Hello from Chugwater, WY

Hello from Chugwater, WY

Sunday Evening   September 16, 2012   (Second travelogue of this trip).

We are back in Chugwater, WY (map).  We left Gillette this morning and made the short trip down here today.  It turns out that Chugwater is about half way between Gillette and Evergreen and is a nice stop as we have mentioned in other blogs.  Tonight we made it in time to have Chugwater Chili at the fun little store on main street.  When we came through last Sunday, they closed before we got to the store.

The rally was interesting.  I did not get my inventory until the second day of the rally and then it was not all that extensive.  Indeed, we missed two $1295 sales because we did not have the product.  The rally itself was pretty small. We were told that it was about 360 coaches.  The other problem is that several vendors skipped this rally in favor of a rally in Missouri.  We heard that some attendees left early. 

We were pretty busy in the booth.  Folks like to talk about the product and had good questions.  My seminar went well and Pat's went very well.  She got several great compliments and the ladies seemed to have a very good time.  She got a couple of nice orders and that is always a plus.

This is our booth at Gillette

Gillette is an interesting place.  They have a huge amount natural resources (oil, natural gas, and coal).  We are told that the economy for the area is very good.  Just across from where we parked, there was a great display of mining equipment that included a drag bucket that was as tall as the bus and an ore truck that was much bigger than the bus.  I would have liked to spend more time, but we needed to leave the facilities by noon (we left closer to 1:00, but they did not call the cops {grin}).



It will be interesting to see if SilverLeaf will ask us to do other rallies.  We hope so as it is fun to do a rally where you don't have to worry about paying the bills.

That is all for now.

Hello from Gillette, WY

Hello from Gillette, WY

Tuesday Evening   September 11, 2012   (First travelogue of this trip).

We are at the Cam-Plex multi-event facility (map) attending an FMCA area rally, representing SilverLeaf electronics (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/).   When we were doing trade shows, we often represented SilverLeaf by purchasing a double booth as shows where they did not attend.   Over the years we got to know the owner of the company very well.  He is a genius at developing electronic equipment for the RV industry and is a wonderful person to work with. 

In the past, we paid the cost of the booth.  After we closed the business, Martin and I talked about our continuing to represent his company.  We reached an agreement where SilverLeaf would pay our costs and offered a commission on sales over an agreed upon amount.  We probably will not get the income, but we have the benefit of attending a trade show where we don't have to worry about how to pay the bills.

We have always enjoyed being vendors at trade shows.  It is fun to interact with the attendees.  You also develop a strong friendship with many of the vendors.  Even though this is a small rally, we have at least one vendor that we are glad to see.

The Cam-Plex is a great facility.  Indeed, the International FMCA rally will be held here next year.  A rally of that size demands top notch facilities.  We did a Fleetwood rally here a couple of years ago and noted then how wonderful the facilities were.

At this rally, I will do a SilverLeaf seminar and Pat will do a rubber stamped greeting card seminar.

The trip here is a bit under 400 miles.  While we could drive that in a day, we try to keep the driving to a more pleasurable number.  As has been the case in the past we stopped in Chugwater, WY.  We have talked about this little town in previous blogs.  Years ago when we belonged to a membership ranch, the ranch outside of Wheatland, WY,  they would pick us up in an Eagle bus (a model perhaps 15 years older than ours) and we would stop in Chugwater to pick up meat for the meals.  There was a great meat market there at the time.  Today Chugwater is a mere shadow of the town we used to know.  It is still fun to park on Main Street and see all the old buildings.  Most are no longer used, but there is something about this little town that makes us feel comfortable. 

That is all for now.

Hello from Gillette, WY

Hello from Gillette, WY

Wednesday afternoon July 1, 2009 (First travelogue of this trip)

We are at the Fleetwood Factory Rally at the Cam-Plex facility (map). Actually the rally ended yesterday.

For the past several days we have felt like a yo-yo with some pretty significant ups and downs. As you read this belated blog, you will see why we are mentally drained and “wiped out”.

First, let's catch up on our travels. When we last posted it was May 22^nd and we were on our way home from a couple of rallies in Goshen, IN. Since then we had a family vacation in Dillon, CO from 6/12 to 6/20. We had a ball! During the week, all three of the girls and their families were with us in a couple of condos plus one daughter's family town house. Very relaxing and lots of quality time with the eight grandkids. We usually have the family week in our various campers at a campground, but this was a fun alternative.

For this trip we left on Wednesday 6/24. It is less than 400 miles to Gillette, but we planned to do the trip in two days. We stopped in Douglas, WY. We had planned to stay in a campground since it was pretty warm, but the one we could find was full. We pulled off onto a circle road for an area that was not yet developed. We were not sure if we would be asked to move, but we had a peaceful night. The next morning, a sheriff stopped by and asked if we were OK and then drove off.

We got to Gillette on Thursday and got settled in. Friday afternoon we set up for the show. We had a very good show. I did two seminars and Pat did two craft classes. I was busy the whole show and really did not get to “relax”. Booth traffic always comes in waves and this time the waves were almost overwhelming at times. That is a good problem, but it still causes moments of anxiety when I have to leave the booth to make a customer call at the coach or fill extinguishers when customers are waiting in the booth.

Our plans for this trip were to travel to Ennis, MT for an Eagle bus rally and then on to Bowling Green, OH for the big FMCA rally and a converted coach pre-rally. Unfortunately most of that will not happen. That is the down part of the “yoyo”. Ever since I got the bus on the road, I have had to add some coolant every 1-3K miles. I figured that I had a very small leak somewhere. I recently installed a temporary catch bottle on the pressure relief valve outlet and discovered that the coolant was being forced out of the system. Worse yet, I discovered that the coolant was being turned gray in color. On this trip the problem has gotten worse. I am pretty sure that I have a head gasket issue. I went to the local Detroit Diesel repair shop and they concur. They were kind enough to give me an outrageous quote of $6K-8K!

I have had a few moments during our stay here to think about our problem, post my problem on the various bus bulletin boards and make several calls. I have gotten some good input and this has helped me form a couple of optional plans.

For sure we have canceled the Eagle and Converted Coach rallies. They would have been great fun, but we were not going as vendors, so we would not be loosing sales. The FMCA rally is troublesome. We will probably not be able to get our vendor fees back. We are looking at alternatives to get to that rally.

Today we are staying over at the Cam-Plex grounds and relaxing and catching up. Tomorrow we will head towards home. We will stop at a well known diesel repair shop to see how they might approach the job. In Gillette we had worked out a scheme to take out the rear window and pull the head with the engine in the bus. By removing the bed platform (easy) there is full access to the engine. Worse case, I can remove the engine and take it to a repair shop or do the work myself. I had the engine in and out several times during the conversion, so I know I could pull it in about 8 hours. I still have all the equipment necessary for the job.

I will probably make another post to this travelogue to let the readers know how we will approach the repair of the bus.

That is all for now.