Thursday at FMCA Rally

Thursday morning started with coffee and donuts, 

...with music provided while we snacked by the Frustrated Maestros (a chapter of FMCA).

After we each attended a 9am seminar (Carl on generator maintenance while I went to the FMCA President's Update), we joined for devotions, stopped by to talk to "Paul" at HWH about the possibility of putting "Active Air" on Gracie, and then Carl went back to Gracie while I went to the Ladies Luncheon...

The entertainment for the Ladies Luncheon was a high school dance group doing dances from different states in Mexico...

They had beautiful dresses and were quite good!

Carl attended the first afternoon session on LED lights (the Ladies Luncheon went long so I missed the first afternoon seminar), then we both went to a session on Lithium batteries that was quite educational. During that session, Carl got a text that our towbar was finished, so we got the Jeep and went over to the Roadmaster Service Center to pick it up --

there were a number of towbars on their "back lot" and I picked ours out (it was labeled too so we could be sure).

One of the young men there carried it to the Jeep, and I went back to pay for the maintenance. The lady at the pay area said, "Oh, did he say that there was a charge?" There was no charge unless they had to do major parts replacement. On ours, they just replaced nylon washers, cleaned it, and lubricated the arms, so there was no charge. Wow!

When we went back into the expo, I saw a lady in a wheelchair that I had seen earlier that looked like she was in a standard chair, but she wasn't having to propel it --

I stopped to ask her about it, and she and her husband explained all about this "SmartDrive" that she has on her chair, that provides propulsion, and she steers with her hands on the wheels.

A few moments later, another fellow in a wheel chair that we had seen earlier (in fact, we also saw him at Organ Pipe National Monument, a few weeks ago) -- we noticed that it appeared to work like a Segway, that his leaning forward makes it go forward, and backward makes it reverse.

This is the company that makes the Segway-like chair. He said that you could also make it turn by leaning, but in close quarters he uses a joystick device to have more precise control.

We stopped to talk to the folks at the SOWERS (Servants On Wheels Ever Ready) table -- I got to meet Wayne and Gail with whom Carl and Sue had worked on a project back in 2017.

The evening concert was at a smaller venue, with music by the CS&M trio. It was enjoyable, though we were so tired that we were glad to get back to Gracie and get a good night's sleep!