FRVA Eastern Area Rally November 4-9, 2025

 Day 1 Tuesday November 4, 2025

Another new adventure begins today. We are going to be attending a FRVA Eastern Area Rally for 5 nights in Myrtle Beach SC. FRVA stands for Family RV Association. It was formerly called FMCA for Family Motor Coach Association. When it was FMCA only motorized RVs could be a member. Then to keep membership up they allowed any self contained RV to join, so they changed the name to FRVA. 

We have been to several national FMCA/FRVA rallies in Perry GA but this rally is smaller and is hosted by the Eastern Area Association. There are 28 area RV clubs that make up the Eastern Area Association. We are not members of any individual RV club. 

We got everything ready and departed home about 10:15, filled up with fuel in Rocky Point and were on our way. It is only about a 140 mile drive to Ocean Lakes Family Campground in Myrtle Beach SC. We have never stayed here. It has 859 full hookup pull through sites. It sets right beside the beach. Plus there are hundreds of beach cottages located on the property that is part of the complex. They have a variety of amenities onsite, four ponds, pools, huge laundry, hundreds of golf carts for rent, RV for sale, RV parts and service and a few places to get food, etc,

We arrived about 1:30, checked in and slowly made our way to site 2053. On first impression we are not impressed with the campground. The parking pad is concrete and it was easy to level but the sites are kind of short. I was able to keep the motorhome on the site and not encroach on the street in front and back of our site but we had to park the Jeep on the patch of grass between us and the next site. Most of the grass was worn away and was just sand and sand spurs, UGG. We have never been to a campground where our site was as close to the site in front and back of us. It is not unusual to have the sites fairly close side to side but not front to back. Our neighbor to the left of us said….”his wife felt almost claustrophobic”. 

When I went to plug in our power cord the 50AMP receptacle was not secure in the panel. It was basically just flopping around so I had to be careful when I plugged in. The site was littered with small pieces of trash from prior campers. It probably hadn’t been cleaned in a while. 

We needed to locate the building where we had to check in for the Rally. The emails we got from the Rally team said it was in the Activity Building.  Nothing on our campground map was labeled Activity Building. So I asked the man on the site behind us and he said it was in the Recreation Building which was a fairly long walk so we drove the Jeep there and checked in. Then went out of the campground to the nearby Walmart for a few items. 

We bought some ice cream so we sat outside when we got back and enjoyed the sunshine until the sun began to set and the temperature started dropping. 

Day 2 Wednesday November 5, 2025

We woke up this morning to the sounds of the ocean waves hitting the beach. After we had breakfast we went to the Recreation Building to play Bingo. We have never played Bingo like this. You don’t play with Bingo cards, you play with a deck of playing cards. Four people set together as a team and each person is dealt 13 cards. Then the caller calls out a particular card and the person in the team that has it discards that card. When a person doesn’t have any cards left they hollow BINGO and they are the winner. They weren’t giving out any prizes just having fun. We played for an hour or so and decided we had had enough “fun”. So we returned to the motorhome to fix lunch because we planned to attend two seminars this afternoon. 

After lunch we returned to the Recreation Building to attend the seminar on all the benefits of being a member of FRVA. We were aware of some of them but there were other benefits we have as members we were not aware of. Then there was a seminar on FRVA Chapters and how they operate. Most of the Chapters that are in the Eastern Area had tables/displays setup so we stopped at a few to get some information from them to see if we would be interested in joining. Usually the annual membership fee is less than $20. At time we have decided not to join any of the chapters.

After returning to the motorhome we walked out onto the beach. This was the first time we have been on a beach in many years. There were a few fishermen trying their luck and a few people out walking the beach. It probably is really busy on the beach here in June/July/August. 

Day 3 Thursday November 6, 2025

We normally have two kinds of fruit, bacon and eggs and coffee for breakfast but this morning we only had the fruit then went to the Recreation Building where the Rally team was providing Krispy Kreme glazed donuts and coffee. 

We attended 5 seminars today on different topics related to RVing. We have been traveling in a motorhome since 2011 but there is always something to learn, some new things and new products and some just refreshers to what  we think we already know. 

After the last seminar we returned to the motorhome until about 7pm. We returned to the Recreation Building for the entertainment for the evening. Carson Peters and Iron Mountain performed until 9pm. They are a young Bluegrass Band of five. We have seen them perform twice in the Galax Virginia area. Carson has been playing the fiddle since he was a very young boy. All of the group are good musicians and all of them sing. 

