Over the last year, we have traveled here and
there and diligently reporting all that we have seen and learned.
It was somewhat of a surprise when a totally new idea for an
article began to emerge. Having broken my ankle during a poker game in Kentucky, our plan to
dash off into the full-time lifestyle was momentarily delayed. Of
course we owned a house and two cars in Cincinnati, which we
needed to dispose of, as well as heal from this eight week
injury. Boredom is a terrible thing. It often leads to mischief
but I was too old for that. I was looking for something to keep
me sane and moderately happy during the long evenings that were
facing me. It was with this type of thinking that I turned to the
Internet. Anything to pass the time away until I was able to get
back on my feet and back on the road. It was during one of those
long evenings that I ventured forth into the first of many chat
rooms offered. Almost immediately I learned the existence of the
"internet predator". I logged onto Yahoo's chat rooms
and picked some non-descript room to lurk in for a while. Wow,
there was nothing here that I could relate to, and what language.
I'm by no means a prude but this was ridiculous. For the next few
weeks I would peruse as many chat rooms as I could find. It soon
became clear that finding quality conversation in chat rooms, was
going to be a challenge. To add to this, I began getting spammed,
receiving hundreds of e-mail messages advertising porno sites. On
one day I receive 342 e-mails. I would later be told that the
spam was the result of computer programs called spiders or robots
that enter chat room and steal the e-mail address of the
participants, then sell them to anybody willing to pay. In order
to avoid this AOL suggests that you add a different screen name
and block all incoming mail. As time passed, I began to get the
feel for this form of conversation. The ability to type at a
reasonable speed helped. Even with this, there are times when I
found it difficult to keep up with the multitude of comments from
the various participants. To assist those involved, an entire
vocabulary of abbreviations has been created, and it helped to
know what the more common ones were. Different chat rooms had
different approaches and requirements. One even required a ten
dollar initiation fee. Many had complicated and laborious forms
to fill out that most probably built profiles on the
participants. Some had lots of whistles and bells with font and
color controls, and mute buttons just to mention a few. Others
were pretty bleak without choice. In
the course of my cyber travels, I came across "The RV America chat
room". Gosh, there were actually
people on this chat, talking about their trailers, and the last
place they had traveled. I tried to lurk but as soon as my name
appeared as having logged in, I got several "Hi Cinci".
I returned a cautious "Hi" but tried to stay in the
background. After a while I was asked about where I was from, and
did I have a rig, and was I full-time. I found myself answering
the questions and learning something about the people who were
on. I would log back in several times over the next few days
using my handle of "Cincinnati_M55" and would often
find someone I had talked to earlier. The customary
"Hi" was always extended by all who were there. On many
of those occasions, the conversation would come around to an
upcoming Chat Rally. A rally where all the people who chatted on
this room, would get together and spend a week camping and
meeting each other for the first time. The site chosen was the
River Plantation RV Park in Sevierville. Having secured the
friendship of several of the chatters, and with mounting
curiosity, we committed ourselves to the trip and the adventure.
The trip down was uneventful, pulling into Sevierville in late
afternoon. Boy, had this place ever built up. We had been here 5
years ago and the change was significant. We found the River
Plantation without difficulty. It was a large park, lazily laid
out on the bank of the Little Pigeon river. Jennifer Henry, the
RV manager was of great help and took care of our every need.
Under the pavilion across from our site were the beginning
gatherers of the rally. A delightful lady from Texas, Terbie, met
us as we pulled in, and presented us with buttons which she had
made for each of the participants. There
was a get together that night, with music and dancing and
conversations running well past midnight. The next day we started
building the photo gallery
of all the ralliers. We also ran around the Gattlinburg-Pigeon
Forge loop. Pigeon Forge has been converted into one gigantic
boardwalk, vaguely reminiscent of Myrtle Beach SC. The following
night, Four-Winds had a large camp fire and we all sat around
enjoying harmonica music and gossip until well after Midnight.
The next day the rally organizers were preparing for a group to
go to the Dixie Stampede Show. We elected to have a dinner out
with Bob and Anne Willis, dining in the famed Old Mill
restaurant. Tuesday was spent wandering among RVs, getting
pictures, and chatting. That night
at around 6:00PM we gathered in the pavilion for a pot luck
dinner. Laura made a scrumptious cheeseburger soup from a recipe
she had picked up in the Montana. Having never attended a pot-luck
dinner we had some reservations as to what foods would be
brought. Figuring we could end up with 20 desserts. Well, the
food was varied, scrumptious and plentiful. We ate until we were
stuffed. After dinner, most gathered around in a big circle for
the first ever RV America (in person) circle chat. This was not
without its presentation as 4Winds presented Brenny with a
special T-shirt to commemorate her initiation to the drinking
world. There was some discussion about what to do next year and
the general area of Branson, Missouri, seemed to be the favorite,
though most agreed that a year was a long tome and there was
plenty of time for planning. Since there was so much going on we
enlisted the aid of Blondie, Kin and Xray as assistant
photographers and they ended up working their digital cameras
overtime creating a portfolio of snapshots for all to enjoy. Our
last night there was taken up with a campfire and more music and
conversation. We left Thursday morning but the rally went on with
a gala fiesta that night. We got the pictures over the internet,
courtesy of Blondie, along with the late arrivers. All in all a
great time was had. We'll see you all at the next one.
*** THE END ***