Michael Vreeland (20733)
Virginia State Director
Hello to all my fellow Newmarians. I am in full blown snowbird mode and am currently at Southern Palms in Eustis, Florida. Not everyone is able to head south to flee the cold weather and it can be a real challenge. First you must carve out the time to go, figure out where to stay and the most important part, have something to drive south. The first two things can be a bit overwhelming, but you already have the third requirement so take a step back and address the first two and come on down. In the meantime, I will save you a spot so you too can kick back and enjoy – well just kicking back.
Based on what I have seen on the news from the comfort of my theater seating with the AC running at 68 degrees some of my fellow Newarians have been “enjoying” several inches and sometimes a foot or two of snow. I vaguely remember those kinds of conditions and decided that heading south with my Dutch Star is the perfect solution to these kind of weather events. Everyone should take a step back and ponder just how lucky we all are that we have this kind of option available to us. So, to all my fellow Newmar owners, well done.
If you went to the Newmar Rally at the Tampa Super Show I was the guy waving you into the camping area. You couldn’t miss me; I was dressed like the Great Pumpkin. Not everyone fully appreciates or even understands the amount of effort required to set this kind of event up. There was a team of volunteers who came in a week early to map out RV camp sites, put together welcome bags, refining a RV flow process that got rally attendees off the street as quickly as possible, registering them, and leading them to a camp site. All of this effort is to make sure the over 200+ rally attending coaches get in, get parked, and get ready for several jam packed days of touring the Tampa Super Show, getting the Newmar Techs to address those “honey do” tasks, and of course helping the economy by spending your money on those items you absolutely need for your RV. To all volunteers and Gary & Wanda Smith (hosts) and Greg & Margie Harrop (Co-hosts) thank you all for your efforts.
While I was touring the Show exhibits I too helped the economy, my basement freezer crapped out about 6 months ago (compressor went bad). I have been shopping around for a replacement freezer and decided to wait for the Super Show to check show prices. As it turns out I saved 20% buying at the show. Dometic put the freezer in a golf cart and took me and the freezer back to the campground. I installed it next day – do you know how your freezer is installed in your basement? I do. There is a miracle product developed in the 1950’s by George de Mestral an electrical engineer. This product is called Velcro, that’s right your freezer is held in place in your bay with Velcro. I simply pulled up on the freezer (empty of course) and heard that familiar sound of Velcro letting go. Cool – I had some heavy-duty Velcro so I added it and installed the new freezer and was up and running in about ½ hour. Additional I was talking to a fellow Newarian and she indicated her freezer was acting “funny” with temperature fluctuations so I de-installed the old freezer’s circuit board and gave it to her before discarding the old freezer. It appears the circuit board is working for now at least, so yeah, I love re-using stuff rather than trashing it.
After reading the previous paragraph I will remind you what you have heard all your life, learn something new every day so this qualifies, and you have done well grasshopper. Unfortunately, the rally did not go off without a hitch, we had electrical power issues and Gary Smith was all over it trying to get it resolved. He finally did get it done, but he put in quite a bit of effort and of course the inconvenience of power problems on the attendees. Now here is the good part – all attendees got paid to attend that rally. No really, so if you decided not to come you missed out. Because of the electrical issues we had to deal with, Gary was able to negotiate with the Tampa Super Show management and got a refund of camping fees to all attendees making this a free rally. That’s right a Free NKK Rally. Well done, Gary.
I would like to remind my fellow Newmarians that the Virginia Wheels will be hosting two rallies this summer in addition to the Virginia State Rally. One Virginia Wheels Rally is scheduled May 18-22, to be held at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia. It is listed under the NKK website under the May calendar and is called the Virginia Wheels Roanoke Valley Exploration Rally. The second Virginia Wheels rally is a joint Virginia/North Carolina/South Carolina Rally at the Mayberry Campground in Mt Airy, North Carolina scheduled for July 13-17. It is listed under the NKK website under the July calendar and is called the Mayberry Chapter Rally (VA/NC/SC) rally. Details of these rallies will be provided in the Virginia Wheels Chapter input in this Legacy, and you can also check out these rallies and register for them on the NKK website.
The Virginia State Rally is scheduled for August 20-27, at the Candy Hill Campground in Winchester, Virginia. Candy Hill Campground (540-662-8010) is taking reservations now and I pleased to say I have 14 registrations already so please register at your earliest convenience. I currently have reserved 25 sites. I can add more but the sooner folks register the better. I have been researching catering, touring, and other events as part of determining the rally fee.
For all my fellow Newmarians please stay warm and please travel and be safe – I want to see your smiling faces in my travel and hope to be able to sit and swap some lies with you. Rally On!!!!!
Safe travels to all and Happy RVing. I can be reached at beagleRV@gmail.com or 540-809-9830.
