Rally #2: NKK International Rally Sedalia MO

Dorcas and I departed Hannibal MO about noon on Friday September 29th for a leisurely drive south and west to Sedalia MO to attend the Newmar Kountry Klub 37th International Rally.  This is not the first time Dorcas and I have been to Sedalia.  The KATY Trail passes through Sedalia, and in 2007 Dorcas and I, along with Wayne and Lynda, biked the KATY Trail from its eastern terminus in St Charles MO to Clinton MO and back, a total of about 440 miles, camping along the way. Click HERE  and HERE to view posts from that trip.  On that trip we spent a night in the campground at the Missouri State Fairgrounds.  This rally is likewise held at that venue.  

Sedalia is famous for, among other things, being the destination of the cattle drive on the old Rawhide TV show. I've been looking for Rowdy Yates, but I haven't seen him yet.

There are ~450 Newmar coaches here from all over the country.  We "caravanned" with the NKK Fulltimers Chapter and were parked in a gated compound with about 45 other Fulltimers members.  The compound had room for at least 100 coaches, and our chapter was able to park ourselves, so we were able to double space.  All sites had water, sewer and 50A power, uncommon luxuries at a fairgrounds site.

At the Region 5 Social: members from FL, AL, GA, MS, NC, SC, TN and VA

EV charging stations were located around the fairgrounds.

Have you ever seen a solar picnic table?  The solar panel provides shade and power to a battery bank located under the table.  Also, there are mobile device charging outlets on the post.  COOL!

Freightliner usually brings a naked chassis to major rallies and sells parts and conducts seminars.  Our coach is built on a Freightliner chassis.  Spartan is the other major RV chassis manufacturer and also had a chassis display.

We ate well at the rally, three dinners and three breakfasts were provided. In addition to the meals, there was an ice cream social and a non-stop popcorn machine and lemonade. 

And then there was the entertainment.

Julia Neville

Kenny Ray Horton

Black and Whyte Dueling Pianos

When I get the time a may post some video clips of the entertainers.  In the meantime there's THIS.  At least three of these dancers are friends from our NKK Tarheel chapter.

I took the drone up one day, but the wind was blowing about 30 mph. Bad plan. Trash cans were tumbling across the parking lots and awnings were being ripped from coaches.   My DJI Mavic Pro usually handles wind pretty well. The camera is mounted on a gimbal that normally responds pretty quickly and is generally stable in moderately high winds.  Not so much on this day. 

I hit a power line on the takeoff and had an injury.  That made for a dicey landing.   Thankfully I have several pairs of spare propellers on board.

After replacing the propellers I went up again. Dumb ass! Even aloft the drone was very difficult to control.  Note to self: Don't fly drone in gale-force winds, and particularly watch out for power lines.  

One great thing about this rally was the opportunity to get some repair items accomplished.  The vinyl on our entry door had begun to delaminate, a known issue.  PTL Engineering, the manufacturer of the door was here and made repairs. They also replaced several hardware items on the entry door and screen door.  Best of all:  NO CHARGE!!!!

My entry door shade failed a few years ago; a bracket broke causing one side of the shade to come loose.  Subsequently, while trying to determine how to repair, I just secured it with masking tape.

Automotion Shades is a 2nd tier supplier and provides the shades to PTL Engineering for our entry doors.  Automotion Shades was also present at the rally. Although they did not have the parts on hand to make this repair, they did agree to send me a new shade unit that I can install myself later.

There were 60 Newmar factory technicians at the rally performing miscellaneous repairs, and  20 other Newmar Corporation employees coordinating repairs selling parts and generally conducting customer public relations duties.  We had a slide out serviced, specifically to resolve a squeaking issue and to check the motor mount bolts.  

Our Sanicon device, otherwise known as our poop pump, has not functioned for this whole trip.  I was uncertain whether the motor had failed or if there was some other electrical issue, such as a blown fuse.  The malfunction occurred shortly after I had made another electrical repair that could have blown a fuse.  I checked all the fuses I could find, but all were good.  Newmar technicians determined that the pump motor had, in fact, failed but did not have the part in stock either at the rally or at their factory in Nappannee.  This is just as well since the cost of part is close $500.  We have an extended warranty plan, but Newmar would not work with our warranty provider for work performed at the rally.  When we get to Florida I can make repairs at Eagles Pride, our on-site full service RV center at The Great Outdoors.  Our out-of -pocket costs will only be $100 for parts and labor there.  SWEET!  Newmar technicians also made some other minor repairs and adjustments and answered some technical questions.  Best of all:  NO CHARGE!!!!

