The final day of the Arcadia (Bussin’) Rally featured breakfast, seminars, meetings, tire kicking, preliminary departure preparations, dinner, door prizes, and a New Year’s Eve party with a live band.

Once again breakfast was coffee, juice, donuts, and bagels.  But we didn’t have to cook it or clean it up, and it was the first social activity of the day, so it hit the spot.  The building was already decorated for New Year’s Eve with sparkly signs and ceiling streamers.  Although celebrations are really about the people, the room decorations added a festive touch.

After breakfast I went over to photograph Frank Morrison’s GMC PD4014 “Cool Cruiser” and interviewed him about it for a possible BCM featured bus article.  The coach conversion was originally done by an architect in Flint, Michigan and the interior is different because of that.  Frank bought the bus from him.

The morning seminar was on GPS and mapping technology with Tom Mason.

We did not attend the morning seminar because the Converted Coach Owners (CCO), which we belong to, had a meeting at the same time.  There were approximately 15 people in attendance.  CCO is a small, independent group of converted bus owners most of whom are from the lower Great Lakes area, so this was a pretty good turnout for being so far away from home.

After the CCO meeting I had the opportunity to talk with Jack Conrad at some length about the rally and get a few pictures of him and Paula.  Jack and Paul started the Bussin’ Rally in December 2000 (the 2001 Rally) and turned it over to Bill and Brenda Phelan after the 11^th one in December 2010.  Acadia Rally 2014 (Dec 2013) was Bill and Brenda’s third as organizers and hosts.

The afternoon seminar was a roundtable discussion lead by Howard Best.  With respect to owner-converted buses the knowledge and experience that assembles at the Arcadia Rally is probably unmatched by any other such gathering during the year.  Even with 100 buses and 200 people, the Arcadia Rally was very relaxed and these experts were very accessible.  Throughout the rally participants ambled from bus to bus and stopped to chat.  Sometimes they pulled up a chair and sometimes you would find their heads in a bay discussing a technical issue.  It was just that kind of event, and has been since it started in Dec 2000.

The afternoon seminar was followed by bingo with Bob Ernst calling the action once again.  Linda, Karen, and Kathy came over to play, and Linda had bingo on the first card!  I think she’s hooked.

As the day went on we noticed quite a few people making preliminary departure preparations and decided we should do the same.  We had hoped to not have to dump our tanks until we got back to Williston on the 1^st, but we were getting low on fresh water which usually means our waste tanks are nearing full.  We dumped our holding tanks, filled the fresh water tank to the 2/3rds mark, stowed the water hose, and put lawn chairs away.  All that remained to do on the outside for tomorrow was stowing a step stool, a couple of mats, disconnecting the electrical shoreline and stowing it; turning on the chassis batteries and engine accessories air switch, and hooking up the car for towing.  The inside usually takes less than an hour to get ready and we typically deal with that about 90 minutes before we plan to pull out.  We don’t like to do this too soon as once the interior is prepped for travel it is more difficult to use for living.

At 5:15 PM we headed over to the activities building with Bill, Karen, Mike, and Kathy for dinner.  A centerpiece had been added to each table and about half of the rally goers had changed into dressier clothes.  Like last night’s meal, there was a serving line to get your food.  Volunteers staffed the various serving stations, and it was a smooth, quick process.  Dinner included spaghetti with marinara sauce (no meat, thank you!), veal parmesan, shrimp, green salad (no cheese, thank you again), and desserts, including fruit cocktail (thank you a third time) with sweetened tea, unsweetened tea, and water to drink.  People also brought their own beverages to suit their tastes.

As the band started bringing in their equipment I figured it was going to be a long, loud night, so after dinner I went back to the coach to work in quiet surroundings.  In my absence the door prizes were given out starting at 7 PM.  After the door prizes were distributed a group of volunteers put the New Year’s Eve party decorations on the tables.  These consisted of plastic lei, party hats, tiaras, and noise makers.

The New Year’s Eve party got started around 8 PM with country rock band Desert Moon.  We sat with our dinner group at a table in the middle of the room with good access to the main doors.  The room acoustics were very “live” and the volume was dangerously high so Bill and I came and went throughout the evening, finding camaraderie with like-minded individuals who gathered outside the building to talk buses in the cool evening air.  The median age of the rally participants was probably between 65 and 70, and many people left long before midnight and of those who remained many were also in and out of the building.  There were often more people dancing while the band was on break than when they were playing as the volume of the pre-recorded music was lower.  But enough of us stuck it out until midnight to bring in the New Year when Bill and Brenda lowered a sparkling ball from the ceiling while we counted down from 10.  At the stroke of midnight (EST) we all said our “Happy New Year’s,” and then many of us went back to our coaches and went to bed.

Our children are grown and have not spent New Year’s Eve with us in quite some time, having lives and friends of their own with whom to celebrate the coming of the New Year.  Our tradition for more than 10 years now has been to spend a quiet evening at home enjoying some traditional foods, watching the celebrations from around the world on TV, and finally having a champagne toast at midnight.  We no longer have those foods since we changed the way we eat and we have been busy enough at the rally that it never occurred to us to buy a bottle of “bubbly.”  We did open a bottle of Black Star Arcturos Late Harvest Riesling, which served the occasion just fine, but what we really enjoyed was ringing out the old year and bringing in the new one with old and new friends who share our interest in the converted coach and the lifestyle it makes possible.