Tag Archives: pancake breakfast

2015/06/06 (S) GLAMARAMA 2015 (Day 4)

Today was the last day of the 2015 GLAMARAMA rally.  It started at 7 AM with a pancake breakfast that ran until 9 AM.  For the third year the rally organizers hired Chris’s Cakes to provide the pancakes.  They had three long propane fueled griddles with sliding depositors.  The operator stopped the depositors and used a lever to release the batter for six pancakes at a time and then moved it to the next position and did the same thing until the griddle was full.  All of the pancakes had to be flipped by hand but the operators (cooks) were fast and generally accurate.  They would occasionally flip three of them into the air at once and someone would try to catch them on their plate.

Linda and both had coffee.  She had to work registration from 8 – 10 AM and left to go do that.  I was hungry so I had three pancakes even though they probably contained eggs and/or milk products.  I should have saved the calories; neither the pancakes nor the syrup had any flavor.  Zero, zip, nada, nothing; no taste.  I cannot remember the last time I had food that was that bland.  But Scott, Mark, and I settled into an in-depth bus conversation that lasted until after 9 AM and the coffee was OK.

Linda and I met up back at the coach a little after 10 AM.  I got a call from Gaye a Young letting me know we had a meeting with FMCA Executive Director Jerry Yeatts at 2:30 PM.  Linda and I went back to the Coach Supply Direct booth and talked to Josh some more about fabrics.  He confirmed that the Flexsteel 529 captain’s chair had a skirt around the base and that we could do a 2-tone fabric on the Flexsteel 591 captain’s chairs.  We got the set of Lambright fabric samples from him along with the MCD shade material samples, and took them back to our coach to study in situ.

Although we liked the Bonkers Havana fabric we had previously selected, we ultimately selected two different ones.  The Lone Wolf Brass was similar to the Bonkers Havana but lighter and much less green.  Until we saw them together we did not realize the Bonkers Havana was green at all.  The Legacy Borpeaux was a deep maroon, a color that appears in the Lone Wolf Brass and Bonkers Havana weaves.  We will use the Lone Wolf Brass as the main fabric for the 591 chairs with the Borpeaux as the inset for the lower back and center aft seat panels.  The 529 chairs will be all Borpeaux as the design of the chair does not lend itself to a 2-tone approach and we wanted some variety in the fabrics as long as they coordinated well.

The selection of materials for the MCD night shade was limited to six choices with one of them being black and another one white.  Of the other four there was one we liked (B33).  It was a bone (bisque, biscuit, etc.) color with a subtle but nice pattern.  We wanted this opaque material to be light, but not “white,” so it would reflect artificial interior light when it was pulled down.  The day shade is only available as a black fine-mesh screen.  It is designed to block sunlight during the day but allow you to see out without anyone outside being able to see in.

With our selections made we went back to see Josh and return his sample materials.  We keep feeling like we are close to placing an order but Josh needs to work up his pricing and get us the line drawings of the chairs.  For our part we need to determine the dimensions of the cushions for the sofa and talk to A–1 Upholstery and get their estimate of how many yards of material we need so Josh can order all of the fabric at one time.

We went for our first walk around the Fairgrounds for this rally, although Linda has been walking every evening with Vicki Lintner.  We were back at Building A at 12:30 PM.  Linda had signed up for the Ladies Tea, which started at 1 PM so she headed over to the Home and Arts Building and I went back to our coach.

Frank Griswold drove down and bought a day pass.  He and Sandy had planned to come to the rally in their Prevost H3-45 Vantare conversion but were unable to attend due to family issues.  Jim and Lydia Marin decided to leave and go visit their children and Tim Olsen decided to depart right behind them and get home before the rain got his newly acquired, and freshly washed, Royale Coach Prevost XL dirty.  When you have inside storage for your bus you have the option of being concerned about such things.

I was eating a sandwich for lunch, had Jasper on my lap, and was working on this blog post when Pat Lintner knocked on the door around 2 PM.  He had purchased 18″ LED replacement lights for one of the ceiling fixtures in their Prevost bus conversion and wanted help wiring it.  I took my voltmeter over to his coach to check the wiring.  All we needed to do was identify the +12VDC and DC ground wires and while it seemed obvious how the fixture should be wired I was getting some odd readings on my meter.  I did not want to rush and clip any wires until I was confident that I understood how the fixture was wired, and I had a meeting at 2:30 PM, so I told Pat I would be back before diner to finish the job.

