![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SalemOR006.jpg\")
<\/a>We made it to Coos Bay in the early afternoon.\u00a0 The rally folks lead us to a spot very close to the 101,\u00a0 with three RVs between us and the highway.\u00a0\u00a0 Those logging trucks start really early in the morning and they don’t appear to require working mufflers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We booked a spot with 30amp electric, but no water or sewer; so we arrived with empty grey\/black tanks and full fresh water tanks for the Tuesday thru Sunday gathering.<\/p>\nWe were attending an Family Motor Coach Association rally, the first we had been to.\u00a0\u00a0 I think I now know why they opened up the organization to trailers.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the folks, about 90+ percent at the rally, were very old, late 70’s, early 80’s.\u00a0\u00a0 And from what I gathered from the speeches, the rally attendance has been dropping dramatically over the last few years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I didn’t see anyone there that appeared to be much younger than me, which was kind of odd to me.<\/p>\n The FCOC rally we went to in Tucson was probably 40% very old folks, a lot of folks my age. \u00a0\u00a0 It will be interesting to see what the Escapee’s rally will look like this fall, or even the 49er’s rally in Death Valley this winter if we go.<\/p>\n Now that I think back, there were a few of those at the FCOC rally too.<\/p>\n The second day we were onsite, I had a mechanic from a local RV\/truck shop stop by to look at the air leveling system, and of course it worked perfectly then.\u00a0\u00a0 After him poking around underneath, he thought the right front air leveling valve seemed way to easy to make it leak air with even the slightest touch.\u00a0\u00a0 I had him replace it, and of course after the fix, the coach also worked perfectly again.<\/p>\n The next morning I had one of the vendors do a suspension inspection.\u00a0 Par for the course, it took some time to air up.\u00a0 It finally did and he was able to proceed and found nothing wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 He did have some suggestions:\u00a0 \u00a0new shocks, an extra rear sway bar, and to put in those small in-line air restriction devices to slow the movement of air into and out of the air bags.\u00a0 All things I will probably do prior to heading for Alaska next year.<\/p>\n While at the brewery, we hooked up with two couples: Tami and Scott along with Bob and Susan.\u00a0 \u00a0 Turns out Tami and Scott were from Carlsbad,\u00a0 very close to home for us.\u00a0 \u00a0 They retired, sold their house and took to the road in a 37′ foot motorhome.\u00a0\u00a0 Something I aspire to do!<\/p>\n After the walk we all headed for dinner in the casino for burgers.\u00a0 \u00a0 We were hungry after that many servings of wine and very little in the way of appetizers!<\/p>\n On Saturday we went to a few more seminars and then met for dinner Saturday night at the big tent.\u00a0 The highlight of that last evening was the Foxes won the table centerpiece which consisted of a small slab cut from a tree complete with the bark and an old circular saw blade mounted vertically on it.\u00a0 An odd prize to give us as we would have to carry it around in a moving vehicle.\u00a0 The blades were sharp!!<\/p>\n<\/a>The afternoon we arrived, we were booked on the harbor tour, which turned out to be a small fishing <\/a>boat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was a nice cruise around the bay, but the tour guide was probably\u00a0 19 years old and had no knowledge of Coos Bay at all, although he did seem to know about rock fish…\u00a0 What I noticed about the bay was lots of tugboats,\u00a0 from very small to <\/a>very large.\u00a0\u00a0 I have no idea why they need so many as I only saw one ship arrive during the 6 days we were there.\u00a0 It was a freighter that loads sawdust <\/a>for shipment to Japan to make paper products.\u00a0\u00a0 There was the largest pile of sawdust I’ve ever seen right on the side of the 101 a couple of blocks from The Mill Casino,\u00a0 where the rally was being held.<\/p>\n<\/a>The casino was a very nice facility, except we had to walk thru it to get to the meeting rooms and it was a pretty smokey place. \u00a0 Living in SoCal has really increased my intolerance for smoke-filled rooms. \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/a>There were a few good seminars, but to me, most were given by vendors hawking products for you to purchase while you were there.\u00a0\u00a0 I was hoping for them to be more instructional about our coaches.\u00a0 \u00a0I wasn’t really looking for infomercials, although a few were helpful.<\/p>\n<\/a>We signed up for the wine walk and to my surprise there were no wineries involved.\u00a0\u00a0 Our first stop was a brewery (so I could have a beer!), then a museum, then across the street to a used clothing\/musical instrument store.\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually we toured a democratic candidate’s HQ (their name and seat they were running for escapes me), and after that we went over to a mattress store, and then into a small hole-in-the-wall\u00a0 live theater pretty much across the street from the Egyptian Theater where a young buck was going to sing like Frank that evening.\u00a0 When we went in there, I had no idea what the place was.\u00a0\u00a0 Prior to there we had also perused an appliance store pouring wine.\u00a0 Each place had a couple of wine offerings and I figured they hoped you would buy something while you were there.\u00a0\u00a0 None of the washer\/dryers looked like they would fit into my coach.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n