MORE CONFERENCES, ESPECIALLY RVING WOMEN

We are back in Gillette, Wyoming for our third and fourth RV convention, Freightliner and RVing Women. We have grown rather fond of Gillette. With its small size (20,000) it is easy to get around, no traffic jams, no pollution and warm helpful people. We are impressed by the sense of community spirit. The original downtown (all three blocks of it) has public art on every corner, including a huge Pancho Villa-like mural. Scattered throughout the complete town (a huge sprawling area) are beds of flowers that are evidently taken care of by various volunteers (like the adopt-a-highway program).

We didn’t get a whole lot from the Freightliner Convention but we stayed put for the RVing Women Convention and so had about two weeks in one place for a change. The RVing Women Convention was outstanding, so well run, a big turnout and a chance to see old friends. There were over 200 rigs and almost 400 women. We were surprised at all of the big rigs the women were driving. When we Rved before, the women were mostly in smaller rigs. Just to look out over all of these rigs made our hearts glad at what we had started.

Zoe gave the keynote address and drew a huge response when she said, “This is not a club. It is a Community!” And she is right. There were excellent seminars and dozens of vendors. Zoe went to the technical seminars and I went to the heavy ones like “Cooking for 30 Days” and “Beginners’ Texas Hold-em” poker. We had happy hours and get-togethers that were great.

Zoe started the fulltimer’s chapter within the organization and turned the whole thing over to willing and able fulltimer’s. We have met lots of like-minded fulltimers who we will be sure to see often down the road. Most of them have big rigs like ours.

I finally got an MRI of my shoulder that showed I had a torn rotator cup, a spur and fluid. I have decided to wait until we are back from Europe to have it operated on but one seminar that I took at the RVW Convention (Twinges in Your Hinges) taught by a surgical nurse has given me the info to select the right surgeon and the right questions to ask.