Hello from Farmington, NM

Hello from Farmington, NM

Sunday morning October 19, 2008 (third travelogue of this trip)

After leaving McLean, TX we drove a bit less than 400 miles to our favorite little casino (Holywood Casino). This casino is located about 20 miles north of Albuquerque. This is a little hole-in-the-wall casino, but they only charge $10 per night for camping and Pat has a good time. We left McLean early and with the time change, we got to the casino around 2:00 PM. While Pat contributed to the economy, I reinstalled my the fire suppression system in the Eagle. I have had to rob parts from it several times and I kind of felt like the shoe makers kid who has no shoes. Only took a couple of hours and I did some other maintenance work.

Our drive from Springfield, MO to Albuquerque followed the route of the historic Route 66. We were able to see some of the old bridges, abandoned filling stations and old pavement including the concrete “curbs” (wow, those roads were narrow!). There are lots of websites detailing the history of “The Mother Road” Perhaps the best is: http://www.historic66.com/. I forgot to mention in our first post of this travelogue that we took some time in Elk City, TX to tour what was billed as the “official” Route 66 museum. I would suspect there are many Route 66 museums, but this one was a lot of fun and has some great historic displays including a very good farm implement museum.

Tuesday (10/14) we drove to Farmington (a bit less than 200 miles) and got settled in in the vendors parking area. We really lucked out and got a nice site with power and water right on the San Juan River (here).

Wednesday we set up the booth and the rally was Thursday through Saturday. Given the terrible economic situation right now, we really expected very low attendance and terrible sales. It turns out that our sales probably set a record for us (haven't had time to look at the sales book). We also had some very strong leads for future sales. And this is a very small FMCA rally (about 500 motorhomes). There is no way to predict what our sales will do. I have included a photo of the booth. For the small shows, were we represent SilverLeaf, we have a double booth. That sure makes it nice.

Pat did not do a seminar (they were booked up), but I did two seminars (our fire suppression system/tire pressure monitors and SilverLeaf electronics). We now represent SilverLeaf at the smaller shows. Both seminars were well attended and I had great audience participation.

Tomorrow we start home. We will travel up to Durango (about 40 miles) and then along US 160 to US 285. Our plan is to take two days (mapping program says we are about 360 miles from the house). If the weather holds, it should be a pretty trip.

Thats all for now.

Our double booth in Farmingtion, NM

Hello from St. Paul, MN

Hello from St. Paul, MN

Saturday Afternoon July 12, 2008 (third travelogue of this trip)

In the last travelogue I said that I would discuss the Amana Colonies. The history is fascinating! The following information came from: http://www.amanacolonies.org/history.htm

The Amana Colonies was established in 1855 by German immigrants. They established seven villages and adopted a constitution which formalized their communal way of life -- one that would become one of America's longest-lived and largest religious communal society.

In the seven villages, residents received a home, medical care, meals, all household necessities and schooling for their children. Property and resources were shared. Men and women were assigned jobs by their village council of brethren. No one received a wage. No one needed one. Farming and the production of wool and calico supported the community, but village enterprises, everything from clock making to brewing, were vital, and well-crafted products became a hallmark of the Amanas.

Over 50 communal kitchens provided three meals daily to Colonists. These kitchens were operated by the women of the Colony and well supplied by the village smokehouse, bakery, ice house and dairy and by huge gardens, orchards and vineyards maintained by the villagers.

We were able to tour the woolen mill and the furniture/clock factory and the products continue to be of the highest quality.

On Monday (7/7) we drove to the Dakota County Fairgrounds in Farmington, MN (here). This was the site for our Converted Coach Chapter pre-rally. It was a very low key rally with about 14 buses. About half of the buses were factory, high dollar conversions. On Friday we had a guided tour of the neat little recreated historical town on the fairgrounds.

The weather has been both good and bad. In Iowa, on the Fourth of July, we watched the fireworks from beside the bus and needed light jackets. In general, it has not been overly hot, which is a good thing, since it is pretty darn humid. On the way to Farmington we encountered one of the worst rain storms we have been in for for a long time. Most folks pulled off the road. Thursday there was a terrible storm at the fairgrounds and a tornado traveled along the ground for over six miles not far from our location. During this past week, we had two additional days of severe weather warnings and heavy rain. I think that the weather is supposed to be pretty nice for the next few days.

We are now at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds for the big FMCA International Convention (here). We caravaned in with the CVC folks today (7/12). We have great parking spots. We are very close the building where our booth will be. We set-up tomorrow and Monday and the show is Tuesday – Thursday.

In the last blog, I forgot to mention that the flag pole/flag in the picture was ours. At a rally a while back, I horse traded for a flag pole so that I could use it for an cell phone antenna mount (when we are in marginal areas). I never got it out after I put it in the bay. The day before the 4th, Pat was wishing we had a flag, and I recalled that the pole came with a flag. It was really neat to display the flag on the 4^th of July!!!!

That is all for now.