Friday, August 26 to Sunday, Sept 3: Escapees, here we come!

      The weather was clear and sunny as we drove the road from Buffalo to Gillette for the Escapee RV Club’s annual 4 day Escapade convention. Our RV driving instructor recommended that we join the club because there were a lot of other full timers in the club and we could get a lot of advice and support. We decided to attend the pre-convention 3 day “boot camp” for newbie’s, so we had to come early for that. We passed another RV on the way to Gillette and wondered if they were Escapees too. As we passed, Jan saw the Escapees sticker in their window and gave them a “thumb’s up”.

      The convention was held the Camplex, which sits on 1100 acres and has 1,146 full hookup RV sites. Escapee members, as one person put it, “are insanely friendly” and insist that you hug them. About 95% are retired. Anyway, everyone was very helpful. In boot camp, we learned about RV driving techniques, fresh water, grey water, black water, weight, and fire and tire safety. We also learned that most RVs are overloaded and the tires are usually under inflated or overloaded. Because of our greater awareness of our own safety hazards, we bought a brand new set of tires for the trailer had the truck & trailer weighed to make sure we weren’t overloaded. We passed the weight test, so it has given us greater confidence that our truck/trailer combination is being operated safely.

      On the way to buy the new trailer tires, we went to make a left turn with the truck & trailer. A lady in another pickup truck thought we were going hit her, so she reacted by putting her pickup into reverse and promptly hit the small car behind her. Boy was that driver surprised when she backed into him! We didn't stop as we had given her plenty of room and hadn't done anything wrong.  

Gillette WY from the trailer

       After boot camp we joined in the Escapade. There were seminars on all sorts of RV related subjects from how to take & store photos to travel destinations to how to flush out our your water tanks. I attended a variety of seminars while Jan went mostly to the crafting sessions. They also had a products area with booths full of vendors showing off their wares. We bought a guide on traveling the Southwest, a CD on how to blog, a new shower head & water pressure regulator for better showers and a new mount for my Directv satellite dish. It was taking us about 2 hours to get the dish pointed to the satellites from the portable tripod mount we had. It was driving me crazy scanning the sky for a signal. The guy said with this new portable mount, I could get a signal in 6 minutes. At $250, in was pricey, but it did the trick and we’re pretty happy with it now.

      Jan wrote in her Facebook about an evening in the trailer, "This is the worst thunderstorm I have ever been in!!! The advisory said to stay away from windows and doors. Good luck when you live in a 5th wheel. This has been going on for at least an hour. Had to cook the burgers in a skillet instead of the grill but they were still good. The temp dropped 20 degrees to 58 but it is supposed to be 90 tomorrow."

Our trailer in Gillette

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