27JAN-02FEB14 - Brooksville, FL (fmca area rally)

Monday morning, 27JAN, we ended our exploration of the Everglades National Park & Big Cypress National Preserve; & headed north to attend a FMCA "area rally" in Brooksville, FL, from 30JAN-02FEB.  Since we have owned a RV we have been to two "national" RV rallies, the last being a national FMCA rally in Albuquerque, NM, in 2010.  FMCA like most RV clubs is broken into a couple of areas covering multiple states, & the areas are broken down further into chapters.  This rally is sponsored by FMCA's Southeast Area; & fit our itinerary of exploring the Everglades & visiting with friends in Tampa & Navarre, FL.

 

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2010/03/19-27mar10-albuquerque-nm.html

 

http://www.fmca.com/

Tuesday morning we drove into Brooksville to check the local post office for our forwarded mail.  Then we drove to the county airport to see where we will have to move our RV to tomorrow for the Rally.  We found it interesting that our rally info packet had warning about Brooksville's red light cameras & where they are?

 

For lunch we headed to Tarpon Springs, FL, for lunch.  Tarpon Springs is famous for a large Greek community who were Florida sponge divers back in 50s/60s & 70s.  In fact Tarpon Springs was the largest Greek community outside of Greece for decades.  We visited here in 10JAN09; during that visit Dan was not able to visit Spongearama museum & was highly disappointed.  They didn't get a new building like they hoped for in 2009, but the museum is back open including the Sponge Diver's Nightmare.  Dan was able to check it off his bucket list! 

 

 

 

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/01/09-10jan09-seffner-tarpon-springs-fl.html

 

http://www.spongeorama.com/

Tuesday evening we headed to Jim & Mary Spence's in Tampa for a visit.  Jim was a classmate of Dan's way back in the 70s at the Coast Guard Academy.  After graduation they decided to go to the same CG unit together (the CG Cutter MUNRO).  Their paths have crossed over the years but not often enough.  It was a great time reminiscing about CG careers & acquaintances, kids, RV'ing, creative talents of both ladies, & something Dan forgot - they have owned private planes with Mary flying them on family outings!  Before we knew it was late & time to head back to the RV:(

Wednesday morning we headed to the RV Rally site at Hernando County Airport.  It was cold & wet, & we were really glad we had paid extra for electricity.  After setting up camp, we just sat inside & enjoyed the warmth of the RV.

 

Thursday, 30JAN, was an extremely wet, cold, & miserable day at the Rally.  Not sure why but the attendance is way down from past years & the number of venders is also down.  Apparently must of the attendees decided to stay in their warm RVs, so the vendors shut down at 3:30PM rather than the scheduled 5:30PM.

 

Friday morning, 31JAN, it was off to Lazydays in Seffner, FL, to have our dash AC/heat checked out.  Since this is the height of the snowbird season, we were lucky to get an appointment at all at their facility.  The weather guessers had predicted the rain to stop today & warm temperatures.  Well they were wrong!!!  The cold front stalled & today was another wet, cold, miserable day.

 

We (or more correctly Corrie) bought our present RV from Lazydays back in 2006.  They say their RV dealership is in the top five of all tourist attractions in Florida.  When we were last here (see BLOG link about Tarpon Springs) they were still suffering from the last recession & were basically empty.  Now they are completely full & have had to bring in generators for some of their RV display areas.  Two changes not for the better are - 1) no more free breakfasts or lunches; 2) they no longer have a Camping World Store, they now have their own store; but it has fewer items & all their prices we checked were more than Camping World's?

 

We sat at Lazydays for seven hours for them to do two hours of trouble shooting on our dash AC/heat system.  They discovered some broken parts that allowed the freon charge to leak out.  Since they would need to order parts, we decided to postpone any repair until we get back to Houma, LA.

 

http://www.lazydays.com/

Saturday morning the weather finally cleared & the free coffee & donuts area was mobbed RV'ers who had been holed up in their RVs for two days.  Dan attended some seminars, while Corrie took off for a Native American Festival.  Dan wanted to replace the four "house" batteries that went dead on us at Flamingo Campgrounds in Everglades National Park last week; but the vendor hadn't received nine pallets of batteries he ordered for the Rally.  Dan did buy some state of the art LED bulbs for certain areas of the RV.  We knew they were highly energy efficient, but the "amount" of light & "color" were fantastic.  If they weren't so expensive, we would have changed all the RVs lights to LED.

Sunday morning we decided to spend only a half a day at the Rally & hit the road; because we were not satisfied with the Rally.  Dan was going to attend two more seminars before leaving.  Then he got a call from Blue Ox that they could squeeze us in for servicing our Blue Ox tow bar on the back of the rig.  They used to do this for free at rallies in the past but because RV'ers abused this benefit, they now charge $25.  But this charge is far less than paying a mechanic for one half hour & probably $75 in parts.  So Dan skipped the seminars & we hit the road immediately after the Blue Ox maintenance.

 

Unfortunately we had just left the Rally & were fueling the RV up; when Jim Spence called & said they would like to come by & visit us at the rally.  Sadly Dan had not checked his e-mail before departure & didn't see Jim's e-mail about stopping by:(