Rally in Tally Days 3 and 4

Sunday morning started out with run over to the hall for breakfast.  Waffles, coffee and a french cruller made for a tasty breakfast.  I probably had one or two too many the night before and felt just a tad fuzzy on the corners, but the coffee took care of that. 

As most of you know, Lucy and I also teach martial arts and have been doing so for a while.  We teach primarily to give back to the community and help people grow as individuals.  When registering for the convention, the organizers put out a call for anyone who wanted to teach a non technical session (ie. not GMC related).  I volunteered Lucy and myself (and Naya to help too), to teach a self-awareness and self-defense seminar.   About a decade ago when our dojo was on FAU campus in Boca Raton, FL, we would do a similar seminar for the students of the university (mostly young girls would come).  We knew this demographic would be quite different than what we were used to as many of the attendees are retired people who are a bit older. 

In any event we had our class Sunday morning after breakfast and had 36 people show up.   It was more than we were expecting and the class we designed worked well for the 90 minutes we had.  Afterwards, several attendees were quite gracious saying that we had given them things to think about that they never had before so that was nice to know we possibly helped some folks recognize dangerous situations and avoid them.   We were too busy teaching to take any photos, although I did see a few taken so maybe they will pop up online.

On Friday when we arrived, I put the pop-up tent in front of the GMC and had Naya put out the chairs and table.  Well she set it up like a desk which gave me an idea for Lucy...

It reminded me of the booth in the Peanuts strip.  I actually was asked 3 times where the coffee can was to put the nickel in..

It was good for a few laughs.

Afterwards, we checked out some more of the vendors offerings and spoke to some others and had a nice lunch.   At 3PM it was open house.  About 25 coach owners opened their doors and let folks inside to check out their coaches.   We didn't as we wanted to look around for ideas.   Unfortunately neither one of us thought to bring a camera so, we didn't get any pictures, but we did see a number of beautiful coaches from true survivors to totally redone modern takes as well as some out of the box remodels.  

Sunday was dinner on our own and we grilled up some steaks that were delicious and then cruised around an met up with others.  This night seemed to be alot more social than some of the others (of course we bailed the night before to see the band).   I had already started breaking our camp by packing away the pop-up and the bikes.  After dinner I put away the table and chairs to facilitate an easy exit.

We turned in around 11PM as I wanted to be on the road before 9AM.

Day 4:

Up early for breakfast, was done eating by 8AM.  Said a few goodbyes to old and new friends.  By the time I got back to the coach by 8:15, one of our neighbors was gone already and another packing up.  I pulled her out and headed to the dump station before getting on the road.  There was another coach in front, but they were quick.  I pulled back up by the hall and we made a pitstop prior to leaving.   We ended up pulling out around 9:40 AM and headed SE. 

Like Friday the trip down US 27 was easy and enjoyable.  About 90 min in I stopped somewhere not far from Perry.   They guy at the next pump really liked out Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.  We kept heading down to Ocala and got on I-75.   As there is only one easy way through Orlando, we took the turnpike from I-75 to Kissimmee and got off.  We gassed up again and made the run east on US192 and then south on US 441 all the way to Okeechobee where we hit 'rush hour'

This train was switching onto a siding and held up traffic for about 10 min right on 441.

Prior to hitting town I demanded a photo of a black and white cow next to the fence with an egret on its back.  I got about 10 shots and this was fairly close to the ask...so I was happy.   It was a random thing I thought of.  Apparently it's hard to get this show at 65 mph.

Here is Molly checking out Okeechobee, FL on FL 70 heading toward Sirum's GMC.   We actually passed the shop around 4:30PM so we were making good time.   In fact we were able to get right in the thick of 5PM traffic through WPB so it took an extra 15 minutes to get home. 

The Intergalactic Space Pineapple made it back to Space Dock in one piece with a weary crew....Mission Accomplished!