The Gillette WY Escapade Rally

We made the short run from Deadwood to Gillette, WY to attend the Escapade Rally put on by the Escapees RV Club. This group of many thousands of RVers, focuses on fulltime RVers or long term users with many support services, RV parks and great ideas. As we entered the Gillette Cam-plex grounds, we saw the Escapees support truck that boded good things to come.

The Cam-plex is a wonderful facility that offers outstanding convention features, some 1,200 full hookup rv sites, and ease of access to Gillette. This hall is fairly new having been completed in the last 3 years or so.

You can sure tell we are in the real west here! Gillette Wy is a true western town and now is a major producer of energy in the form of coal and oil products. Of course, in the early times, these cowboys were common.

The base of the statue was covered by historic cattle brands which were interesting to see, including this one that looked like an apple core. Come pretty creative brands here.

One of the great things at many rallies are the interesting vendors that participate. The Escapade was no exception and we enjoyed checking out the many products. Rick was interested in replacing some of the RV lights inside with new LED lights, so we will see how that works out.

The other common feature of rallies are the entertainers that are available many evenings. We really liked the first night's show of music and comedy that started the rally off a bang.

There were about 680 RVs in attendance with some 1,2oo or so people, so we had our own small town. There were all kinds of RVs around including this semi tractor towing a huge fifth wheel trailer. Loaded on the back of the semi was a Smart car!

We also saw all kinds of motorhomes -- from the vintage GMC coach here on the end of the roa (considered a large coach in the 1970's) to the current models of 42' coaches like the one next to the GMC. Remarkably, these coaches are about even on the back -- you can really see how much longer the new coach is comparison!

Here is Orinda arriving at our "home" -- as we note to folks, we are houseless, but not homeless. It is pretty amazing that we can pull in somewhere, park and have all the comforts of home anywhere.

We have had nice weather so far, and the sunset was wonderful. Right after this sunset, there was a "Star Party" that Rick attended to take advantage of the high altitude and clear skies of Wyoming to do a bit of star gazing.