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 Junction City, KS

Hello from Junction City, KS

Friday Morning July 2, 2010 (eleventh travelogue of this trip).

The Fleetwood rally was both fun and rewarding. We did a little bit of touring of the small town of Du Quoin – mostly to go eat or have ice cream. The Du Quoin fairgrounds are well equipped and nicely landscaped. However, it is quite spread out, and not easy to walk to everything. They had tractors pulling passenger trailers and that helped. Some folks drove their cars or golf carts. It was pretty darn hot and humid, so most folks did not walk to the events. Indeed, the attendees at these rallies have a few years under their belt and walking can be a challenge. The huge building we were in was well equipped including good air conditioning. The building was large enough to have a dining area for over 1000 people, the vendor area and several display motorhomes – and not be crowded.

They had two nights of entertainment. The first night seemed way too loud and we left early. The last night of the rally they had a great group. It was three guys that played perhaps 20 different instruments. They played a wide variety of music and the drummer mimicked some famous artists with very humorous skits.

The fairgrounds are the site of the Illinois state fair. It has several barns, a horse trotting track and a full horse race track. We saw several trotting horses (with the carts) working out on the track right in front of the bus.

I was able to ride my bike quite a bit and that was fun. Daughter Judy wrote a comment to one of our blogs that she was glad that we were getting some exercise. I suspect that her idea of exercise and ours is a bit different {grin}.

At the smaller rallies, we set up a double booth. On one side we have our fire suppression products and on the other side we have the SilverLeaf (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/) products. The SilverLeaf products take the vast amount of engine data from the diesel engines data port and display them in the form of an electronic dash. It is a top notch product that folks really love.

This was a unique situation where the owner of the company spent a great deal of time in the booth. He was attending the rally because Fleetwood is a significant customer. In any case, Martin is a great guy. He fits the description genius very well, but he also has a great personality. His being in the booth probably helped our sales.

Speaking of sales, we did pretty good. That was also true of the Fleetwood rally last year. Guess we will keep this on our “attend list”

In a recent post, I mentioned our '87 trip back east in our '56 Chevy. I am including a picture we took at the end of the trip. You will notice that Pat and the girls are in poodle skirts. The event we traveled to dedicated to the '50s era. Pat made the outfits and had each girls initial on the sweater (think Lavern and Shirley TV show). Of course, Lisa's sweater had an “L” and she got ticked off every time asked if she was Lavern {big grin}.  BTW, I still have the Chevy.  It needs a complete makeover, but it is still fun to drive.

Our Family and the '56 Chevy in '87

We departed Du Quoin Wednesday and drove a bit over 200 miles to a favorite stop: Isle of Capri casino in Boonville, MO. Yesterday we drove to Junction City and are staying in a Wal Mart (map)

That is all for now.

Hello from Green River, UT

Tuesday morning September 1, 2009 (second travelogue of this trip)

I am combining two trips. As noted in our last blog, we were in Douglas WY last week for a double install (my system and a SilverLeaf glass dash install). This week we are headed to Salt Lake for an install of my system in a motorhome.

The two installs last week went well. The SilverLeaf install was pretty straight forward. A SilverLeaf technician flew in and did most of the installation. I helped were I could but it was primarily a training session for me. I will try to post a picture of the dash in the next blog. My installation involves a great deal of work under the coach to run tubing and wires. It was a real challenge for this installation, as we could not get the coach very high due to soft soil. Worse, the soft soil was covered with very sharp gravel and that really made crawling around an issue and I ended up with a lot of scrapes on my back.

We did not get to do any sight seeing in Douglas. It is a very small town. The folks that we did the install for took us out to dinner several times and that was a lot of fun. The wife spent a lot of time with Pat doing stamping and just generally having fun. It ended up that she signed up as a demonstrator.

We left Douglas on Saturday 8/29. On the way home we stopped at two of our daughters to have quick visits. On Sunday we went to the third daughter's home and visited with her family. Pat did a stamping party on Sunday and I did a bunch of work to get ready for this trip. Kind of hectic!

We left Evergreen yesterday morning and stopped here in Green River. We are staying at the same Best Western hotel that we stayed at on our trip to Salt Lake last month. We are again driving the service truck. As has been the case for the past month, we are sure missing our bus!

That's all for now.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Hello again from Amana, IA

Friday Evening; July 4, 2008 (Second travelogue of this trip)

We are still at the Amana Colonies RV Park (here). We will be here until Monday.

We scheduled this week to be here in order to meet with the owner of SilverLeaf Electronics (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/). I have become a dealer for them. I have followed their company since its start over 10 years ago and have used their VMSpc engine monitor system since we have had the bus on the road. One of the main reasons I wanted to go with their products was that they are developing a tire pressure monitor system that will replace the product I have carried in the past. There is some information on my website (http://www.rvsafetysystems.com/Silverleaf.htm). This product will compliment my system and could possibly lead to additional business relationships.

I also wanted to be here for continued a dialogue with Swaims. They have helped me make some major business decisions. We knew that we had to change the way we did business, because we were not close to making a profit and had considered the possibility that we would have to shut down the business. There are lots of major changes we plan to make. One of them is that I will become an installer. That is where the money is. I had avoided that option, but it has become clear that it must be part of the business. We have worked out the details so that I feel comfortable expanding into this end of the business. We will charge a fixed rate and I will be able to do the install at a more leisurely pace than those I have been involved in so far. It will require a large adjustment in our scheduling, but that is a positive, since it will give us more time in an area to explore.

Suffice it to say that my head is swimming. BTW, Pat has had a lot of great input into these major decisions and I really appreciate that! There are lots of other business details, but I will keep the blog more travelogue oriented {grin}.

This campground is a huge facility that was created in 1988 for the World Ag Expo. It is also used for the Farm Progress Show. There are nearly 500 camp spots. We were lucky, that we have not had next door neighbors. We have 50 amp service, so we have been able to do several loads of wash. The campground office sustained some pretty significant damage during the recent severe floods. Many of the surrounding fields are totally destroyed by the flooding.

There are several RV rallies going on here. The Safari brand motorhome had their rally most of the week, and now the Beaver brand rally has started. Some of you may recall seeing Safari motorhomes, since many have distinct animal murals on them. We had always admired the murals, and assumed they were decals of some sort. It turns out that they are all air brushed by hand by the same family members that have been doing it for years. Apparently it was a factory option for about $2500. The artist is here doing a few motorhomes. He does about one a day. The murals have unbelievable detail. The photo below is an example. We watched him do this one. Not only is the mural extremely detailed, but he hides small animals in the mural. This one has 13 hidden animals. I talked to the owner and he has found all but one.

In the next travelogue I will discuss the Amana Colonies in a bit of detail.

That’s all folk!