Traveling With Sharon and Vern
I am starting this blog as my husband Vern and I have RVing for about 18 months now. I keep notes anyway and take lots photos, I post the most interested ones on Facebook so perhaps this will give me something to do on the long drives from one site to the next. I'm always excited to share my photos so that's a no brainer.
So let's get this started with Wyoming. That's where we are today, July 11, 2021. We left Gillette WY this morning after spending eight days here. We came here for the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) semi-annual convention. As the name suggests, its mostly coaches but they opened up the membership to travel trailers and fifth wheels. I'm really glad we came so we could grasp what a huge convention for RVers is all about. They do a good job with the logistics since there are over 1300 coaches/RVs and over 3000 people in one huge Cam-Plex in Gillette WY. Lots of activities, classes, exhibitors etc. Since most of the exhibitors and classes are for the big motor coaches, I doubt we will come back to this particular conference, but never say never. If we go to another, my guess we'll go to a smaller convention. Perhaps a brand specific event like Heartland, we have a Heartland Sundance 32ft fifth wheel. Going to these events at least allows you to talk to people and learn about the different options.
The highlight for this conference was finding an internet option. I had just canceled Netflix and Hulu since streaming has been difficult at best, impossible mostly. This is a router that has Verizon, ATT, T-Mobile/Sprint available software. So depending on where you are, what towers are closest, stronger it automatically switches. Plus its has 400 gigabytes, two 200 sim cards. Its expensive $189.00 a month. We purchased the hardware for $875 for the big one (it comes in 200 gigabytes too, $159.00 a month). Hopefully this will solve our problem. Even at our home base in Shingle Springs CA, in my son in laws background we needed a better solution than using Bryans internet with so many sharing the signal.
The best part of the conference was a few people we met. Trish and Jon were at the Elks in Rapid City. We spent some time there and found out they were heading to Gillette as well. Luckily their desire to connect and continue to connect was similar to ours so we went to dinner a couple of several times and ran into them and enjoyed their company a lot. They were heading East after the conference heading to Colorado for a couple of family reunions and then Trish is getting one of her hips replaced. My hope is to go to Texas either later in the fall or winter to visit them. Brownsville TX is a small community about 3.5 miles from the Mexico border. I'd love to spend some time with them in their stomping grounds. We will stay in touch for sure.
Our neighbors Jennifer and Jay were sweet, they had a cat they would put on a leash and take her for a walk. They live in Sierra Vista AZ, about an hour from Tucson so hope to see them in the winter as well.
We looked around Gillette WY a bit, did one drive out a ways to Devils Tower. Its about an hour out of town to the north. It reminded me of Hat Rock in Hermiston OR where our friends live overlooking the Columbia River. Its much taller and skinnier at the top. So more like a top hat over a xxxxxxxxx It was pretty busy and we weren't going to hike since the temperature was over 90 so we took our pictures and kept on going. Unfortunately there wasn't wasn't much so we eventually turned around and saw that area from a different perspective.
