RV RALLY

This past week, we have been at an RV rally.  Mr. W has been following a blog of a couple who have been full time RVing for about 9 years.  He found their blog on the internet about a year after they started.  The title of their blog is RV-Dreams. Back in July, when we first started this journey, we saw that they were hosting a RV rally in Sevierville, TN this spring and decided that we wanted to attend.  It sounded like fun.  We had never been to a rally before.  We were going to gather with others who had the same interest as we did in full time RVing and spend the week together.  Believe me, when a bunch of RVers get together, there is always fun!

So, Mr. W started planning the trip.  For those that don't know, Mr. W can plan a trip to death!  I could never do the researching, planning, routing, researching again, re-planning, re-routing, repeat (you get the idea) as he does.  I guess that's why we travel so well together. :)  Of course, when he gets through with all of it, you have a great trip to look forward to.  Anyway, this rally was the reason we decided to head to the east on our first trip.

So, we arrive in Sevierville, TN on Monday.  Registration for the rally was Tuesday afternoon and a catered dinner was that night.  There were 175 people registered to attend this rally. Wow!  The impressive thing is, Monday evening, Howard and Linda (the hosts) invited everyone who had arrive one day early to come to their site and meet others who had arrived early.  They had gone by each person's site to welcome them and invite them to this gathering. There were about 100 people there that evening. Howard went around and introduced everyone, by name, without us wearing name tags, and in most cases, he had just met us a couple of hours before for a very brief few minutes.  I was pretty impressed. 

Meet Howard and Linda, our hosts
Can you tell Howard is a little more subdued and Linda is not? :)

Each day started with seminars on different aspects of RVing and full timing.  We had a break for a lunch and then finished up the afternoon with more seminars.  Most evenings had catered dinners and fun things.  Bill, who we met the first night and who is a "veteran of this rally", suggested we sit at a different each day so we could meet new people.  We took his advice and we met some great people.

 

Just to give you an idea of some of our activities, we had "Share your RV gadgets" night.  There is no perfect RV so there is always some give and take in things you end up with in your RV.  So, when you give up something, you find a way to compensate or make do and it was fun seeing what gadgets people either bought or made to compensate in their RV.

We had pot luck dinner one evening.  Some of these people can cook!  There was our Kentucky Derby party. We watched the race, had a hat contest, and had our own race with our own blow up stick horses (don't ask), along with a DJ and a dance afterward. There was an Open House and people opened their RVs for everyone to walk through and ask questions.  I volunteered to open my RV and of course this Texas girl had to show her "Personalized Texas Edition" to all the non-Texans!  Actually, some even liked it....

Bill and Nancy in their Kentucky Derby hats.

Winner for most glamorous hat

Winners for best couples hats

Some of the dancing going on.

I even learned how to braid a T-shirt!

It will suffice to say that mornings were early and nights were late and I was dog tired today!  But it was fun.  I hated to see some of the special people I had met leave.  But, I'm hoping that our paths cross again in all of our journeys

Tomorrow, Mr. W and I will be back to doing sightseeing in the area.  We will be visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I haven't been here since I was about 7 years old.  Mr. W has never been.  So, stay tuned for some great pics!