Alberta Roamers Chapter 44 Rally

March 16-20, 2015

Usery Mountain Park

Mesa, Arizona

 The Alberta Roamers Chapter 44 has a rally each spring in Usery Mountain Park that we have attended the last 4 years.  One of the traditions is to adopt new attendees to members of the Chapter.  This year we became parents for the first time to Cynthia Lee and Nathan Colter.  Cynthia and Nathan are fellow Boomers that are exploring the Southwest this year from their home state of Florida.

Tom and Carol Bezdeka have attended this spring rally for the last 15 years and have adopted many new attendees including Joy & Dan Leither, Donna & John Swanson, Lonnie and Becky.

 This is a family picture of some of Tom and Carol's children and their new grandchildren.

Each year is the Guys vs Gals Bean Bag Baseball game.  This year the Gals won 3 to 2.  The group picture was taken on St. Patrick's Day after our Bean Bag Baseball game.

Our hosts for the Rally did a great job of organizing the activities and food.

There was kite flying in this beautiful desert area.

The Ocotillo were starting to bloom as well as other desert flowers.

We enjoyed lunch at Organ Stop Pizza, with many Escapees from North Ranch in Congress joining us for lunch.

This beautiful organ gets a workout 363 days a year.

Escapees enjoying the food and music.

Another tradition at this Rally is the hitch-up breakfast cooked by the men.  The ladies put on their finest hats...

and dress up for this fine breakfast.

The ladies are escorted to their tables.

More of the ladies in their fine hats.

The waiter takes their orders and delivers food to the table.

Wonderful waiters ready to escort the ladies and serve them breakfast.

We were even treated to music while we ate.

After breakfast Tom & Carol Bezdeka and ourselves moved into Mesa to Sun Life RV Resort for a week.  We found Luke and Judy Rinehimer camped here enjoying the Baseball Spring training games.  Carol Claiborn, a friend from Twin Falls has spent the winter at Sun Life.  She stopped by to say hi.  Carol (Cox) Claiborn and Becky were next door neighbors from 1956 to 1963 when they lived on Polk in Twin Falls.  We will spend time this week visiting with Lonnie's son Chris, granddaughter Cidney, Classmate Connie (Hendrix) Parker, RV friends Mike & Claudia Stafford, Paul & Joela Marenda.  Friday morning we are having the RV serviced at La Mesa RV before moving to North Ranch in Congress for a week of beading classes.  We continue to enjoy the warm sunny weather here in Southern Arizona.

Becky and Lonnie

Escapee's Escapades - Tucson, AZ

March 8-13, 2015
Tucson, AZ
Pima County Fairgrounds

Each year the Escapees have a National Rally called Escapades.  This year it was held in Tucson, AZ at the Pima County Fairgrounds.  The Escapees RV Club has sub-chapters for areas in the US and Canada.  We represented the Big Sky Chapter of Southern Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  To encourage the members to join local chapters they have the Row of booths at National.  We signed up 5 new members for our Chapter, talked to a lot of folks coming to our area and handed out lots of travel guides and maps.

During the opening ceremony we walked in the parade of banners for 34 Chapters and 21 BOF's (birds of feather groups share an interest from Boomers to Quilting)

This is an aerial view of the Pima County Fairgrounds where we camped during Escapades with more RVs in the back parking area.

There were 851 RV's camped here for the week with a total of 1,952 attending including walk-ins.

The hospitality hall is where you could meet friends, relax between seminars and enjoy coffee and donuts each morning.

Donuts were provided each morning as well as coffee before the seminars started.

This is one of the BOF's that we belong to.  It started as Baby Boomers but turned into a group of young at heart.  They are a very active group with over 600 members.

Geocaching BOF was also represented.

This was our table for the week.

Our chapter was awarded a certificate for it's 25th year of Caring and Sharing with Escapees.

Our certificate.  We also have a 10 year and 20 year certificate.

The Escapee Boomers had a happy hour social each day at 4:00.  This day we had 100 plus members come to the social.  Arizona law did not allow bringing alcohol in the buildings so we chose to meet outside.  Each month Boomers publish a newsletter with pictures of Boomerangs.  Each time Boomers find each other while on the road they have a boomerang and take pictures for the newsletter.  We have been in many newsletters.

It was so much fun seeing our friends we have met on the road through Boomers.

A great time was had by all catching up stories of our travels.

Steve Krasovetz has been named the "Margarita Boomer" because he brings the Margarita machine to  Boomer Happy Hours.

This is probably why Boomer Happy Hour was well attended at Escapades.  

During the Escapades we all do fundraising for CARE.  Over $12,000 was raised from the sell of donuts, chili cook-off votes (penny a vote), raffles and other donations from commercial vendors.  Our good friends Don and Sharon Del Rosario won the grand prize drawing of an Adventure Caravan Trip.  Someday we hope to do an Adventure Caravan tour in our RV.

It was a fun week and we are now headed for another rally in Mesa, AZ with the Alberta Roamers Chapter 44.  Only 3 more weeks left of our road trip that started on August 20th.  We should be back in Twin Falls by Easter Sunday.  

Becky and Lonnie