We have also been having problems with a waste tank sensor calibration for some time.  Our black waste tank would go from reading 0% to 100% with the first flush on an empty tank. Our monitor panel would also black out and become non-responsive for no particular reason. ATC Electronics (formerly KIB Engineering) manufactures our tank gauges and monitor and was a supplier present at the rally.  Three guys from ATC Electronics came to our coach and spent almost 2 hours calibrating our black tank sensor.  The process involved filling and emptying the tank multiple times while entering different calibration values directly into the electronic control module using a PC and proprietary application.  They also replaced our monitor touch panel with an updated model, which will make the calibration process easier, should we need to calibrate the sensors again in the future.  We can now reliably view all our tank levels!  Best of all:  NO CHARGE!!!!

Old tank touch monitor panel

New tank touch monitor panel

Finally, we bit the bullet and bought some new house batteries.  The house batteries provide 12VDC power to all the house functions, such as lights, pumps, blowers, electronics and inverter.  Our OEM batteries are about 6 years old, which is close to their useful life. They have been performing well, but they will likely fail soon, so we decided to suck it up and replace our 8 6V AGM batteries with 6 120 AH Lithium batteries.  These Elevation LiFePO4 batteries have almost 4 times the useable output, 1/3 the weight and 1/4 the volume of our old lead acid AGM bank.  They have a 12 year warranty, so we will likely never need to replace our batteries again.  I wish I could say that about our tires!  We currently have 400 watts of solar up top, but Newmar, in their infinite wisdom, installed cheap flexible panels, which are prone to cracking cells, reducing efficiency. They are also installed close to our raised roof rails often putting them in shade.  I figure they are only producing about half their original expected output.  So new and improved solar might also be on our shopping list.  I'm embarrassed to say how much we paid for these new batteries.  Suffice it to say, they were NOT FREE.

Old battery bank 

New lithium battery bank

The rally basically ended Friday night and most people departed Saturday morning.  Dorcas and I had been very busy with seminars and repairs and such, so we elected to stay over one more night and depart Sunday for Rally #3 in Branson.  That allowed us a day to explore Sedalia and see the sights.  Following are some scenes from about town.

A record store selling real vinyl records!

 Sedalia is home to the world famous Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, which was in progress when we biked through in 2007. Scott Joplin was the king of Ragtime music. He lived in Sedalia for a while and wrote and published some of his famous works while living here. During the festival dozens of world famous ragtime performers play on a dozen outdoor stages throughout town. Ragtime heaven.  

Scott Joplin

We had lunch in an old factory that originally produced Levi jeans.

This old letter box received mail from 7 floors above.

On Sunday October 8 we will depart Sedalia for a short 150 mile jaunt south to Branson MO for Rally #3.  Stay tuned!  The fun has just begun!

Video of the Week - Hannibal MO

Actually a two-fer.

The first video shows the highlights of the NKK Fulltimers Rally last week.  CLICK HERE

The second is a skit performed by Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher at the rally.  CLICK HERE

Rally #1: NKK Fulltimers Annual Rally Hannibal MO

About 10:00 am on Sunday September 24 we departed Updog RV Park and drove 98 miles south to Hannibal MO, where we will attend the first of three RV rallies in Missouri, namely the Newmar Kountry Klub (NKK) Fulltimers Chapter Annual Rally.  Many, probably most, of the members of the NKK Fulltimers Chapter are true fulltimers, meaning they have sold their homes and travel 365 days of the year. Some might call them homeless trailer trash, were they not traveling and lining in multi-hundred thousand dollar luxury motor coaches.  Dorcas and I call ourselves 3/4 timers, because we still own our home in North Carolina, and we only travel about 9 months of the year.

Our drive was uneventful, always a good thing.  Along much of our route from St. Paul southward we have seen signs proclaiming we were on the Avenue of the Saints.  We saw nothing particularly Holy along our route and thought no more about it.  At some point we learned that the Avenue of the Saints was a corridor of highways through Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri that connected St. Paul MN and St. Louis MO.

Hannibal MO is best known for its 2 most famous natives: Samual Langhorne Clemons (Mark Twain) and Margaret (Unsinkable Molly) Brown. 

We checked in for 5 nights at the Mark Twain Cave Campground.  The campground has on-site the cave made famous in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", as well as a number of other writings by Mark Twain. 

Mark Twain themed Missouri wines

56 coaches were in attendance: The gang's all here!

An aerial view of our rally venue

And here we are

At each campsite was an unusual fire pit.  It was a semisphere about 36" in diameter made of 1/4" steel.  I suspect they were recycled former river bouys.  They are reminiscent of fire pits we found in Alaska, which were recycled from 48" steel sections from the Alaska pipeline.

Our huge fire pit

One evening we had a visit from Mark Twain. Click HERE to hear Mark Twain himself!.