I met with Gaye Young (FMCA national education committee chair) and Jerry Yeatts (FMCA executive director) for about 30 minutes to discuss the current status of the national education committee and its work.  I then participated in a roundtable discussion with FMCA national secretary Vicki Ferrari and six other chapter secretaries.  It was a very informative session that lasted for 90 minutes.

I had a chance to think about the fixture wiring while walking to and from my meetings, so after the chapter secretaries roundtable ended I went back to Pat’s coach, identified the +12VDC and DC ground wires, verified the voltage, clipped the supply wires, and got the LED bulbs installed in the ceiling fixture.  I was done in time to walk back to my coach, which was not far from Pat’s, drop off my volt meter and iPad, and walk over to Building A for the Volunteer Dinner where Linda was waiting for me at the front door.

We went in and were greeted by Charlie Adcock, FMCA National President, who addressed Linda as Mrs. Bruce, and then by Jane Roush, who addressed Linda as Fay, all of which she found slightly amusing.  I suggested that she had an identity crisis but she assured me she liked it that way.  Dinner was green beans in butter with bacon, mashed potatoes (milk and butter), beef tips in gravy, and dinner rolls.  There was no salad so we had dinner rolls with margarine for dinner.  Mostly we go to these events to sociable and visible but it would be nice if a bit more consideration was given to having food available for people who have gluten issues or do not eat meat, eggs, or dairy for whatever reason.  Green beans, properly prepared, are actually very tasty without butter and bacon.

We returned to our coach for a while and finished the leftover seitan stroganoff so we at least had something other than bread for dinner.  We walked back to Building A, which we are parked behind one end of, for the evening entertainment.  Sarah Ghetto performed at the first GLAMARAMA in September 2013 and was popular with the crowd so they invited her back.  She was born blind and with a cleft pallet.  The pallet was corrected surgically and she is an attractive and talented 31 year old woman with a college degree in music education and a voice that does justice to the Ann Murray covers and other songs she performs.  She owns her own motorhome and travels with her parents from her home base in Norman, Oklahoma about five months of the year.  Her dad sets up the lights and sound, MC’s the show, and plays guitar and/or sings on a few numbers, but dad makes it clear that Sarah is the star and keeps the spotlight on her.

FMCA is an International organization with members from Canada and Mexico in addition to the U.S.A. and yet they insist on hiring performers who pay tribute to the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and sing God Bless America and other nationalist songs.  The Great Lakes Area (GLAMA) in particular includes all of Ontario and our Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter includes members from the entire area (IN, MI, OH, and Ontario).  Our Canadian friends seem to take all of the religious-patriot nonsense in stride, but we find it inconsiderate at best and offensive at worst.  Still, we enjoyed Sarah’s concert, most of which was not this kind of stuff.  The Marlin’s also did some of this kind of music but most of their show was just great renditions of oldies.

We all walked the short distance back to our coaches after the concert and stood around in conversational groupings.  To our surprise Mark Lovegreen had pulled out.  He was headed to a relative’s farm outside Topeka, Kansas and wanted to get started with the trip.  Linda and Vicki went for a walk, as they have every evening, and returned as the daylight was fading.  They took down the American and Canadian Flags for the last time and folded them properly.

As darkness fell so did the temperature and once again it was just Scott and I having a conversation.  This time it was mostly about holding tanks.  By 10 PM we were getting a bit chilled and finally returned to our respective coaches for the night.  I had some fresh fruit for desert and then went to bed and wrote for a little while before turning off the lights.  At rallies our days usually start early, are filled with things to do, and run well into the evening.  By the end of four or five days of that everyone is tired, but it’s a good kind of tired.

 

2014/06/14 (S) Day 4 Rally Conclusion

Each rally has a slightly different approach to food.  On the last full day of the GLAMARAMA they switch the breakfast carbohydrate delivery mechanism from donuts to pancakes and serve them with sausage links.  The coffee and tea are still there, of course, so we had coffee.  Other rallies, like the Escapades, have a “hitch up” breakfast on the day of departure, with coffee and donuts.  When Nick and Terry Russell were running their Gypsy Journal Gathering rallies they also had coffee and donuts on departure day as I recall.