Day 4 Friday November 7, 2025

We had the same routine for breakfast this morning as we did yesterday. Then we attended two seminars that were very good. One was called “Co-Pilot Right Seat”.  For anyone that travels in an RV, especially a large RV similar to ours the person in the right seat (front passenger seat) is very important and has responsibilities just like the driver. For example having another set of eyes on the road is a big help to the driver especially in heavy traffic and in an area where the driver is not familiar with driving. Also when pulling into a campsite the driver needs someone outside assisting. Even with a rear view camera and large mirrors the driver can’t see everything. The presenter provided a lot of good information. And he was very funny. 

The second seminar was “Lessons Learned on the Road”. The presenter told the story of a trip he and his wife made from Raleigh NC to the West coast and back and all the problems they had. Most RVers have multiple checklist for such things as what to pack for a trip, what to do to prepare the RV, spare parts to carry, what to do to setup and breakdown a campsite, etc.  He said some of his problems were created by him because he didn’t follow his checklists properly. He had some serious mechanical problems on the trip that couldn’t have been foreseen but if he had followed his checklists and packed the tools on his checklist he could have possibly solved some of the problems before they got worse. 

The Rally team had made arrangements with the Alabama Theater in North Myrtle Beach to get us discounted tickets on their Annual Christmas Show that was today at 1:30pm. We had purchased tickets so we left the campground and drove to the theater. 

We wanted some seafood for lunch so we decided to try the River City Cafe right beside the theater. The food was very good and not as expensive as some of the restaurants in the area. A lot of the seafood restaurants in the Myrtle Beach area has a huge buffet that also has a rather large price. We just can’t justify spending $30-40 each for a buffet when we don’t eat large meals. 

We had good seats at the theater. We were almost center stage in row 17. The show was amazing. The best theatre show we have ever seen. The musicians and performers were all top notch. The theater must have spent a small fortune on the costumes the performers were wearing. They must have worn at least 10-15 different costumes. They also had a very good comedian/juggler that performed during the times they needed to reset the stage for the next portion of the show. He had worked for years at Disney World and on the Disney cruise ship.

Day 5 Saturday November 8, 2025

There wasn’t anything happening at the Rally this morning that interested us so Lena wanted to go to Hamricks to do a little shopping for some shoes and clothes. There was a Black Rifle Coffee Shop just past it so we went there first. We had heard about Black Rifle Coffee but have never been to one. I think they are a Veteran Owned Company and they offer a discount to Military and First Responders so we got a discount since I am a retired EMT. The Lattes were excellent and so were the Blueberry Muffins. 

Then Lena did her shopping before we returned to the campground. We stopped at the office to let them know about the problem with our power pedestal and to tell them the litter on our site was  there when we got here. We didn’t want them to think we had littered up the site. A few minutes after we got back to our site a maintenance worker came and repaired the power pedestal. 

After we had lunch we attended two seminars at the Recreation Building. Neither one of us got much out of these two seminars and the presenter was not very presentable in our opinion. He was a rather large man and his stomach hung out over his sweat pants and below his wrinkled pull over shirt. YUK! And what really hit us was his wife was also in the room and was neatly dressed. 

Then at 6:30 we attended the Rally closing ceremony and prize giveaways. Several retired military that were attending the Rally did the folding of the flag ceremony and as the flag was being folded a speaker was explaining the meaning of each of the 12 folds of the flag. We had never heard the meaning of each fold of the flag. 

Tonight’s entertainment was Too Much Sylvia. They are a group of four musicians that have been performing for many years. They are basically a Beach Music band. They performed music from the sixties and could sing and play and sound like the groups that originally performed those songs. They did some of their own original music also. They did a really good job. Near the end of their performance they did a really nice tribute to the military. 

This was a nice Rally. For a fairly small area rally it was well organized and ran. We heard there were 300 RVs that attended. They also had a 50/50 raffle and a $1000 was presented to a local charity that is building tiny homes for homeless veterans in the Myrtle Beach area. 

Day 6 Sunday November 9, 2025

One of the seminars we attended was presented by Kleen Tank. They specialize in cleaning the holding tanks and water heaters on RVs. The man that founded the company experimented with different products and methods to clean holding tanks. He came up with a good system and then sold franchises to people around the country to use his system. Holding tanks in RVs are not septic tanks like you would have at a house. Holding tanks only hold the black (sewage) and grey (shower/sink) water for short periods of time until they can be emptied into a dump station at the campsite. 

The problem most people have with their holding tanks is they don’t put enough water in them before they dump the contents and the “stuff” settles to the bottom of the tank and hardens. And over time the “stuff” builds up and becomes a problem. Jack, the man doing the presentation, said that a lot of the products sold for holding tanks did a good job of breaking down the solids but then the “stuff” combined with the products formed a slurry in the bottom of the holding tanks that is hard to get out when dumping the tanks. 

