03-09 Spring in Columbia, SC

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

I stopped today to take a few pictures of the cherry and dogwood trees in bloom around Columbia.

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

The trees are especially pretty this year. In fact I do not ever recall seeing the cherry trees looking so spectacular. The City of Columbia have planted a lot of cherry trees around town

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

and I noticed them in front of two branches of the Lexington County Library. All were beautiful.

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

The dogwoods are likewise gorgeous this year.

From 03-09 Spring in Columbia

I hope to add a few more pictures as we drive around. I have seen some pretty azaleas, but none where I could easily stop and take photos. I may go by our old house and see how the ones are doing there. We had some really large ones along the street.

03-09 South Carolina

We are in South Carolina for a month or so. Right now we are going to annual doctor visits. So far all has gone well except our dentist found that Monique needs to have a crown replaced. We are scheduled to leave April 12th. We will have to come back later in April to have the crown work finished.

Our motor home chassis was made by Freightliner in Gaffney, SC. They have a two day seminar for Freightliner RV Owners where you learn more about the working and maintenance of the chassis. Plus we are having annual maintenance work done at the factor. So we are going to "Camp Freightliner" and will return to Columbia afterward to finish Monique's crown work.

We are tentatively planning to head to upstate New York and New England for the summer - looking for cooler weather again for July and August. Any suggestions anyone has about campgrounds or places to tour in this general area will be appreciated. Plus any suggestions for spots to stay/visit as we travel from SC through NC, Virginia and Pennsylvania. We will firm up our plans in a month or so.

03-09 FMCA Rally Perry, GA

From 3-09 FMCA Rally in Perry, GA

When we have talked about attending RV Rallies, several people have said we should attend a FMCA Rally. They reported how well they are organized for such a large gathering. So we decided to attend the FMCA International Rally in Perry, Georgia. Especially since it was more or less on our way north after wintering in Florida.

Similar past Rallies have had as many as 7300 motor homes in attendance. This year there were almost 3300, so about 1/2 what it used to be. The economy I'm sure is the reason.

RV rallies in Perry seem to have a reputation for attracting rain. This rally was no exception. We were fortunate to get set up Saturday without rain. Then it started Saturday night and continued off and on through Monday when the rally officially opened. We were in a swamp for a few days. It was no fun for any of us, especially when we had to take Clay for his "health breaks". We had to dry him off, especially his soaked feet each time we returned.

This is Tuesday after much of the water had soaked into the ground. We are the 1st coach on the right:

From 3-09 FMCA Rally in Perry, GA

We had heard stories about RV's being pulled out by bulldozers a few years back. I was beginning to worry a bit that we might have to be pulled out as well. However things dried out considerably by the time we left Friday.

From 3-09 FMCA Rally in Perry, GA

We attended lots of seminars. Some were beneficial. A few were a waste of time. We also attended a three day "Computer Boot Camp" taught by "Geeks on Tour". Their training is excellent. They produce some excellent training videos that can be downloaded from their website. Some are free. Others require an annual membership fee. Many are available on DVD to watch on your own PC. We have several sets of these, and I found them very useful when building this Blog.

I attended other seminars they conducted to learn how to create a Blog with Google's Blogger, manage pictures with Google's Picasa, and keep online photo albums with Google's PicasaWeb. All these programs are free downloads.

We enjoyed the Rally, but were really tired when we left. I must say we enjoyed the Newmar Rally more. Primarily I think because we were with our SC friends John and Dede Fisher and our new friends Jim and Carol Chaney. Plus we just seemed to meet more people at the Newmar Rally.

We did enjoy unexpectedly running into old BellSouth friends Kent and Dale McCoin who are also motor home owners. I also ran into another BellSouth acquaintance, Dicky Lowman and his wife. Dicky has served as President of one of the largest FMCA chapters for Roadtek owners which has about 5,000 members.

We had a funny experience one day. I advertised a portable power protection system to sell. I returned a call to a man who had left a voice message. As were standing in this large building talking, Monique suddenly realized she was hearing both sides of the conversation from two directions. The man was standing about 10' away. So we hung up the phones and finished the deal face to face.

I was a bit concerned about how confusing it would be on Friday with the 3200+ motor homes leaving. However it was no problem at all. Some, perhaps 500 or so, had left Thursday afternoon. The rest were staggered enough in leaving that there were no problems.

We made an uneventful drive over to SC. One thing that is making our drives more tolerable is listening to books from audible.com. We have listened to two we really enjoyed recently. One was "Dewey" about a remarkable cat who lived in a library in a town in Iowa. The other was a humerous fictional detective story called "Dog on It". It is told from the detective's dog's point of view.

We are downloading these books to the Ipod my office gave me when I retired. That has been a much used and much appreciated gift.