Each rally has a slightly different approach to food. On the last full day of the GLAMARAMA they switch the breakfast carbohydrate delivery mechanism from donuts to pancakes and serve them with sausage links. The coffee and tea are still there, of course, so we had coffee. Other rallies, like the Escapades, have a “hitch up” breakfast on the day of departure, with coffee and donuts. When Nick and Terry Russell were running their Gypsy Journal Gathering rallies they also had coffee and donuts on departure day as I recall.
In order to serve a lot of pancakes to a lot of people in a relatively short period of time GLAMARAMA hires a specialized food service. The one they hired this year had long griddles with an overhead depositor that moved the length of the griddle like a gantry crane. It would precisely deposit the batter to make a row of 5″ pancakes. The operator would then move it by hand and deposit the next row, repeating this as they moved along the griddle. Another worker followed behind the depositor with a pancake turner (flapjack flipper) and turned the pancakes when they were done on the first side. Although hand labor was still involved it was an efficient, high volume, production process that did not require an army of volunteers.
When we were done drinking coffee and chatting Linda headed back to our motorcoach to prepare food for our family gathering on Sunday afternoon. I headed over to the seminar building for a presentation by Jason and Nikki Wynn of Gone with the Wynn’s. They were joined by Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia and did a panel discussion on earning income on the road. They also covered work-camping and volunteering in exchange for a camp site. They did an excellent job, relaxed and low key, and streamed the event live to the web. The logins indicated that 68 people viewed the presentation online, which was probably more people than were in the room.
Geeks on Tour got their flash drives in (Nick and Terry Russell brought them down from Elkhart). I wanted to restart our subscription, but wanted the flash drive instead of the CD as Linda needed it to store some files. I ended up with both. Their Tutorial Video series ( http://geeksontour.tv ) is an amazing resource for learning how to use a wide range of technologies for Planning, Preserving, and Sharing you RV adventures.
At 10:45 AM I met with Jerry Yates, Executive Director of FMCA, in my role as a member of the national education committee, to talk about RVillage. It also gave me a chance to further explore making online education available to FMCA members, such as that provided by the Geeks On Tour, either directly from the FMCA website or through discounted subscriptions to provider websites.
Linda helped Alma Baker get situated for the Fleetwood hot dog lunch and had a tomato and onion sandwich while she was there. I had a couple of tofu hot dogs in our coach and eventually headed over to a 1:30 PM seminar on 120 VAC by Gary Bunzer. It was very good, as usual, but by Saturday afternoon seminar attendance had thinned. This was a repeat of a session he had done on Wednesday, so many attendees who wanted to see probably already had.
Linda hung around the coach waiting for Butch and Fonda, who drove over from Twelve Mile, Indiana to work with her on some aspects of their pending business sale. I came back to the rig to say hello and around 4:45 PM we gathered up some hummus, chips, and beverages and headed over to the 5:00 PM RVillage get-together. The volunteer dinner started at 4:30 PM, but we decided not to go as we knew there would be little-to-nothing we would be able to eat.
Nikki Wynn had scheduled the RVillage get-together in the Dog and Cat Pavilion and we ended up with a nice turnout of 17 people. It was not a pot luck, but enough folks brought munchies and extra beverages that everyone had something. We milled around conversing in shifting groups and eventually formed chairs into a (sort of) circle. Chris Guld suggested we go around and introduce ourselves and say where we were when we were 15 years old and whether we had any notion that we would find ourselves where we are now. It turned out to be a fun, low key, way to get to know each other by filing in a few personal details.
We disbanded by 6:30 PM, went back to our coach for a few minutes, and then headed over to the final evening’s entertainment. The Walker Family hails from Nashville and we saw them a few years ago at the G.L.A.S.S. rally in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Dad, mom, and seven kids; four girls and three boys. The “girls” are now young women; two are married and one just had her first child. They perform as “The Redhead Express.” The boys are now 15, 13, and 11. The older two play drums for their sisters and perform as a trio with guitar backup from one of their sisters. Mom and dad joined the sisters for a couple of numbers, but the entire family never performed together. My recollection was that they had the last time we saw them, but that’s been at least four years, maybe five, and Linda disagrees with my memory. Regardless, they are very talented and put on a spirited show of country songs with a bit of gospel and patriotic stuff mixed in; just what you would expect from a Nashville-based group. They did not, however, use any pre-recorded sound tracks.
Following the concert there were drawings for prizes and the 50/50 raffle. The Grand Prize was a gift certificate for an 11-day Adventure Tours Mega-Rally worth $3,000 (one motorhome with two people). One of our GLCC members won $200 in the raffle. Those of us “camped” in the GLCC area gathered by our rigs after the drawings and stood around talking until it cooled of to the point that everyone was ready to retreat into their rigs for the evening.