Our First RV Rally

Wyoming Center was main activity center, but not only one!

The mascot of Cam-plex!

Escapees RV Club is a nation wide club with headquarters in Livingston, TX.  They have a national Rally each summer and this year it is in Gillette WY in NE WY.  The site of the rally was the Cam-Plex Center east of Gillette.

One of the 3 campgrounds at Cam-Plex

It is a very large multi-use facility that includes over 1100 RV spaces with full hook ups.  It also has space for rodeo performance and at least 3 large buildings for indoor activities.  The Wyoming Center was the center of activities for the SKP Rally.  It had a large floor that could be converted into an ice rink with plenty of seats and they probably had a basketball floor in a closet somewhere.  At any rate half of the facility was set up for the events such as opening, closing and nightly entertainment events.  The other half was divided into large comfortable rooms for the numerous seminars presented and a large Market Place for the vendors to set up shop.  In the large hall/entry way was numerous meetings places for the groups part of the rally and meetings of the various subgroups.  All in all, a very nice facility and was well suited for our needs.

Part of the SKP tradition is the formation of Classes for the full-timers.  Your class is the year you started full timing.  It is all very unofficial and some folks participate and others don't.  There is a section on the on-line forum for the classes to participate as desired.  Somebody starts a thread on the forum end everyone interested jumps in!  This is for past years, current years and projected years.  I believe the most projected class I have seen is 2019!  Someone that is planning on going full time in 2019 has already started the class forum and has several members!  The Class of 2007 seems to be the most active right now and they even hosted a "happy hour" for all first timers at the rally.

Class of 2010 dinner!!

We are in the Class of 2010 and enjoyed meeting our classmates that attended this rally.  We had several happy ours together and the last night we had a potluck dinner - all are traditions of the rally.  Part of the tradition is that everybody brings their own drinks and place settings with some food to share and it avoids putting a burden on any one or two folks.  If it is outside, then you also bring your own chair!!

SKP's has a non-profit arm called SKP Cares.  It is an program at the SKP Park in Livingston TX for those older folks that cannot travel anymore but still have the ability to help in their care.  They live in their RV at Livingston and the organization helps them by providing transportation for their doctor appointments, shopping and even has a "meals on wheels" type of program.  During the rally there were several events that were fundraisers for the SKP Care program and over $3000 was raised during the rally.  Also, 833 knitted baby caps were presented to the Gillette Regional Hospital for the newborns. 

Lots of empty spaces by Saturday!!

 So we have enjoyed the week with like minded travelers.  Many are full timers, but certainly not all.  The only requisite is that you are interested in the RV lifestyle.  But, closing ceremonies were Thursday PM.  Next day BJ and I spent doing some catch up stuff.  I washed the RV, she made a trip to the laundromat and we generally got ready to move on out Saturday.   We are heading to a small town called Ten Sleep that was recommended by our neighbors here at the campground this week.

It is about half way to Yellowstone and there is some beautiful country surrounding it.  We are going to spend several days there before moving on the Yellowstone on Tue or Wed.

Always at home, no matter where we are!!