The Good Sam Rally

The day had come to start our volunteer work.  We decided that working the afternoon shift of parking RV's might have been the best choice after all.  We were able to sleep without setting the alarm and could get ready without having to rush.

You can see how small our sites were.  We would need to park the rigs in places just as small - just 20 by 40 feet.  Since most of the people have slideouts on both sides it really makes it tight.

We had a chance to look inside the rally for a few minutes before we were to be at work so we took a few pictures for Jason and Dave.  We know they both are NASCAR fans and would appreciate the setup more than us!

 

This is the track just beyond the finish line.  There are stadium seats about 3/4 around the track.

Each night we had our entertainment in the stands across from the finish line.  The person talking here is Marcus, the CEO of Good Sam and Camping World.  He is really trying hard to make the organization family friendly and beneficial to the members.  He also gave away a lot of extra prizes.  This particular night he gave gas cards to all Good Sam members who have been with the organization 20 or more years.  The one who had been a member 39 years or more received $5000 in fuel!

Bill Cosby was on the stage though you can't see him real well.  He was here about an hour, but left immediately after finishing.  The night before we had "Bowser" from Sha-Na-Na who stayed after the entertainment and signed autographs until everyone was gone!

Friday and Saturday (after 3 days of parking duty) Gary and I helped at a Lifetime Member and VIP reception hosted by Marcus, the CEO.  They had impersonators of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna and Austin Powers.  Elvis was the only one we took a picture with though we did talk quite a long time to "Marilyn" as well.  At the reception the people invited were treated to all the food and drinks they wanted and then special seating at the entertainment for the night.  Since Gary and I were to work at the event we had a lot of time with the "stars" before everyone else was let in!

I tried taking this picture showing the inside of the track as well as some of the RV's parked all around it.  According to the stats we had 3380 RV's camping on the outside and 500+ rigs for sale on the inside.  The big tent on the left was full of about 600 vendors and the smaller tents were used for seminars.

On Saturday the Camping World portion of the event had a big drawing for prizes.  We had 3 chances in the barrel but did not get chosen!  Marcus added extras to every prize, including a new set of tires for someone's RV and a new 5th wheel trailer for someone!

Sunday afternoon we finally got together with our Copper Hills friends.  This is the first time Mike & Kelvin and Dave & Verna had been to a rally.

Sunday night the entertainment was "Ticket to Ride", a Beatles tribute band.  They did a great job and I was surprised how well I remembered the words to all the songs!

The clothes were changed according to the era of music the Beatles sang.

So, here we are on our final destination - HOME!  Gary hadn't driven in 9 days so I teased him about remembering how to do it!

This time we stopped at "Nothing" to take a break.  It's just one of the odd signs you can find in the desert!

Rocks, again.  Still no Mater or Lightening McQueen in sight!.

We were getting closer to the Hoover Dam when I took this picture, but the ones I took of the Colorado River didn't turn out very well.

Lake Mead is behind the Hoover Dam.  Most traffic is diverted across a high bridge instead of across the dam road.  Since high profile vehicles have to drive in the interior of the bridge we couldn't see the dam very well.

It's official, we are back in Nevada now.  Today we drove from Phoenix to North Las Vegas.  We are staying at a WalMart for the night.  Gary now says he thinks he may drive the remaining 400+ miles home tomorrow.  We will see how it goes.  I think we are both anxious to get home now that we are this close!  It's been fun but we need to end this adventure.