We scheduled them to come and clean our black and grey tanks this morning at 10:30. Our RV is 7 years old and has never had the tanks professionally cleaned. I think I do a fairly good job of keeping them properly flushed but have noticed some slow draining recently in the black tank. 

They came just before 10am and we watched them clean the tanks and they explained what they were doing and what we were seeing coming out of the tanks. They use high pressure water and run a small hose up into the tanks. They prepare a report card on what they found and grade the tanks condition from A to F with A being the best condition. Our grey tank was a B and the black tank was a C which is what I expected. They highly recommend using Calgon Bath Pearl Beads and Pine-Sol as the only thing to use in the tanks other than plenty of water to keep the tanks in good condition. So I will be changing to this method. 

Now wasn’t that something interesting to read about. 😂😂It is just part of the RV experience. 

We had the motorhome ready to depart before Kleen Tank arrived so once they finished we hooked up the Jeep and were on our way about 11am. 

We stopped to top off the fuel tank in Castle Hayne and at Bojangles in Wallace to top our fuel tanks before getting home.

Bojangles in Wallace has 4 large parking spots for big trucks and big RVs and one spot marked for Delivery Truck Parking only. These parking spots are on the opposite side of the building from the car parking spots. When we pulled in there was a car parked crosswise in the spot for the delivery truck parking and the rear of the car was hanging over about two feet into one of the big rig parking spots. For some people is it just “all about them”. There were numerous parking spot on the side for the car parking area.

 

We had a good week. This will be our last trip for a while. We normally don’t travel much in cold weather. 

Western National Parks and Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta October 12-18, 2025

 Day 65 Sunday October 12, 2025

We departed at 9:30 for our 120 mile drive to Red Bay Alabama. We are scheduled for our annual chassis service Monday morning at 7am, followed by a wash and polish job on our very dirty motorhome at 11am. We have been in some very dusty conditions for most of the last 64 days and it shows. When we get home a thorough inside cleaning job is in order also. 

We got to Convenient Campground about noon. This is owned by Sabrina that will be doing our wash/polish job tomorrow. She has been using a parking lot beside another business for a few years. Last year she bought this already established small campground and build a nice 2 bay metal building on the same property to do her detailing business. This will be the third time she has detailed our motorhome. She is a hard working woman. She has several people helping her with the detailing. 

When we pulled into the campground we noticed a couple at a motorhome that had 3 Fantasy RV Tours stickers on it. After we got setup we walked over to talk to them for a minute. They have been on 15 tours and have 10 more booked. I guess they must like Fantasy RV Tours. 

Lena took the breast of the roasted chicken we bought yesterday and made chicken salad with it so that was our lunch today. Very good. 

Day 66 Monday October 13, 2025

We were up a little after 6am to make our 7am appointment at Bay Diesel this morning. I took the motorhome over to Bay Diesel and Lena went to McDonald’s to get us some breakfast and to the IGA to get a dozen fresh donuts to give the mechanics at Bay Diesel. They do a very good job servicing our motorhome and I thought some fresh donuts might brighten their morning a little. 

We had a lot done on this years service, some of the service items are only done every 3 or 5 years and they were due to be done this time so the bill was much higher than normal plus their labor rate went up a little since last year. Two mechanics serviced our motorhome and I watched them and I was amazed how much they did in about 2.5 hours. They have enough mechanics they can work on 3 motorhomes at a time with 2-3 mechanics at each motorhome. All they do is service motorhomes. 

Then we returned to the campground and waited for Sabrina and her crew to wash and polish the motorhome. And it sure did need it. They finished about 3 pm.  

We had an appointment tomorrow morning at 6am to get the roof inspected at RV Solutions but we also got the call from Tiffin to be at the mechanical bay at 7am. The owner at RV Solutions was in our area this evening so he stopped at our site and did the inspection so we didn’t have to go to his shop in the morning and he didn’t charge us anything to do the inspection. He said just keep him in mind for any work we might need in the future. We did ask him about replacing the little bit of carpet in the motorhome maybe next year. He and his crew are experts at replacing carpet, tile and other types of flooring in motorhomes. 

Day 67 Tuesday October 14, 2025

We got up early and I got the motorhome over to Tiffin Service Center for our 7am service time. I pulled into bay 43 and the service technician asked what my issues were. I told him the leveling system and the front air conditioner/heat pump failure. He said the mechanical bay technicians didn’t work on the ac/hp on the roof so I would need to get that fixed in a regular service bay. UGGG! First I have heard that. That means waiting in another service queue. 

