Michael Vreeland (20733)
Virginia State Directors

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and did get a chance to eat a piece of mincemeat pie for me. When I got back to Virginia, I attended a non-Newmar rally and then on the road to Florida.

Finally, I am in Florida to start my Florida Rally Season. The trip down was interesting – I hit South Carolina and Georgia in what appeared to be the “monsoon season”. It was December 8th and it rained hard, and it was windy for most of the day. I think at one point I saw the Black Pearl sailing by in one of the “monsoons” I drove through. It was heavy rain and high winds, so visibility wasn’t the greatest. Regardless, I gave it plenty of room. Oh, btw if you are driving in bad weather like this DO NOT use your flashers unless you are stopped on the side of the road. If you think you need flashers then the driving conditions are outside your comfort level, find an exit and get off the road till the weather passes. Using your flashers does not make you safer it only confuses those drivers that know when flasher should be used.

The December Sea Turtle rally just finished, and the Pelican rally starts this afternoon. It is always a treat to see my fellow Newmarians again and meet new Newmarians. It has been a busy couple of months. I got the opportunity to take my first Uber ride when I dropped my Dutch Star off at Cummins to address a warning engine light. Then I was off to stay with one of the kids before we drove up to East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Not a fan of that trip, made it quite a few times. I was stationed at the Subbase in Groton. But it was nice getting together with the family while we stayed in an Airbnb – also a first for me. We had all the classics for Thanksgiving dinner except they did not have cornbread dressing – who has Thanksgiving dinner without cornbread dressing? I was born and raised in Georgia so cornbread dressing was its own food group for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I should mention it was Marcy’s side of the family, so they just did not know any better. I will school them on this next year.

Cummins contacted me and indicated I needed to replace my #4 injector – this is covered under warranty so that was good, but this seems to be a continuation of the #4 injector fuel leak from August last year. For those that are self-insure proponents, I will give a case for extended warranties. The warranty cost about $6000 and as of December 1st I had gotten about $9000 of repairs covered. In December I had to replace the ice maker, the transmission for the steps (did not know the steps had one), and of course the fuel injector. The totals for these repairs were about $5000 which bring my overall total to about $14000 of repairs for a $6000 investment. To add insult to injury to the warranty company my warranty expires December 13th so you know they were happy campers having to spend this money right before the warranty ended. The next hurdle was do I get a follow-on warranty. My concern is 1 injector had to be replaced I still have 5 more and given my luck, this will become an issue. So, I did get a follow-on extended warranty just to play it safe. Guess this is peace of mind insurance.

All of us “snowbirds or snowflakes” are doing the reservations shuffle. Marcy did all of this and now that I am doing it, I fully appreciate how hard it is. So, to all of you that do the reservations for your travels, my hat is off to you – it is a hard job. For those of you that do not do this, show your appreciation by taking the reservations czar to dinner – they earned it. I still have a few gaps in my reservation calendar, mostly because I can only have so many reservations on the books at a time. So, I will be doing the reservation shuffle till I start heading back to Virginia after I attend the Mid-South Tri-State Rally in early May.

While I am in Florida, I must plan my trip to Rock Springs, Wyoming for the International Rally and of course I am in the middle of finding a place for the 2022 Virginia State Rally. Right now, I am investigating campgrounds on the “Eastern Shore” for the mid-June time frame. Hopefully I can firm that up once they start taking reservations. The Virginia Wheels have a rally scheduled for May 12 – 16, at the American Heritage RV Park. This will be a great rally and I encourage everyone to sign up early to attend this rally, I hope to see you there. Ok this is a test – who knows the difference between snowbirds and snowflakes? You are a snowbird if you come to Florida for three or more months. Short of this time and you are a snowflake. Regardless, you are still enjoying warm weather and most importantly not shoveling snow.

To all my fellow Newmarians, travel safe, and I hope to see you soon. Rally On!! I can be reached at beagleRV@gmail.com or 540-809-9830.