grounds was getting pretty muddy. Bringing in 95 heavy RVs sure didn’t help matters any. The hard rain stopped, but we had several brief showers during the day just to remind us that we were not in the clear yet.

I have to give Don Hankins and our parking crew some well deserved praise here. They slogged around in the mud for hours, getting RVs parked, listening to the occasional cranky RVer who didn’t want to park anyplace wet (I think the closest dry place is San Antonio right now), and they just kept on smiling and working all thorough it. 

The Gourd Festival was still going on Sunday, so our people had to work around what we have come to call the gourdheads. I never knew there were so many kinds of gourds in the world, and so many creative things people could do with them. But I have to be honest, anyone who is so fanatical about gourds that they would have personalized gourd license plates, or have “Gourd Princess” tattooed on their boob (don’t ask my how I know this, but it wasn’t a pretty sight), has to be, well, out of their gourd!

While the parking crew was busy outside, the registration crew was working just as hard inside, getting folks signed in. Because the fairgrounds had double booked the day, the gourd folks still had all of the main buildings, but we got a little quarter size Quonset hut to use for registration. It was amazing to me how many people they were able to move through there in such a short time.

By the end of the day we had 95 RVs here for the rally, and many more scheduled to arrive today. Unfortunately, due to the double booking, there are still a lot of Gourd Festival RVs on the fairgrounds, most of them parked smack in the center of our vendor area. And they have shown no indication of moving anytime soon. This makes it very frustrating for our parking crew and vendors. I will be having yet another visit with the fairgrounds staff this morning to try and get that issue resolved.  

This is our third year here at the Pinal County Fairgrounds, and while the new manager is trying very hard, we have begun to doubt that the ongoing problems will ever be corrected. There just seems to be too many people “in charge” of something but not willing to stand up on their hind legs and take responsibility for actually doing anything. For example, even though we are here and the rally is happening, we still do not have the contract that we were promised when we paid our deposit a year ago.

We have been talking to the manager of the fairgrounds in Yuma, Arizona as a possible location for our next rally, and looking at other options as well. While we’ve been to Yuma many times in the past, we have never actually visited the fairgrounds. We plan to do that once we wrap things up here. If you have been to any RV events at the Yuma fairgrounds, I’d appreciate your input on the facilities there.

Thought For The Day - Every path has a few puddles.