Todd Knieriemen (25607) President
Becky Laird (25818) Vice President
Ohio Lake Erie Drifters
We are closing out what turned out to be a very enjoyable summer camping season. Late May found us with the Michigan Great Lakers/Michigan Aire Kampers/Indiana Hoosier Kountry Klub/Ohio Buckeye Kountry Travelers at the Tri-State Chapter Rally in Shipshewana, Indiana. We thank them for allowing us to join them. It was a truly exciting and enjoyable experience.
On that note, we want to let you know that there is a similar rally already on the Newmar Kountry Klub website for sign-up. We even found a place to explore on a Sunday. It was the Bonneyville Grist Mill, 53373 County Road 131, Bristol, IN 46507, established in 1832. This is an operating grist mill, run by Elkhart County on 222 acres where you can purchase the grains they mill there.
In August, the Lake Erie Drifters had a rally at Camp Perry Campground in Port Clinton, Ohio. This was a small rally that provided participants with a demonstration of the simulator at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. There was much fun and camaraderie and, of course, home cooked food. Thank you to all who were able to attend.
Last, but certainly not least, late September found us in Sedalia, Missouri at the International Rally. We cannot recommend this annual event enough. We met so many new people, learned so much about our rig we didn’t know before, and are very happy we chose to attend. We stayed for the Camp Freightliner class, which turned out to be invaluable as well.
As a point of interest, there were approximately 16 rigs from Ohio, 13 of which were already Lake Erie Drifters and we picked up 5 new Lake Erie Drifters members. Thank you to those who joined our chapter. We will be sending out some email blasts to recruit even more members. We chose to stop along the way to make the trip more enjoyable at a very nice campground called Terre Haute Campground. This is a lovely campground, easy to access from the highway and can handle large rigs. As a learning experience, we were not able to get or share contact information with some of our new friends that we would have liked to, so, I will be making some “business”/friend cards with our information to share at rallies.
Looking forward to the 2024 camping season, we wanted to mention a few of the rallies that are currently on the books such as the one in May to Shipshewana, Indiana and, of course, the International Rally in July in Pueblo, Colorado.
Partially planned rallies for the Lake Erie Drifters are a weekday rally suggested by one of our members sometime around June 11-16, a rally near Dayton, Wright Patterson Air Force Base near August 22-25 and one in September near Old Roscoe Village in Coshocton, Ohio. Any members who are interested in helping us put together, host or co-host any of the last three rallies, please contact Todd Knieriemen (tmkmen@gmail.com or 419-307-3673) or Becky Laird (montana8000@gmail.com or 419-341-4462). All input would be greatly appreciated.
As a last thought, we wanted to let all of you know that our goal as your chapter officers is to promote fun, new forever friendships, and amazing camping experiences worthy of your valuable time.
