Bringing in the New Year

Last weekend we attended the Arcadia Bus Rally – one of the longest running bus rallies in the country, and certainly one of the largest on the east coast.

There were far more buses here than at the BCM Rally we attended back in October in Chattanooga, and much more variety.  It was so much fun to see so many other buses of our vintage, and talk with so many other bus owners.  The rally posted a photo tour of all of the coaches in attendance – there’s some drool-worthy buses there.

We presented two seminars at the rally (on Mobile Internet Options and Lithium Ion Batteries), which seemed to be well received. We found out fairly last minute that the seminars would be live streamed, and apparently they may be accessible in an archive at some point.  The content is pretty much what we discuss in the linked blog posts, however – so if you missed the live stream, you’re not missing much.

Kiki even helped out with giving seminars.  During our Mobile Internet presentation, the screen kept advancing seemingly on its own.  We soon discovered Kiki was inside on the desk looking out the window at the crowd – with her paw on our wireless keyboard.

The highlight for us was getting some extended time being neighbors with Sean AND Louise of Our Odyssey.  We got to spend a week with just Sean up in Chattanooga, so it was great to re-connect with Louise as well.

Like we did at the BCM Rally, we parked our buses awning-to-awning and Sean & Louise set up their super-awesome portable hot tub for us to soak in at night.  There was some confusion amongst rally regulars, as last year our mutual friends Ben & Karen parked with Sean & Louise in a very similar configuration.

Recall that we have since purchased their MINI Cooper, and they are working on converting  Creative Cruiser – their vintage bus.  We had several folks mistake us as ‘Those friends of Sean & Louise’s with the MINI who were working on a vintage bus!’.    Well… obviously that description fits us now, but we had no clue this time last year!

We had a great time chilling with awesome friends over several days.  Sean, who doesn’t seem to be able to NOT try to fix things, made a valiant attempt at getting our generator working. It’ll start, but not keep running without bypassing some stuff.  He thinks we need some inexpensive parts or a new control board system.  That’ll have to be a project for another day. We are grateful for his efforts, and that Odyssey’s generator has more than enough power to share so that we could remain parked in the dry camping area with them.

But we weren’t the only ones enjoying a nomadic meet up. Angel & George & Opal (the onboard pets of Our Odyssey) and Kiki got to spend a lot of time chilling on our communal porch.

All and all.. a fantastic way to bring in the new year. Great friends. Hot Tub. Smoothly run rally.