We had a pretty easy trip from Mitchell, SD to Forest City, IA. We spent our first night here in Forest City at a very lovely campground, Three Fingers RV Resort, so we could get ready for the very hectic Winnebago-Itasca Grand National Rally (GNR) where 900 RVs are expected to attend, down from the 1200 when we last attended in 2012.
The GNR offers a lot of things not to mention vendors galore and seminars, but the best part of the GNR is reuniting with folks we have met along the way at caravans and adventures, as well as many of our Mid-Florida Winnies club members! In all, Florida has 91 attendees, in second place, with Minnesota taking first prize with 105! Considering Minnesota is the neighboring state, not so far away, I think Florida wins this, but my opinion is just that!
Our coach is on the list to be called in for service to fix the trim around the front window and to replace the bedroom ceiling fan. Thom is going to replace the antennas we lost on the roof, but we are getting a new over-the-air antenna, the Rayzar, which is an automatic high definition digital antenna. We will never have to worry about whether the cable is any good in the campgrounds or whether our satellite is blocked by trees with this new antenna, if we are 50 miles within a station. We are hoping to find our name on the list tomorrow (Wednesday) for Thursday's repair schedule; otherwise, we will be finding ourselves in la-la-land with the antenna installation, as Friday we have that scheduled for install here on the grounds. (FYI: 07/22/15 - Not yet on the schedule!)
The weather this time in Iowa is so much better than the hot, sticky, humid weather we had in 2012, thank goodness! The a/c has been turned off the past two evenings with windows open, which has been really nice. We believe the weather is supposed to continue to cooperate in the same pattern.
I will probably not blog again for a few days, as we have lots of things scheduled and there are a lot of evening entertainment to attend.
Porter Sculpture Park, Montrose, SD
Oh man - this bus needs help and gas - Thom was a good Samaritan and contributed a few gallons of diesel for these weary travelers!
Welcome to Minnesota!
I so love seeing these wind farms! I have no idea why St. Lucie County, FL did not want these!
Welcome to Iowa!
Corn fields everywhere!
We have arrived at the GNR staging area!
We actually have a great spot even though we are not with our friends in the FL Row! We are near all event areas and vendors!
The stage is ready for the fun to begin!
Our Mid-Florida Winnies friends, Shirley and Ed Parks!
We were reunited with our friends Laurel and Ron from St. Cloud Minnesota, now full-timers and will spend half the year in Florida! We met them last year at the Florida Sunshine Adventure!
The first night of entertainment was provided by a trio and special guest, Tonic Sol-fa. They were quite a good! Tonic Sol-fa is an all-male a cappella trio from the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. With a largely pop-music-oriented repertoire, their CDs have sold over 1,000,000 copies, and the group has toured throughout the US and abroad.
CW and Denise Harris, friends from Oklahoma who we met in Alaska! It was like two years was just yesterday!
There is an Amish Bakery in Forest City, which the GNR made arrangements for a bus to visit! What a great time. Shirley and I shared this for breakfast but we each brought back a smaller version of a 4-pack! Great sticky buns!
Thom's old employer - they now own wind farms here in Forest City and other parts of the country! It was really familiar to pull into the A&W and see this truck parked next to us!
State Row Party - This is the Florida Row!
The theme this year is "GNR Down Under" and another of our Alaskan friends, Donna Zweigel, had her best Aussie gear on!
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