In order to serve a lot of pancakes to a lot of people in a relatively short period of time GLAMARAMA hires a specialized food service.  The one they hired this year had long griddles with an overhead depositor that moved the length of the griddle like a gantry crane.  It would precisely deposit the batter to make a row of 5″ pancakes.  The operator would then move it by hand and deposit the next row, repeating this as they moved along the griddle.  Another worker followed behind the depositor with a pancake turner (flapjack flipper) and turned the pancakes when they were done on the first side.  Although hand labor was still involved it was an efficient, high volume, production process that did not require an army of volunteers.

When we were done drinking coffee and chatting Linda headed back to our motorcoach to prepare food for our family gathering on Sunday afternoon.  I headed over to the seminar building for a presentation by Jason and Nikki Wynn of Gone with the Wynn’s.  They were joined by Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia and did a panel discussion on earning income on the road.  They also covered work-camping and volunteering in exchange for a camp site.  They did an excellent job, relaxed and low key, and streamed the event live to the web.  The logins indicated that 68 people viewed the presentation online, which was probably more people than were in the room.

Geeks on Tour got their flash drives in (Nick and Terry Russell brought them down from Elkhart).  I wanted to restart our subscription, but wanted the flash drive instead of the CD as Linda needed it to store some files.  I ended up with both.  Their Tutorial Video series ( http://geeksontour.tv ) is an amazing resource for learning how to use a wide range of technologies for Planning, Preserving, and Sharing you RV adventures.

At 10:45 AM I met with Jerry Yates, Executive Director of FMCA, in my role as a member of the national education committee, to talk about RVillage.  It also gave me a chance to further explore making online education available to FMCA members, such as that provided by the Geeks On Tour, either directly from the FMCA website or through discounted subscriptions to provider websites.

Linda helped Alma Baker get situated for the Fleetwood hot dog lunch and had a tomato and onion sandwich while she was there.  I had a couple of tofu hot dogs in our coach and eventually headed over to a 1:30 PM seminar on 120 VAC by Gary Bunzer.  It was very good, as usual, but by Saturday afternoon seminar attendance had thinned.  This was a repeat of a session he had done on Wednesday, so many attendees who wanted to see probably already had.

Linda hung around the coach waiting for Butch and Fonda, who drove over from Twelve Mile, Indiana to work with her on some aspects of their pending business sale.  I came back to the rig to say hello and around 4:45 PM we gathered up some hummus, chips, and beverages and headed over to the 5:00 PM RVillage get-together.  The volunteer dinner started at 4:30 PM, but we decided not to go as we knew there would be little-to-nothing we would be able to eat.

Nikki Wynn had scheduled the RVillage get-together in the Dog and Cat Pavilion and we ended up with a nice turnout of 17 people.  It was not a pot luck, but enough folks brought munchies and extra beverages that everyone had something.  We milled around conversing in shifting groups and eventually formed chairs into a (sort of) circle.  Chris Guld suggested we go around and introduce ourselves and say where we were when we were 15 years old and whether we had any notion that we would find ourselves where we are now.  It turned out to be a fun, low key, way to get to know each other by filing in a few personal details.

We disbanded by 6:30 PM, went back to our coach for a few minutes, and then headed over to the final evening’s entertainment.  The Walker Family hails from Nashville and we saw them a few years ago at the G.L.A.S.S. rally in Berrien Springs, Michigan.  Dad, mom, and seven kids; four girls and three boys.  The “girls” are now young women; two are married and one just had her first child.  They perform as “The Redhead Express.”  The boys are now 15, 13, and 11.  The older two play drums for their sisters and perform as a trio with guitar backup from one of their sisters.  Mom and dad joined the sisters for a couple of numbers, but the entire family never performed together.  My recollection was that they had the last time we saw them, but that’s been at least four years, maybe five, and Linda disagrees with my memory.  Regardless, they are very talented and put on a spirited show of country songs with a bit of gospel and patriotic stuff mixed in; just what you would expect from a Nashville-based group.  They did not, however, use any pre-recorded sound tracks.

Following the concert there were drawings for prizes and the 50/50 raffle.  The Grand Prize was a gift certificate for an 11-day Adventure Tours Mega-Rally worth $3,000 (one motorhome with two people).  One of our GLCC members won $200 in the raffle.  Those of us “camped” in the GLCC area gathered by our rigs after the drawings and stood around talking until it cooled of to the point that everyone was ready to retreat into their rigs for the evening.

