SW USA 2024: The Canadian Coddiwomplers*
*Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination."
The Night Light Rally
The day arrived for us to set out to the Hopkins Civic Community Centre, Sulphur Springs and the Night Light Rally. Along the way, we made a stop at Buc-ee's for lunch – a pretty good brisket sandwich.
We were heartily greeted by a crew of volunteers when we arrived at the Hopkins Centre. We were close to the last ones to get there, many more rally experienced RVers had been there for several days. We followed our guide to one of the nicest sites there – how lucky are we? Our site was on grass, under mature trees with a creek behind us and a short distance to the hall and arena. This was looking promising. Later we were told that the creek was infested with poisonous snakes and to stay away from the water – Yikes!
After setting up, we went to register. This entire event was so well organized. It was planned by two full-time RV families that produce weekly YouTube videos about life on the road. Jerry has been following them for 10 years. They are Nathan and Marissa of “Less Junk More Journey.” They have two kids, Hensley (10 years old) and JJ (5 years old). The other family is Corey and Jessie and their teenage daughters Lily and Leila of “Finding Our Someday.”
This rally was many years in the planning. Nathan and Marissa experienced a total eclipse in 2017 from the top of a mountain just outside Tetons National Park. It was such a moving experience for them that when they learned there would be another total eclipse in 2024, they decided they wanted to share the experience. So that was when the idea for the Night Light Rally was conceived. I don’t know when Corey and Jessie got involved but it was great that they did.
After registering and picking up our goody bag and T-shirts, we met our hosts. Jerry said it was a strange feeling. He has been following them for so long he feels like he knows the families but they have no idea who he is – it was great to be greeted and fun to chat with them.
There were lots of events planned for the three days starting with a BBQ dinner that evening. We discovered at dinner that it’s important to be on-time because we missed the initial introduction and some instructions. The meal was pretty good. The volunteer who was cooking the meat had been cooking all day long on a huge smoker/BBQ parked outside the arena.
After dessert, Jessie and Marissa outlined the schedule and how things worked. The exciting announcement was about the $36,000 dollars of prizes to giveaway. To win, you were supposed to collect tickets for participating in various events. There was an adult corn-hole tournament in the arena after dinner – if you entered you got a ticket for a draw for an electric bicycle. If you attended the Solar Seminar the next morning you got a ticket for a $15,000 solar system installed on your RV. Great prizes and lots of ways to get tickets.
The first giveaway of a $250 fuel coupon was for the family who had come the furthest to the rally. Well we won that prize since we’d travelled over 5000 miles since January. It was not really clear how they measured the distance. There were two other families from Canada – one from BC and one from Toronto but they had just driven straight to the event – no side trips! There were others counting their side trips like us, like I said it wasn’t clear how we were to measure our travels. There were 120 RV's with a total of 350 people for the event/Rally/Meet-up and we had the whole Civic Center, arena, meeting hall and grounds just for the event.
Next to our site was an open area under a group of trees. Lights were strung around the area and there were several groups of love seats and benches, donated by Lippert, around propane campfires. This area was called the Lippert Lounge. After dinner we found an empty loveseat and listened to a CW singer – we’re not sure if he was part of the rally but he was there all the time looking after sound and the karaoke evening.
Sunday morning there was a pancake breakfast laid out for everyone. Our hosts had many sponsors who supported the meals as well as providing prizes. Jerry attended the solar seminar while I just relaxed.
The seRV event was held in the dining hall that afternoon. Corey and Jessie, along with Lippert, a component manufacturer for the RV industry, created an organization to give back to communities where RVers stay. They have helped with spring clean-ups at a national park, assisted with renovations of a school and at the Night Light Rally, we stuffed 600 backpacks with school supplies for a local organization called CanHelp. These backpacks full of pencils, paper, notebooks, erasers etc. will be given to school-kids in the fall to help families that struggle with providing these supplies.
That evening was a pot luck dinner, chili cook-off contest and Karaoke. The dinner was just so-so – maybe because we were in the last row of tables to go up. Watching the Karaoke was great fun. People, who really struggled singing, were doing it just to get a ticket for the electric bicycle draw. I couldn’t convince Jerry to participate – he figured we didn’t need another bike.
Monday, April 8, 2024 was the eclipse day. It started with donuts and coffee and worries of cloud cover. The hosts had arranged for a carnival in the arena with bouncy castles and a huge blow up obstacle course, games for the kids and more corn hole. There were hot dogs, candy floss, popcorn and pop.
The big event though was the total eclipse. What an amazing experience. The entire group was spread out in the grassy opening in front of our trailer and the Lippert Lounge. We all had our special glasses and our gravity chairs were perfect for watching. Several campers had elaborate telescopes and one person had theirs set up to project live images from the telescope onto a large screen TV. Images from NASA were also being shown on the 5 screens in the dining hall.
Everyone watching and waiting for totality.
It was an incredible experience watching the moon slowly move across the sun. When it was getting close to totality, the light changed to twilight and the street lights outside the arena came on. Once totality started, the dramatic change in light was amazing. It seemed like there was one communal gasp and then quiet, even the birds stopped singing. We all removed the glasses and marveled at this astronomical event for about four minutes. It was so worth going back to Texas to experience this event with a great group of people.
We sat at different tables for every meal and got to meet and chat with lots of people. Dinner that night was Tacos and birthday cake to celebrate Hensley’s 10th birthday. We shared our table with a family from New Orleans which was great because NOLA was in our plans for after the rally. They gave us lots of tips for our visit. The draws for the giveaways took place after dessert. We’d managed to get quite a few tickets and to our surprise won one of the Lippert Love Seats.
There was a storm warning for the area that night and some people left early. The storm didn’t materialize that night but there was still a warning in the morning. We decided to leave right after breakfast so we missed the opportunity to have our picture taken with our hosts. It seemed like it was going to take all day as they were doing it by each family and of course everyone wanted to say good bye and thanks. We needed to get back to the KOA because we had a long day planned for Wednesday.
We had a great time at the rally and so much fun meeting other RVers from all across the US and Canada. A truly memorable experience. We met families and couples who were travelling, working and living full time from their RV's. Most did not have a "sticks and bricks" home base and were enjoying living around the country. Others had a home base and travelled in retirement, while a few had a home base but were also working from the road. What an interesting mix of folks.
Take care everyone.
Love from,
Jerry, Elizabeth, Misty, FJ (Flat Jesus), the Guys, Miss Adventure Too and Clifford the Big Red Truck
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