Escapade & Boot Camp

We have been very busy here in Gillette. We arrived a day before Boot Camp began. Boot Camp consisted of 2 days of seminars covering about every aspect of maintaining an RV. It also included a session on safe driving where we learned how to deal with a front tire blowout. It isn’t obvious. Almost everyone wanted to immediately brake the coach which is the worst thing you can do. The coach will pull to the side of the flat tire and braking will cause that pull to be increased, possibly causing total loss of control. We were taught to immediately accelerate using the inertia of the coach to keep it in the lane. Then we were told to turn the steering wheel against the pull and only when complete control was reestablished should you take your foot off the gas pedal and let the coach slow down, again without using brakes. The flat tire produces a lot of braking force all by itself. We need to go over this procedure many times to ensure that we do it right if we ever have a blowout.

Escapade has been very much like going to school. There have been a series of seminars every day and we have to go from room to room to soak up all the good information that is available. Of course there are a number of vendors here selling almost everything an RVer needs or thinks he/she needs or wants. We have dropped a few dollars on safety related items as well as a new towing package for our little Jeep. We expect it will make our travels both easier and safer.

Escapade is being held at a huge Civic arena called Cam-Plex here in Gillette that covers 1100 acres. We have not heard any “official” announcement but we suspect that there are well over 1000 motor homes here, including 5th wheels, trailers, and yes, even some tents. The Escapees RV Club is holding this Escapade, an annual event for them. The Escapees are a group of folks that live full time in their RVs, or a majority of their time.

Wyoming is the nation’s largest producer of coal and about 90% of that coal comes from the Gillette area, a whopping 4,000,000 tons per year. It takes 85 trains a day of 150 cars each to move that much coal. Wow!

Escapade ends tomorrow but we will stay for another three days. There will be a Fourth of July celebration here and we will have front row seats for the fireworks. It should be fun.