Some favorite Mark Twain quotes:

"Hannibal has had a hard time of it ever since I can recollect. First, it had me for a citizen, but I was too young then to really hurt the place."

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

"We do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves."

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

"I don't know anything that mars good literature so completely as too much truth. Facts contain a great deal of poetry, but you can't use too many of them without damaging your literature."

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."

These last 2 ideas represent one of my guiding principles when producing this journal, namely, don let the facts get in the way of a good tale.

Our rally package included an historic trolley tour of Hannibal.

At the rally we met some old friends.  While traveling in Alaska in 2017, we met a couple on the tour bus into the interior of Denali who were from Lewisville, only about 10 miles from our home in Winston Salem in North Carolina.  Small world! We met Richard and Sharron again here at the Fulltimers Rally in Hannibal.  When we met in Alaska neither of us owned Newmar coaches, but here we are together at a Newmar Rally in Hannibal MO 6 six years later.  Even smaller world!

With Richard on the trolley

Tom and Huck

Hannibal is a river town, and a rough town back in the day.  When the steamboats arrived it was said the captain could identify a safe restaurant if it had a backward-spelled name.  Check out LaBinnah Bistro, a high-end establishment a few blocks up the hill off the waterfront.

A local mansion

The house below was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is located on the short, steep road to Lovers Leap.  The ugly green appendage on the left side is an unfinished addition. Sacrilege!

Another local mansion

Mississippi River views from Lover's Leap:

A view from Riverfront Park:

Old Sam himself at Riverfront park

Margaret Tobin, known as Maggie, and later as Molly Brown, was born in Hannibal, to a poor family.  When she was 18 she moved to Leadville CO with her brother Daniel Tobin.  In Leadville, she met and married James Joseph Brown. He was not a rich man, and she married J.J. for love. After his death she said:

"I wanted a rich man, but I loved Jim Brown. I thought about how I wanted comfort for my father and how I had determined to stay single until a man presented himself who could give to the tired older man the things I longed for him. Jim was as poor as we were and had no better chance. I struggled hard with myself in those days. I loved Jim, but he was poor. Finally, I decided that I'd be better off with a poor man whom I loved than with a wealthy one whose money had attracted me. So I married Jim Brown."

From Wikipedia: 

The Brown family acquired great wealth when in 1893, J.J.'s mining engineering efforts proved instrumental in the exploration of a substantial ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine.  His employer, Ibex Mining Company, awarded him 12,500 shares of stock and a seat on the board. In Leadville, Margaret helped by working in soup kitchens to assist miners' families.

So Maggie eventually found her wealthy husband, moved to Denver, bought a mansion and began her life as a rich socialite.

Molly Brown's Birthplace & Museum

Maggie Brown was the most famous survivor of the Titanic disaster.  After her death in 1932, Brown was called "Molly Brown" and "The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown" by authors.

Riverboats ply the Mississippi River between St. Paul and Memphis and land in Hannibal.

The American Queen 

Dorcas and I enjoyed fried catfish at Finn's Food and Spirits

Downtown Hannibal

Hannibal is known for a number of murals around town.  Here are a few:

We toured Mark Twain's Cave, originally called McDowell's Cave in the days Samual Clemens lived in Hannibal.  This cave was an inspiration for Mark Twain in a number of his writings, most notably The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

McDowell Cave was discovered in 1819 by Jack Simms, a local hunter.  His dog chased a cougar into a hole in the hill.  Jack loved that dog and followed it into the hole, and the cave was discovered.  The cat was never found. 

The temperature of the cave is a constant 52 degrees. It is a dry cave which is somewhat unusual for such a large cave complex.

Hannibal and its residents were the inspiration for many of the stories and characters developed by Mark Twain.

Sam Clemens' boyhood home

Laura Hawkins, a sweetheart of young Sam Clemens and the inspiration for Becky Thatcher, lived here

One day we had a visit from Tom and Becky.  In 1956 the Hannibal Chamber of Commerce initiated the Tom and Becky Program to select local school children to represent the city as ambassadors to local regional and national events.  Initially, there was a single Tom and Becky, but now due to demand there are a total of 5 Tom and Becky couples.  Each couple is chosen from a pool of 7th grade students following a rigorous review process.  Click HERE to see a video of Tom and Becky enacting a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Tom and Becky

Norman Rockwell provided illustrations for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  A number of original works and sketches are on display at the Mark Twain Museum

On the final night at the rally our group took a sunset dinner cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat.

A full moon on the Big Muddy

Our dinner cruise track

We had a wonderful visit in Hannibal and had a great time with our NKK Fulltimers friends. Tomorrow we pack up and move about 150 miles south and west to Sedalia MO for the 2nd of our 3 back-to-back-to-back NKK rallies.