Alternate Title: I Met A Spice(r) Girl!
Alternate Title II: We Have A New A/C - That Works!!

Saturday afternoon finds us packed in to the Diamond Hill RV Park - again. This is much like being packed in at the fairgrounds during the rally, except that: there are a bunch of different brands of RVs, there are not seminars to go to, nobody is wearing name tags, and we can't look forward to an open bar and great food being served to us tonight.

The real Rally Heroes - Monaco Service Techs

People have asked me how I like the Monaco rallies. I tell them that I really don't have anything to compare them to, as we have only attended Monaco rallies. I think the real question is going to be - how do we like the "other" rallies? Our expectations are quite high, and maybe that will spoil the other large-scale rallies. Open bar, catered breakfast and lunch, lots of freebies, killer service techs that go to every coach in attendance and fix two items - regardless of how old the coach is, lots of the my-brand coaches to look at, and did I mention the open bar? My thought is that we are probably pretty spoiled, and the Monaco rallies have set the bar pretty damn high.

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Friday night - the last night of the rally - or possibly even "Rally Prom Night" - was a great time. We made it over in time to take full advantage of the open bar, the food was great, and we sat at a table with the Hunters - our rally neighbors, as well as some other wonderful people. Some of the attendees had left that day, so the crowd was a bit smaller, which was very pleasant when it came time to get in line for food and bevvies.

As usual, after dinner, the band kicked in and started wailing some tunes. OK, maybe not wailing, but the three-piece band had a great time playing some old standards. Ang and I even recognized a few tunes! It was funny that many people we talked to had stories about the song that was playing at the time - high school prom, first song they heard with their wife. Frank, Dean, Lawrence, Don. Don? Don who? No, Don Ho Tiny Bubbles.

Tiny Bubbles was my prime opportunity to ask for a dance with The Rally Queen - Sara Spicer! Much to my surprise, she accepted, and she spent the next three and a half minutes dodging my feet

So, I suppose that Sara isn't officially the "Rally Queen", but if there was such a title, she would have it. I really don't know what her official job is with Monaco, but you couldn't turn around without hearing someone say "Sara this" or "Sara that" or "Sara did everything" or "if it wasn't for Sara...". Celeb status. That is what she has. And she carries it well. Cute, fun, and friendly. That, coupled with being more towards our age bracket than most of the attendees, makes for a pretty cool Queen.

There were many high points at the rally - we enjoyed walking thru the Hall of Vendors, loved checking out the coaches we could never afford, loved the open bar and really good food, loved meeting all the people we met, enjoyed being greeted in the morning at breakfast by Mark Anderson, Salesman Supreme from Giant RV, enjoyed all of our neighbors, didn't enjoy the lady that was not amused at our name tags (mine shows I'm from Mars, Ang is from Venus), enjoyed letting Malabar play with the other furry beasts on the grass, loved that we finally got a new A/C!!!

Which, indeed, is my final point. After many trials and tribulations, many of which are noted in this blog, it took us going out to a rally to get our A/C replaced. To us, the service guys are total heroes. Those guys work all day long, getting everyone taken care of. Even though we had a major task to accomplish, they handled it with ease. Thanks guys. You are one of the main reasons we are so happy with our coach.

Next entry should be done from Redmond, OR, after we get set up for the big FMCA rally. Attention FMCA: you guys have some pretty large rally-shoes to fill.

--kev