Days 74 and 75 - moving into the FMCA Convention facility

Day 74 - Wednesday

A day to get mundane things done.  The hotel kindly arranges a shuttle to take us to the airport where we've arranged to get a rental car.  This time it's a sedan - pickups would still be more appropriate in the Cowboy State but around the city a sedan is fine.  Vicky gets a haircut, I find the HRB office and meet Patty, the franchisee, who makes me welcome, and we deliver the RV to the shop.

We still don't have a resolution on the damaged RV air conditioner but the service manager takes a look and declares it needs to be replaced, which we share with the insurance company.  We return to the suite and share the comfort with the cats for a second night.

Day 75 - Thursday - first night in Cam-Plex

After breakfast I head over to HRB for some serious preparation work.  Vicky takes the car and stocks up at the grocery store.  The cats continue to enjoy the cool comfort.  After lunch we hear that the RV slide-outs have been fixed and we can pick it up.  We arranged a late (4pm) checkout from the hotel so we take our time packing up and then drive both the RV and the rental car over to Cam-Plex.

Imagine a conference center with a main building boasting a ballroom that will easily seat 5,000 people and 12 or more large conference rooms.  Add a second structure with another 8 conference rooms and a large lecture theatre, an exhibit hall covering at least 2 acres, a racetrack, a rodeo arena and acres of parking for RV's and cars.   This will be our home for the next 10 days.  Built originally to house the National High School Rodeo Finals, it now houses huge conventions like the one we've traveled all this way for, which will have over 1,700 RV's by the time everyone arrives.

But for now we're one of the first here, other than the FMCA executive board who arrive early for meetings.  We're escorted to our stop by the head of parking for the convention, and told we can stay there for the whole time.  It's a prime spot at the end of a row and we can park our car next to our space, a luxury few others will have.  It also has 30amp power, water and sewer connections.  We had booked 50 amp power and water with no sewer as that was all that was available, but we're happy to trade the downgrade in power for not having to visit the dump station.

We take our time to settle in and enjoy the temporary solitude.  We've also decided that we're going to trade the Ford Focus for a manual transmission car, because neither of us can rest easy when towing the Focus after losing 2 transmissions.  We check out a Chevrolet dealer who lets us drive a Cruze, but he doesn't have any manual transmission models.  This is one of the recommended cars for flat towing, as is the manual Ford Fiesta. I search for manual Fiestas and find one in Rapid City SD but it turns out that won't be in until September.  The salesman promises to look for more.