I sent Paula, the lady that handles the service queue, an email about this and she acted like it was the first she had heard of our ac/hp issue. I summited my original “call ahead queue” request for service September 4th and sent a request to add the ac/hp on September 10th. 

I got a call about 8:30 from the mechanical bay that they had our leveling problem fixed so I walked over to talk to them. They used a laptop to recalibrate the leveling system and they have exercised the system several times and have not had it to fault again. 

When I went to the office to pay our bill Paula said they don’t close out the bill until everything is fixed and she hopes to have us into a bay this afternoon or in the morning to fix the ac/hp issue. 

I was sitting outside about midafternoon reading when I heard a crunching sound across from us. There is another small campground that adjoins this one and a couple in a 45’ motorhome was pulling into their site and scrubbed the power pedestal on the site beside them and destroyed the power pedestal and damaged four of the basement doors on the couples motorhome. That is a good reason to have someone spotting for you when you pull into a campsite. Especially when the sites are fairly close together as these are. This couple was not practicing that bit of caution. Even after doing all that damage, the driver pulled on past the damaged power pedestal, got realigned and then backup in his site, still didn’t have his wife outside watching for his. 

The couple at the damaged site had to find a different campsite because the damaged power pedestal will have to be replaced. 

Well we didn’t get called to go back in for our last issue this afternoon nor did we get the call to be at a service bay at 7am as we had hoped. So we are in a waiting game.

Day 68 Wednesday October 15, 2025

We have had breakfast and are still waiting the call to report to a service bay. Sure hope it happens today. We are ready to head home. 

We got called into a service bay about 12:30. When I explained the problem to the two technicians they stated that they would check the AC but Tiffin did not replace any bad parts only replace the AC with a new one. I was not pleased with this information. If the only problem is a bad capacitor the repair would only be about $70 and labor but a new AC is over $2,000 plus labor. I told them to do their diagnostics but don’t replace the AC before talking to me first. 

Then I went to the office to talk to one of the service managers and he told me the same thing. At this point I was not a “happy camper “. 

I called the repair shop that originally installed the AC in January 2023 to get their opinion. After talking to them and Lena we decided if Tiffin thought the AC was bad to have them replace it. 

The technician called and said he was not sure but he also thought the problem was a bad capacitor so I returned to the shop and got the motorhome and went to the office and paid our bill which was just over $100 for the fix on the leveling system and no charge to check the AC. If it is just the capacitor I can buy a new one and Robby can install it for us.

So we are headed home tomorrow. 

Day 69 Thursday October 16, 2025

Lena has picked up the cold I had a few days ago so she is not feeling 100%. We had a light breakfast and pulled out about 8:15 for our 248 mile drive to Mount Carmel Baptist Church on the West side of Atlanta Georgia. This is a Harvest Hosts location that we have stayed at one time before. 

After about 50 miles we filled up with fuel and were on our way. The roads were good today, not too many bad places which is nice for a change. 

We got to our destination about 2:15 and had some lunch.  Another Harvest Hosts guest arrived about 3 pm. 

Day 70 Friday October 17, 2025

Lena was feeling better this morning, not coughing so much. We had breakfast and pulled out about 8am for our 350 mile drive today. Not looking forward to all the traffic getting through Atlanta GA. Sometimes we get lucky and get through fairly easy. This morning was not so bad, just one slow down where traffic is trying to get on the I285 Atlanta bypass. Still it took us an hour to get past Conyers GA. 

We made good time, stopped twice at rest stops to take bio breaks and stretch our legs. We got to South of The Border and checked into Camp Pedro Campground and set up in site 158 just after 2pm. We make this our last stop before arriving at home if we are coming by here. It is a good place to do our final grey and black tank dump so the tanks will be empty when we get home. 

After we had lunch we sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather.

Day 71 Saturday October 18,  2025

We had breakfast, did our trip prep routine and headed out for the last leg of this trip. We only have about 130 miles or so to go.

We got home just before noon and were really glad to be safely home again. We really enjoying see this great country of ours but there is nothing like coming home either. 

We got to experience some really amazing places, beautiful scenery, some good food and met some nice fellow travelers along the way. We didn’t experience any problems that kept us from continuing our journey, just the leveling issue and the one AC/HP but that was minor compared to a breakdown. The leveling issue had been resolved and if the AC/HP problem is what I hope it is that will be a minor issue to resolve also. 

Now the inside of the motorhome needs a thorough cleaning to get rid of the dust we picked up along the way. 

We traveled just over 6,000 miles with the motorhome. It climbed lots of steep hills and never complained one bit. When we were near Wilmington NC today I noticed our elevation was 20’ above sea level. At times on this trip we were over 11,000’ above sea level.