Thursday, April 27, 2006
Spring Escapade, Silver Dollar Fairgrounds, Chico, CA - April 23-27
Things got off to a shaky start here when we joined a line of RVs waiting to be parked stretching out onto the city street. We sat. And sat. And the line got longer. And longer. Pretty soon the police showed up. Then we were diverted to a different entrance. And we sat some more. Finally the line started moving, and kept moving, and we were parked out in the middle of a grass field. Next to a guy with one of the loudest generators we've ever heard. Amid other RVs with generators (despite our request to be parked in a "No Generator" area). Oh well.Different people come to Escapades for different reasons -- some to learn (or teach) RVing tips, some to buy (or sell) RV-related products, and some to socialize. Opening ceremonies were on Sunday, followed by four days of seminars during the day and some form of evening entertainment. Closing ceremonies were Thursday, and most people left Friday. Extra-curricular activities included sightseeing and BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather groups of people with like interests). It is a high-energy, high-stress four days and Doug has gotten sick both times we've been. The cats are not big Escapade fans, since they rarely see us between 8 am & 9 pm.
Line Dancing was offered at 8am for 90 minutes (plus 30 more for more advanced steps). This was the best instruction we have ever had, so it was worth the early start. Much of our time was spent coordinating activities with each of three BOFs we are active in (Birders, Boomers, and Stonewall -- we didn't even try to add Pet Lovers); organizing RVers is like herding cats. We actually attended only 3 or 4 seminars, and left 2 of those early. One of the seminars we stayed for was on geocaching, which involves getting the GPS coordinates (latitude & longitude) for, and then going out and trying to find, a "cache" (basically a logbook for people who find it to sign, plus optionally some doodads that they can trade one of theirs for, like high-tech pack rats). Sounds simpler than it really is, since the cache can be hung from a tree, hidden under rocks or in just about anything you can imagine other than buried. Couple that with the fact that GPS is only good to within 10 or 20 feet, and you've got the potential for some serious subterfuge here. The instructor hid 6 caches around the fairgrounds, so of course we had to look for all of them (in all our spare time). We only found 4.
We saw many friends from our six-plus years of RVing here, and that was the main reason we came. We ate dinner out with various new and old friends almost every night. We especially enjoyed a local Thai place. Upon leaving, we had our rig weighed by a professional group from the Escapade and are sorry to report that we have "gained" 500 lb since last being weighed (in 2001). I guess most of that is our inverter and the 4 new golf cart batteries. We just can't seem to get rid of all that excess "stuff"!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 11:14 PM 
