FMCA Rally

During the last week in January thru February 5, 2006, we were able to take a week to attend our first Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) South East Area (SEA) rally. This was the first time we have been able to attend one of the FMCA rallys. Since the rally offically started on Wednesday February 1, we decided to leave home on Friday afternoon January 27. This would allow us to spend several days exploring some of the Gulf coast for a few days before checking into the rally. The rally is held at the Hernando County Airport near Brooksville Florida. My Dad and Mom attend this rally regularly, so we thought this would be a good oportunity to go RVing with them for a change.

Leaving Homosassa on Wednesday morning, we said good bye to our spot on Halls River and headed for Brooksville and our first FMCA Rally. This rally is the FMCA SouthEast Area (SEA) Rally. http://www.fmca.com Mom and Dad have been to this rally many times, as well as other larger national FMCA rallys, and wanted us to join them for this one.

FMCA is the Family Motor Coach Association, and with over two hundred thousand family members, some of the rallys can be quite large. The national rallys held two times per year may have as many as 5000 - 6000 coaches. The SEA rally in Brooksville is the largest area rally. Since it is in Florida in the winter, it attracts about 2500 - 3000 coaches. It is held at the Hernando County Airport.

This airport is an old military facility that was given to Hernando County in the 1980s. It is a very large facility and the County only uses a small part of it for their General Aviation facility. It it is pretty awesome to see thousands of RVs parked on the two 5000 foot runways that are no longer in use.

We met Mom and Dad there on Wednesday afternoon and checked in and parked.






Here we are parked with the Civic next to us. Thats Mom and Dad's Southwind right behind us.















Here is a view up a row of motorhomes.










The rally was lots of fun. It reminded me a little of an old time county fair with vendor and craft booths under a very large tent. And of course, there were lots of motorhome dealers showing the latest and greatest in new coaches. We looked at coaches of all sizes, from $1.3 Million Prevost conversions to very small van conversions and everything in between.

If we were retired........

We are all 3 looking forward to going to another rally in the future.