Chapter 23, The RV Club JulyFest
July 12, 1998
Where has the time gone? We left Missoula in early afternoon on July 7. The drive over Lolo pass, on highway 12, was lovely. On both sides of the pass, the highway follows alongside a river, up a long valley which gently and steadily climbs to the pass. Except for a the first 20 miles near Missoula, the entire 150 miles is through forest land, much of it National Forest. From Lolo Pass down the west side, there were pleasant-looking National Forest campgrounds every few miles. Parking areas along the river were even more frequent, and were in heavy use by fishermen, rafters, and kayakers. The DeVoto Memorial Grove is a particularly nice place for a rest stop. On both sides of the highway, short loop trails lead back through an ancient forest of Western Red Cedar - huge trees, some over 1000 years old. The forest floor was covered with a large variety of ferns and flowers. We lingered here a long time, enjoying the ambience.
We arrived at Lewis Clark Resort about 5 p.m., and were immediately told about a 6 PM potluck dinner. We had to scramble to get some food ready. Upon arriving, we were quickly surrounded by a horde of RV Club members, and got swept into a round of conversations that were still going on as we pulled out of our site five days later. We had gotten acquainted with quite a few of these folks via Email conversations, but had no idea what any of them looked like. In most cases, only one member of a couple is actively involved in the computer communications, so the other half of the couple remained pretty much an unknown until we met.
As might be expected from a group whose main connection with each other has been Email and the Internet, computers were a major subject in many conversations. People were constantly showing each other their latest piece of software, getting help solving their computer related problem, and moaning about the lack of phone line availability on the road. For a group that was about 85% gray-haired, I found this a novel experience. GPS systems and mapping software were another popular topic. Almost any afternoon or evening, we could look around and see two or three laptop computers set up on picnic tables, with a small group of people clustered around each.
During the five days, there were 52 RV Club members or guests present, in 27 rigs. Not all were present at the same time - some came late and some left early. Beginning around 4 PM each day, a circle of chairs appeared, between Wayne and Sherry Darnaby's rig on one side, and John and Margot Robinson's on the other. The circle gradually expanded as more and more people appeared, folding chair in hand. Fortunately, the campsites are large - there were often more than 30 people in this circle. We sat around talking, munching snacks, and drinking, while Sherry's parrot screamed at us from one side and inside the rig on the other side, Margot's Irish Setter quietly complained about being excluded from the group. Around 6 PM each day, food started to appear, and a line formed for the potluck dinner.
On the last evening, part of the group opted for the "Cowboy Stew" offered as part of the park's "Western Days" celebration, and the rest accepted Mike Gunderloy's offer to cook for everyone. He drove all the way to Orofino to shop for ingredients, and then prepared a wonderful meal for 32 people, almost single-handedly, by borrowing ovens, crockpots, and large cooking pots from half a dozen other rigs. We ate barbecued ribs, pork loin simmered in applesauce, baked chicken, several loaves of homemade bread, salads, and more. Bar Biszick contributed an outstanding cheesecake - the only non-Mike food.
Perhaps as penance for suggesting a "tacky stemware" contest and then showing up with a beer bottle, I was drafted to judge the contest, after dinner one evening. (Actually, I *didn't* suggest a contest - Judie Ashford did; all I ever said is that if I was required to have stemware, I could improvise something really tacky. See - I can whine too!) Anyway, the contest was duly held, and the winner selected by a highly sophisticated applause meter (my ears). The top two entries were far above the rest, and a very close tie-breaker vote awarded the prize to Jean Nilson, with Gary Nilson as runner-up. Both had hand-decorated plastic stemware which managed to be simultaneously very tacky and impressively artistic.
The weather started out very hot - up around 100 during the day. One person said that she had lived in this area for 20 years and had never seen it this hot. Then we had two days of thunderstorm weather. The radio was frequently broadcasting warnings of high winds, damaging hail, and even tornadoes. Although we were treated several times to nice displays of lightning, and got light rain several times, the really severe weather all missed us. The local newspaper was full of stories about storm damage just north of us. The last couple of days were cooler
Pat and Bill Wall own a lot at Lewis Clark, high up on the hill, with a spectacular view west across the valley to the mountains on the other side. Pat did a great deal of the organizing for the event, and made her phone line available to everyone. For many of us, the pilgrimage up the hill to hook our laptop to the Internet was a daily event. I seemed to be the only one walking up the hill. Everyone else drove. Apparently RVers don't like exercise.
Upon arriving, we each were given a book containing everyone's names and space to write in information about each person, a customized RV Club nametag, a large name tag to label our rig and a folder to hold all the goodies we accumulated, all prepared in advance by Judie Ashford.
One day, we had an RV "Show and Tell". People circulated around among the various RV's, comparing features and gadgets. I showed off my low-power halogen light fixtures. I'm thinking about asking West Marine for a commission on all the sales I generated.
The park is located near Kamiah Idaho. We had to ask the locals how to pronounce this name. Turns out that it is Cam-ee-eye. Go figure!
Bob Boston lives in this area and worked for the National Forest Service for many years. He was able to tell us everything we wanted to know about the local forests and campgrounds.
Sherry Darnaby wandered through the group with her parrot perched on her shoulder. Wayne Darnaby wandered through the group shooting pictures with his digital camera, shipping the images off to Howard for the RV Club Archives. Our own Web Page now sports a nice picture of Helen and me, courtesy of Wayne.
Jeannie Kyler now has a shiny new satellite TV system installed, after a collaborative installation effort by several people (and hopefully, by now, a working CB). I never got a chance to see her wield her shiny new soldering iron - she assured me she knew which end to hold on to.
Al and Diana Neils seemed often to be three places at once, participating in an incredible number of conversations.
Rick and Lori Randall are the newest members of the RV-Talk Email list - so new that they hadn't even joined yet when they left the Julyfest, and still don't own an RV. They came in a small borrowed Class C, and spend their time learning, getting ready to buy a rig for full-timing (their house is for sale).
John and Margot Robinson hold the record for the world's largest lap dog (their Irish Setter regularly curled up in Margot's lap.) They've been full-timing for a month.
Dale and Cari Secord showed up in a big red Freightliner. They've been full-timing a little over a month.
Ernie Shipley talked about health problems, but he and Sue always seemed to be in the middle of whatever was going on. Ernie did not give us a chance to judge whether he was indeed "The 10,001 worst picker in Nashville"!
Ro and Jean Selman aren't full-timers. I can understand that. If I lived in Sausilito, I might find it hard to ever leave. Ro is the only RVer I know of who travels with a personal massage therapist.
Carl and Betty Jean Wenner aren't full-timers either, but travel a lot. Their son Jimmy, a high school freshman, travels with them, and seemed surprisingly outgoing and at ease among this mob of old fogies. Carl, as one of the most knowledgeable computer people in the group, was kept busy with demonstrations and question-answering.
Pat Wall is now a Sprynet user, after a couple hours of software surgery. A couple of other folks changed over to Sprynet too, after I wrote a note about why it was, for us, better than Juno. Next week, they'll all be mad at me when they discover some other national ISP that's even better. Pat also was excited to learn about Control-C and Control-V (but I forgot to tell her about Control-X - gotta leave something for the next get-together <g>). There were a huge number of these little insights passed around as people compared notes about almost any subject.
Kay and Joe Peterson spent a couple of days with us, but stayed quietly in the background - probably resting up, having just come from a big Escapees rally and on their way to be speakers at a Life on Wheels seminar.
We left on July 12, sorry to leave such an enjoyable gathering. We're on our way north to Glacier/Waterton International Park, and then on into Canada