The Fleetwood Motorhome Rally

Busy week this week. We had the chip repaired on the front window of the rig and the front window of the car. Dan the Chip man did a great job and also shined up the headlights on the car. Then as long as we were here we had the black and grey tanks cleaned out. We had never had this done and All Pro Water-Flow people did a fantastic job. Their web site is www,allprowaterflow.com  If you see them around have them take a look and see if you need the tanks cleaned. This was all done at the FMA rally here in Yuma, AZ. We got our dates mixed up and thought it was starting on Tues. but no it was Wed. so, we had a full day to get some things done in the rig before we attended the rally.
 Wednesday
 I sure hope that you will go to a rally. They are great fun and very informative. I would suggest if possible to attend a smaller regional  first. Sometimes in the larger rallies you can get lost. They will have seminars, we were able to give a full-timing  and a workamper seminar. It was fun and we plan to do it again. So, we arrived on Wed. and were greeted by 2 couples, and Mr. Happe escorted us to our site here at Fortuna de Oro RV Resort. This parks is in the Cal-Am systems of parks and they have just acquired this park and are working very hard to bring it up to date. FMA (Fleetwood Motorhome Association) first gathering was for first timers and it was a huge success. All of new attendees gathered together and they gave a run down on what to expect and introduced all the officers of the club. They really made us feel welcome  We had a wonderful dinner and the rally was off to a fantastic start. Fleetwood brought in 11 new rigs for us to view or purchase, they came from RV World of Yuma, I must say the new designs are looking good. However, some of the color choices were not really to my liking. Everything seems to be dark woods and counter tops. Oh well, I'm sure someone likes them,
Thursday
With a full breakfast under our belts we headed off to Martha' s Gardens Date Farm Tour. What an interesting place. It's hard to believe there is so much work to farm dates.
The seminars got started with the All Pro Water-Flow giving a talk about the black and grey tanks, it seems that crystals form  because of interaction of the sewer gases and sludge in the tanks and should be cleaned out every year. I'm not sure about every year, but if you have had your rig for a while it might be a good idea to get it done. I know there are other companies that do this service and just make sure they have a camera so you can see what's happening. This is the first time in about 8 years that the gauges did not read full. We also had a water valve fixed. At rallies that are manufacturer based, the manufactreer will bring in a team of repair guys from the factory. The will usually do minor repairs and do not charge for the labor and give a discount for the parts. What a deal. One couple we talked with felt it paid for the rally fees, just to have some of the repairs done. There were also seminars done by a Yuma Historian, and the Bureau of Land Management. The women had a Fashion show and lunch and the men had beer and brats, and lots or bragging. At this rally we had several of the top management of Fleetwood here and we were able to interview John Lowery COO of Fleetwood. What a very interesting guy. He's only been on the job for about 7-8 months and formerly worked at Harley-Davidson. He really put my faith back in Fleetwood.  Nice man.  It turned into one very enjoyable day.
Friday
'This was the day for us to do our seminars, they had 90 rigs here at the show and we had about 16 people come to the full-timers seminar. Everyone seem to enjoy the talk we gave, some had been full-timing for a little while and all felt they learned something. In the afternoon we gave a talk on workamping, again it was well received. John and I both totally enjoyed doing the talks and I think we will pursue this more. We were asked to speak at the National FMA rally in DeQuoin Il in June and the Eastern FMA rally in FL in Jan 2015. That was a real boost to us. The National President of the FMA Linda Coleman gave a talk and updates and had a Q & A time. What a wonderful lady.
Saturday
This was our fun day for us. We had done the seminars and we were now ready to have some fun.
When we received our rally information and there was a Colorado River boat trip scheduled so we signed up and boy were we glad we did. I hadn't paid much attention to the specifics of the trip, as we had been on a few so I kind of expected it to be a short 1 hour ride. We spent 3 hours ride up the river and what they had done is half of the people went on a paddle boat for 1 1/2 hours and the other have went on a fast smaller boat. Then we switch places.The smaller boat was able to get into smaller places and it was such a get trip. The gave us a box lunch and the sun was shinning and the birds were on the water. Another wonderful day.
Sunday
Today was the day to leave. We had a continental breakfast and a church service. It was time to say goodby to all our new friends. We had wonderful food, great fellowship and we are looking forward to the National Rally in June.
 We have a leak around the water heater and when we sign up for the rally we asked to repair the leak around the valve where the water comes in. However, when we got here we asked about repairing the leak around the water heater. They said they probably would not have time to do anything as they had a full schedule. So, we paid to stay an extra day and thought we would have to use a local repair service to repair the problem. What a pleasant surprise when about 11:30 the repair guys show up to help us fix the problem. What a team. Randy and Tim are here and they are doing everything possible to solve this water leak. It looks like the people at Classic Coach have struck again. They put a nail into the water line and over the last several years it has been slowly leaking and now the dam has burst. That place has cost us a bundle with repairs to problems they have caused. You know we don't like to give any bad news but these people have been a mess.