The first Christmas storm since 1947 (already our third of the season) came close to scuttling the plan, but on Monday afternoon we checked the roads, found them clear enough, and we decided to leave the next morning. 
The only thing standing in our way was the snow and ice in our driveway. I had spread the ashes from our woodstove over the snow around the front of the bus as soon as the snow stopped falling, and that had helped to melt some of it, but getting out was still a little iffy. I have found that a very thin dusting of dark soot on top of the snow really helps to absorb the heat and melt the snow. It was 17 degrees when we got up to leave and I was really glad I had turned on the bus block heater. The engine started on the first revolution, I untethered us from the power cord, made a final check around the perimeter of the bus, and we were off. The new rear tires never spun a bit on the ice.
It’s 750 miles from Chapel Hill to Arcadia, too far for a single day in the bus, so we planned to stop for the night in Savannah, GA. Later on I compared notes with several other bus people at the rally and found that most of us prefer to travel no more than 250 miles in a single day, but we were on a tight schedule since Flora had to be back at work the following week so 2 days on the road each way was about all we could spare. We finally managed to leave home at about 9:30 AM and later pulled into the Pooler GA Wal-mart at 4:30 in the afternoon. With the sun so low in the sky this time of year, it had been shining in my eyes much of the day and the peepers were letting me know that they had had just about enough. I have noticed that my eyes tire much more quickly than they did when I was a pup and now they are much more sensitive to bright light.
I subscribe to a Yahoo group that maintains a list of Wal-marts that allow overnight parking and on that list, the one in Pooler was listed as not allowing overnighting. But I had been told by someone on the bus board that he stays there often, so I thought I would go and see for myself. There were a few RVs in the lot when we arrived and by dusk there were nearly a dozen, so I figured it would probably be OK, even with “no overnight parking” signs posted. Worst case, if we were asked to leave we could always drive across the street to the Sam’s Club, which had no such posted policy.
We woke up at about 8:00 AM, after a cold and restless night, to a temperature of 26. We realized that had we parked at the other end of the place we would have already been in the sun warming up. Sometime in the night my friend Dave Evans had arrived in his GM 3903 and I finally got to put a face with the name. It was Dave’s write up about the previous year’s rally that had made me really want to go to this one. Dave was also the one who turned me on to Robert, my bus mechanic. We stood in the cold and talked buses for a while but all too soon it was time to go with a full day’s drive ahead of each of us.
The rest of the trip was uneventful; the portion of I-95 that had been under construction the previous year was now finished (and really nice and smooth) and we pulled into the fairgrounds in Arcadia at about 5:00 PM, which was nice since I really hate having to try to park the bus after dark. There were buses everywhere (over a 100); I had never seen so many. There were at least 17 4104’s and lots of 4106’s, so I would have plenty of other GM’s to look at for ideas. I found us a space between a gorgeous Scenicruiser and a big Dina; compared to them my 4106 looked pretty small and insignificant. We met Lou and Rene who had a huge Neoplan two spaces down from us and they gave us the tour. Diezel had many other dogs to watch through the window, I had buses to explore, and our bussing weekend was off to a good start.
During the rally I attended some great seminars, met a lot of great people, and talked buses from dawn to dusk. Sean’s plumbing seminar covered the basics well and I could also apply much of the content to my upcoming house build. There was a defensive driving seminar and I was sorry than I missed the first half of it since I covered a lot of the questions that I had had from the first time I drove one of these huge machines. For example he talked about braking techniques on steep roads, something we all have to deal with from time to time. Since these seminars were simulcast over the Internet, I hope that someone will eventually post the recordings on the bus board so that I can catch the part I missed.
I also bought and installed some LED replacement lighting for the inside of the bus. When we are drying camping (running off of our own electrical power as opposed to being plugged into shore power) the thing we use power for as much as anything else is lighting. All of our lighting is 12 volt and consists of either incandescent bulbs or florescent tubes. You can touch a light bulb and tell that much of the electrical energy is wasted as heat. Fluorescents are more efficient but not nearly as efficient as LEDs. Since LED lighting is fairly new it is also still pretty expensive. We paid about $25 each for replacement bulbs that were slightly brighter than the incandescent and used a small percentage of the energy. Since we will have to replace our batteries every few years (at more than $1000 each time) I figured that even with the high price of the LEDs, they would be worth it in the long run by reducing the number of batteries we require. We replaced only a few at this time and are hoping the price will come down a bit before we do the rest but so far we really like the quality of the light they produce. I would also like to eventually replace the two six-foot fluorescents that provide out main living room lighting.
As always, the time flew by; before we knew it it was New Years Eve and we would be 
leaving the next morning. At the rally we saw a lot of expected things and some not so expected. In the latter category was a flock of Sandhill Cranes that liked to hang out in the field in front of our bus. We got to hear them sing and dance every time someone would walk their dogs nearby. Our final evening Flora finally got close enough to get some pictures. We have noticed that seeing the wildlife is always the most memorable part of any trip. We still reminisce about the wildlife we saw years ago on other camping trips, for example the Roosevelt Elk in Olympic National Park and the Bison in Yellowstone. Where we live now there is an abundance of deer, which we love to see, while other complain about them.
On New Years Eve most people dined on barbecued ribs and I enjoyed the baked beans and cole slaw. Music was supposed to be 50s/60s but was mostly 50s and most of it was not very danceable. Note to organizers, you have to keep it on the upbeat and keep us old folks moving if we are going to make it until midnight! By the end of the evening there were only about 25 people left in the pavilion and we could see a few other outlying groups gathered around campfires. Just before midnight we made the rounds to wish everyone a happy new year and headed for our bus. Florida is so flat that we could see fireworks all around but surprisingly none of the bus people lit anything off; I might have to do something about that next year.
Early the next morning (New Years Day) buses started leaving. I had missed opportunities to see some unique conversions, including Sean’s Odyssey and that big red Scenicruiser that was parked next to me, but I guess it is impossible to see everything. 
We finally got away mid-morning as planned and headed north for another night at the Pooler Wal-mart. The sky was overcast, which is my favorite kind of driving weather. Traffic was fairly light because of the holiday with hardly any truck traffic and we arrived as it was getting dark. The parking lot was full of RVs, many of which had very noisy gasoline generators. I discovered just how well insulated our walls were and we both slept like a log. The next morning we left early, stopped and took on fuel and dumped our tanks, and arrived home just in time to watch the Tarheel basketball game after getting the bus up on our ramps. It was a great trip and a great rally, but we were very happy to be home. As I get ready to post this we are waiting for our 6th snowstorm of the season and it was 58 in the house when I got up this morning; Florida weather is sounding pretty good right about now!