 

2013_09_21 (Sat) Autumnal Equinox

Today was the autumnal equinox.  The weather today was chilly early and stayed cool as the cloud cover shifted back and forth between overcast and partly sunny.  We had occasional drizzles early and blustery, fall like conditions later.  So often it seems the autumnal equinox occurs during an Indian summer; but not today.  I have always liked fall.

We signed up earlier in the week to drive golf cart shuttles on the early shift this morning from 7:30 to 10:30 AM.  That meant we would miss the pancake breakfast, which ran from 8:00 to 9:30 AM, but that was OK as we would not choose to eat what they were serving anyway (buttermilk pancakes and breakfast sausage.)  We both bundled up against the chill and zoomed around the fairgrounds for three hours giving rides to folks.  We saw lots of people walking this week, which was nice, but the golf carts were there for those who wanted/needed to ride.  We were glad to volunteer for this duty as we get to meet a lot of people in a short time, and folks are always appreciative of the service.

The pancake breakfast has to serve a lot of pancakes to a lot of people in relatively small time window.  To accomplish this, they hired a company who brought in two conveyor/depositor systems.  I got the following photographs from Vicky Lintner:

The pancake depositor at work.  That’s a lot of pancakes!

The pancake depositor at work. That’s a lot of pancakes!

A happy customer.

A happy customer.

Two pancake machines in action.

Two pancake machines in action.

A “smokin’ hot short stack.

A “smokin’ hot short stack.

Flippin’ ‘n’ catchin’.

Flippin’ ‘n’ catchin’.

The rest of the fixins’.

The rest of the fixins’.

A nice place to sit with friends and eat breakfast.

A nice place to sit with friends and eat breakfast.

The GLCC chapter area.

The GLCC chapter area.

We chose not to eat breakfast before our shuttle shift, so we had a late breakfast / early lunch in our coach around 11 AM.  We planned to attend the noon tour of the ABC Bus repair facility in Nappanee, and needed to be on the road by 11:30 AM.  We were a few minutes late leaving, and the trip took a few minutes longer than our mapping software said it would, so we did not get to the ABC facility until 12:08 PM.  The entrance wasn’t obvious to us, and although we eventually spotted cars that we recognized, they were behind closed gates that we did not see how to get through or around.  We drove around for a half hour looking for an entrance before we ended up back where we started only to discover that the gates were now open.

The ABC Bus Nappanee facility.

The ABC Bus Nappanee facility.

But all’s well that ends well, I suppose.  When plant manager Mike Papp finished the initial tour (with almost 60 people) he took Linda and I and one other guy (who had been following us in his SUV) through the facility.  We probably got a shorter tour, but we did not have to compete with other people to ask our questions.

 

The ABC Bus Nappanee “Van Hool” operation.

The ABC Bus Nappanee “Van Hool” operation.

ABC Bus operates two different programs at this Nappanee location, a former Gulfstream RV facility.  The operation they are best known for is re-manufacturing of Greyhound buses.  This work takes place it its own building and is a very tight, exclusive relationship with Greyhound.  We did not get to tour that building, but the work they are doing is very similar for both programs.

The ABC Bus Nappanee Greyhound operation.

The ABC Bus Nappanee Greyhound operation.

I think they are just finishing a run of some 800 MCI 102D3 or 102DL3 buses for Greyhound.  They are replacing the original engines and transmissions with Detroit Diesel Series 60s and Allison automatics.  This requires all new wiring harnesses and a rebuilt dashboard.  They are also rebuilding the entire underside of the bus (suspension, brakes, and axles if they are needed).  They are gutting the interiors and putting in new seating with 3-point restraints and updated electronics.  Finally, they are repainting the exterior a dark blue color with the iconic Greyhound logo down the side.  We were told that if you see a Greyhound bus painted this color, it came from the ABC refurbishing program.

Van Hool operations manager Mike Papp talking to Linda and another FMCAer.

Van Hool operations manager Mike Papp talking to Linda and another FMCAer.

The operation we toured was basically doing the same kind of work as the Greyhound operation, only for Van Hool and other buses.  ABC Bus is the exclusive North American dealer for Van Hool.  They have sold a lot them and they have taken a lot of them back in on trade.  A primary function of this second operation is to rebuild these “stock” coaches for resale.  They are also doing this work, however, for coaches that are already owned and they are looking to expand into doing motorhome work; hence the tour.  They had several MCIs there, and Mike Papp, the Operations Manager, told us they can/will work on Prevost coaches as well.  Basically, if you own a bus, they will work on it, whatever it needs.

