Saturday, March 31, 2012

#12-5 Leaving Yuma, and Good Sam Rally in Phoenix, 3-21 thru 3-25

3-21-2012
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The Digby’s hosted a farewell happy hour for those of us who are leaving in the next couple of weeks.  There are three RV’s parked together where the Dignby brothers and sisters families stay each year.  The grass around the tree is planted each year, and tended to by Ray Digby and Loraine so their dog has his own private “yard” rather than going to the dog park.  It is the only grass on the street!
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We pretty well filled up the empty spaces between all the RV’s.  This was our last day in the park.  The rugs are folded up, the electric meter is read and paid, the tables and benched are stowed.  Tomorrow we put away the chairs, say our last good-bye’s for the season and head to Phoenix for a Good Sam Rally.
3-22 thru 3-25-12
We didn’t get out of Sundance until after noon by the time everyone came by to see us off, but we didn’t have very far to drive.  We ended up in Phoenix at about 4 pm.  We again met up with Ted and Lois Caine who seems to be going to the same places we go to. 
The rally was held at the Phoenix International Raceway.  All the displays and classes were held in the infield of the racetrack, and there is only one way to get in and out, and that is through a tunnel under the race track.  There were about 12 or 13 trams running continually throughout the day and evening, but seemed to fill up to the point of us having to catch one running the opposite way to get a seat and riding around the parking area before we could get to the infield.  There were 3500 rigs attending the rally, so lots of people.  Once inside the infield there were golf carts for the handicapped, but we had a hard time finding them.  Thank goodness Frank had a walker.  Even then it was tough to get around as all the folks were congregated in one area.
Because we have a handicap sticker, during the evening entertainment we were able to drive our car into the parking area inside the racetrack.  They had special trams for us and our seating was on the race track.  It would have been really difficult to get up the many steps and the bleachers for anyone with walking difficulties.
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The bleachers were packed each day for the entertainment.  They started lining up for the 7 pm show at 5:30 or earlier in order to get good seats.  We had folding chairs on the track, but on the night that Bill Cosby was there they ran out of folding chairs.  I found one chair and Frank ended up sitting on his walker. 
The CEO of Good Sam, Marcus Lemonis attended on Friday and Saturday and told us that he wanted to know about any problems and that they were trying to find out where good places were to hold rallies and where it didn’t work. 
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The entertainment scheduled for the show was amazing.  Thursday, the first night was Bowzer, from the 50’s group “Sha Na Na.  He is the one that did “The Hand Jive” in the movie Grease.  A very high energy performance!

100_9004Friday night Bill Cosby entertained us by just sitting on the stage and talking about “stuff”.  He has a unique way of looking at life and shared some of his “insights” and questions.  He will be 75 year old in June. 
On Saturday evening Martina McBride was the entertainment.  I’m not sure if it was where we were sitting or if the sound was just turned up too high, but most of the time it was hard to understand her lyrics.  But the performance was high quality.
By this time there were plenty of folding chairs brought in for the handicapped people.  100_9007
Sunday was our last day, Ted and Lois left early in the morning as they had relatives visiting in Palm Springs and wanted to get there to visit, so we were on our own.  I was amazed at how many people left early. 
Sunday night the entertainment was the group “Ticket to Ride” that imitated The Beetles and only sang their songs.  They were quite amazing and really did a great job of entertaining us.
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I do hope the video below comes through as we were very surprised at how many of the songs we recognized and even knew the words to.
A Little Help From My Friends

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