Saturday, 9/25/10: EXCEL MID-ATLANTIC CLUB FALL 2010 RALLY

It's Saturday night and we're here at the Excel Mid-Atlantic Club Fall Rally at the Endless Caverns RV Resort just south of New Market, VA.  We're located at the foot of the Massanutten Mountain range on the western side.  We drove up Thursday, arriving about 3:15 PM with beautiful "Fall" (Thursday was the first day of Autumn) weather all the way.  The trip was uneventful, the way I like it.  It took us about 2.5 hours and about 145 miles.  The route we took was 295 north, 64 east, 81 north, 11 north, and endless caverns road east.

This is a newer RV park, the new owners are in the process of upgrading many things here.  They've added a new pool, WIFI (which has performed excellently), 50 amp service, and have added and upgraded many campsites.  The campground is situated on the side of a hill, so be prepared to climb.  The sites are terraced into the side of the hill and are wide, long, and level.  There's also a cave tour here and if you're camping here, you get a $3.00 discount.  We really enjoyed our tour today and we had the pleasure of having 9 year veteran tour guide James show us the way.  We were lucky enough to be the only two on this particular tour so he was able to talk to us one on one and show/tell us some interesting info about the cave.

I believe there are 16 Excels here and 12 guests.  The main activity seems to be eating, games, talking, catching up on what others have done all summer and just having a good time.  Joining us this time from Peterson Industries, maker of the Excel, is Curtis Peterson and his wife Martha.  We met Curtis at the Fredericksburg RV Show earlier this year.  He personally spent almost an hour with us, showing us the many attributes of an Excel.  Curtis and Martha are from Smith Center, KS, the home of Peterson Industries.  They flew out here and our local Excel dealer Bubby Settles set him up in an Excel along with a really nice F350 to pull it here.  They're so nice to spend time with, and they're hoping to join us at the Spring Rally in Charleston, SC.  We also had the pleasure to meet Richard Settles, Bubby's father, and Tammy, Bubby's sister.  Terri and I really enjoyed our time talking with each of these fine people.  Also, our friends Mark and Kim were not able to get here until today, Saturday, due to a work commitment that Mark had on Thursday and Friday.  It was great to see them again and I'm glad they made it here.

It's hard to believe it's Saturday night already and we have to head home tomorrow.  It seems like we just got here.  I really enjoy spending time with our Excel friends and meeting new friends at the rally.  It'll be hard to leave and go back to our current usual lives of work, sticks and bricks, and other day to day stuff.

Be careful and stay safe,
--mike