A DD Series 60 engine and Allison transmission.  Sweet.

A DD Series 60 engine and Allison transmission. Sweet.

Note: I presume they are looking to work on diesel pushers, but they may be willing to work on anything.  Anyone interested in their services should contact Mike Papp, Operations Manager, at 574.773.4277 Ext 103 or 407.340.0108 (cell) to discuss their needs.

The business end of a bus being reworked.  (Linda wondering if that would fit in our coach.)

The business end of a bus being reworked. (Linda wondering if that would fit in our coach.)

I’ve been thinking about pulling the radiator on our coach and having it cleaned or re-cored and replacing all of the coolant lines with new, high-temperature silicon ones.  I asked if they could do that work and the answer was “yes, we can do that.”  They also have access to an alignment shop in South Bend that does all-wheel alignments on buses.  Apparently they were expecting a handful of people, so they were a bit surprise, but pleased, when 60 of us showed up to see the place.

 

It’s not just an engine, it’s industrial art, and has a beauty all its own.

It’s not just an engine, it’s industrial art, and has a beauty all its own.

(BTW:  The cost to pull an engine and transmission and replace it with a brand new DD Series 60 and Allison automatic, including the wiring and dashboard work, is $60K – $75K depending on the bus.  Depending on what kind of conversion project someone wants to take on, ABC Bus has lots of used buses for sale in the $50K range.  That means someone could have a 45 foot coach with a brand new engine and tranny for $110K – $120K as the starting point for a conversion project.

More buses being worked on.

More buses being worked on.

Mike told us that he has approximately 500 daily person-hours that he can assign to projects.  Hypothetically (but not practically) he could assign them all one bus for a day.  Ignoring the fact that the workers would be inefficiently getting in each others’ way, an enormous amount of work could be accomplish in a very short time.  He did not mention their labor rate, but that would probably be a $50,000 day for that coach.

DD Series 60 engines all in a row.

DD Series 60 engines all in a row.

Because ABC is purchasing in volume from Detroit Diesel Allison, and because they want to be able to turn around buses somewhat quickly, they keep a lot of DD Series 60 engines and Allison transmissions in stock.

When we got back from the ABC Bus tour we went to a seminar on Places To Take Your Grandchildren RVing.  The presenter had a nice slide show that highlighted places children might enjoy, but did not differentiate places and activities by age range, which would have been helpful.  The presenter was also the vendor for SkyMed, so we ended up sitting through a presentation on that as well.

SkyMed is an insurance program that will cover the cost of medical transportation by ground or air for a variety of situations.  Like all insurance, it is more expensive than you would like for something you hope you never have to use, but if you ever need the kind of coverage they provide, you will wish you had it.  (A typical helicopter med-i-vac flight runs about $25,000 and probably isn’t covered by your existing health, auto, or RV insurance.)  There are many nice features to SkyMed, including a Global plan, which I won’t mention here other than this one: you do not have to call SkyMed first.  First you call 9-1-1, then you call SkyMed, and as part of your coverage, they will handle almost everything from there.  We’ve listened to SkyMed presentations before.  We didn’t sign up, but we always leaving thinking about it seriously.

After the seminar we went back to the vendor building to purchase a windshield mounted camera/DVR device, but got there after the vendor area had closed.  This seems to happen to us a lot; we delay making a decision to buy something until it is too late.  But hey, it’s an effective way to stay within budget.  This device will record up to 10 hours of video on a 32 GB memory card.  It can be pointed out the window while driving, or at the cabin while parked and away from the coach, to provide video evidence of events that may occur (such as an accident or break-in).

Saturday evening Dane Bailey (The Singing Auctioneer) did a warm-up performance followed by the Harbor Lights focal quintet.  Harbor Lights is an a cappella group that specializes in “doo-wop”.  They sang for almost an hour and a half without an intermission.  Many of their songs were authentic doo-wop toons, and some were doo-wop rearrangements of songs from the 1950’s and 60’s.  The members of Harbor Lights are local to north central and northwest Indiana.  They brought a lot of energy to their show, and it was a trip down memory lane for many of us.  Some of us noticed that they seemed to have trouble holding pitch on the tight doo-wop harmonies, which detracted from an otherwise good show.  I suspect it was due to an inadequate monitor speaker system or the lack of wireless headphones, making it difficult for them to really hear each other.

We walked back to our coach under an almost full autumnal equinox moon.  Rving is a good life.