Right this way ==|>
It was only the third night of our five and a half day stay with the Rubber Tramp crew when Nicole said, “With all of the seminars, group dinners, great people and neat stuff scheduled to learn or do each day, I feel like we are at an all inclusive resort!” Actually, we were so busy enjoying ourselves that the only photos we took were bragging rights on two classes of wire-bending that we took.
and we used those skills to hang our own beads.
Day 2… On to loopty loops…
which we used those to create a larger pendant.
We counted some 15-20 vans of all shapes and sizes at this event and no two of them were the same. In addition, folks lived or traveled in anything from converted box trailers, truck campers, fifth wheels, buses, tents, trucks to even a Prius! The people that we met at the event ranged from those who still haven’t picked a rig nor hit the road full-time to those that had up to 30 years or so of rubber tramping. The great thing about everyone gathering in one place like this was that we were able to glean oodles of information on a wide range of topics and in return contribute what we’ve learned so far. There’s a lot to take in out there and the Rendezvous gave us yet another great dose that we’ll use as we mosey on down the road.
On the fifth night of our stay, the wind began to blow in that way that it does when it is time for us to move on. So, by noon the next day, we were packed up and heading on down the road, looking toward new and different experiences.
Next stop… a visit to our friend, Robb, and his dog, Dude. We spent a few days with Robb and Dude hanging out, swapping stories of where we’d been since we had last seen each other and sharing other tales. Dude spent several days soaking in the attention of two women and breaking literally every training rule Robb had instilled. Well, Robb says he’s got time on his hands. Guess a little re-training won’t get in the way!
By the campfire one evening our stargazing turned into a full fledged lesson from Robb who used to teach astronomy. It was a perfect night to view the stars, dark, cool and clear. The milky way and various constellations were easy to spot.
Given our latest experience, we’d like to state the following for the record. The guy at the Slabs, who told us we were looking at the International Space Station one night, had DEFINITELY consumed a few too many intoxicants. We discovered that most likely he was showing us Venus. We also learned that what we thought we knew all these years indicated that we weren’t far off from the guy at the Slabs, only without the intoxicants. Not so sure who has the better excuse now?!
In Nicole’s opinion, probably the most amazing thing we saw was the Dog Star which sparkled white, green, red, white, green, red, white, green, red. It was absolutely beautiful. Darlene just thought it was all pretty awesome.
Robb gave us information about great camping areas which would provide us the kind of experiences we are looking for on this journey and we shared what we had experienced so far (a few places of which he actually had not yet visited in his 20 some years on the road). This had us pulling out the map and dreaming of the many options. Too may to count or make plans by so we put it away and decided we’d just keep going where the wind blows us.