VIEW, NAVION RALLY!
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
1
68
170
Trip End
Ongoing
Nehalem,
Oregon,
United States
Thursday, June 19, 2008
We arrived at the Nehalem Bay State Park by 6:30pm (ish) and found our site. As we were setting up for a dinner of leftovers, Rally organizers and View, Navion owners were stopping by to say "Hi" and check out our kayaks. The feel and tempo of the Rally began immediately! Andy and I quickly finished our dinner to have time to take a walk on the beach. Absolutely gorgeous!
On the walk back to our site we took the long way and found a group of our Rally folks sitting around a campfire. Everyone is so friendly and eager to share and learn. Looking forward to tomorrow when the Rally officially begins!
June 20th
More people continue to show up for registration and the Views & Navions keep on coming in
On our way up the coast
. The license plates are from as far away as Florida, Penn., Montana, Utah, British Columbia, Texas, Wyoming and Ohio, but the majority read from Oregon, Washington and California.The morning presentation was given by John from Upscale Automotive in Oregon. They specialize in making after-market suspension modifications for our rigs. Luckily, the man who we bought the RV from had all of the many modifications they sell installed before he sold it to us. I'm sure these modifications add to the reasons we love this RV so much.
In the afternoon, Deanna DeLong from Multi-Pure Water Filter Systems gave a demonstration on water quality and filtration systems for RVs and homes. Her information about water quality was informative and a bit alarming, so when she was finished I went back to research her claims on the internet. My skeptical side was concerned that she was just using scare tactics to sell water systems, but virtually everything she presented was true. With that, we had her install the system and now we are making a real effort to drink more "filtered water."
A show and tell was set up where people opened their RVs for others to check out what they had done to make them "better"
Nehalem Bay
. I got lots of ideas that we will be incorporating into our RV over time. Everyone got together for a potluck dinner and Jodie brought her "shake and bake" tofu (which is one of my favorites). Lots of good food was served and everyone there seemed to have a good time.
One of the RVers is a professional entertainer who mixes story telling and violin playing. One minute everone was laughing from his tales of growing up as a native American in a foster home, and the next minute everyone was being profoundly moved my his soulful playing. What an incredible treat to see him perform. His name is Swil Kanim and most of us lined up to buy copies of his CD at the end of his performance. He has a website which includes his upcoming locations and we hope to see him again soon (www.swilkanim.net).
June 21st.
We sat in on a presentation given by a couple that has been fulltiming it in one of our RVs for 2 years now. What makes them so unique is that they have never plugged into electricity to power their on board equipment. They are totally solar powered. They charge deep cell batteries which are then used to make household current via an inverter
Nehalem Bay
. These folks used to own and run a solar power business, but they sold it and now are using their knowledge to live without "shore power". Everyone at their presentation was fully absorbed by their wealth of information.Two slide shows were presented and I had visions of leaving early to avoid being bored to sleep, but man was I mistaken. Both presenters used some sort of Mac projector and software which included soundtracks, fading in and out, zooming in and out and technology that was so far from boring that I felt ashamed that I even had those thoughts. Great shows that ended up getting long hard applause from the audience.
June 22nd.
Most of the people are getting ready to leave and we are hanging out for a couple more days to meet up with my sister Betsy and my bro-in-law, Rick. Addresses and emails were exchanged and we plan on meeting up with some of our new friends within the month. This rally was a good experience and we hope to do some more of them in the future.
Once again, everyone got together for pot-luck and it was delicious.
Comments
Howdy
Andy-I wish you, Jodie and Maudie a happy Fourth!