Heading to FMCA Rally

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We had 4 more nights before we were to be in Chandler Arizona for the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) Rally in the Valley. We had already reserved two nights at Leaf Verde RV Resort where we had stayed in mid-January since we knew it was a nice place. Rather than extending that stay, we opted to try out one of the campgrounds in Ajo Arizona. Somebody at the casino in Tucson had recommended Belly Acres RV Park as a decent and inexpensive place to stay. We called ahead and confirmed they had a spot for us for two nights and asked if it would be okay to check in a bit early since we had to check out of Twin Peaks in OPCNM by 11 AM and the drive was a whooping 35 miles. They were okay with that so off we went.

Ajo Welcomes You

As we drove up Arizona Route 85, we could see some odd land shapes while we were still several miles away from Ajo. It was clear they were some sort of large hills, one being nearly white while the other was dark but both were obviously not made by nature. We would come to discover they were the byproducts of an old mine in town - more on that later.

Huge Pile from Mine in Ajo

Belly Acres RV Park was on the smallish size with only 40 to 50 sites, but it was full hookup, 50 amp with cable and pretty good wi-fi. Our neighbors were friendly and the guy next to us, from Alaska, let us borrow a book with many scenic drives scattered throughout the USA. We concentrated on ones west of the Rockies since that's where we will be for some time to come.

While sitting at the computer one afternoon, I saw another motorhome pull in that I recognized. This younger couple that we follow on YouTube called "RV Love" pull a convertible Mini on a tow dolly and have a tandem hanging off their rear ladder so they are easily identifiable to us. I wanted to go out and say hi, but it is usually a bad idea to bother fellow RVers when they are either setting up or breaking down camp. A few minutes later I see him pull around presumably to their site. A half hour later I go out to find them only to realize they aren't camped here. I messaged them through Facebook and they had only come in to fill their fresh water tank and had headed into the desert nearby to do some boondocking.

The town of Ajo was larger than I was expecting but that doesn't mean there is a whole lot to see or do. I suspect that some of the people staying here are using it as their base for visiting the national monument and while this would work, we were glad we had stayed at the campground on site. I doubt we would have gone to all the ranger walks/talks we did if we had to drive 40 minutes each way.

We spent a couple hours one afternoon to visit two museums located in town. The Ajo Historical Society Museum is located in an old church. It has a multitude of rooms all setup with some common theme. It appears to be the place that the heirs of long time residents donate their belongings when they have moved on. The two volunteers working had lots of stories to tell. Most of them were something to do with the mine since it was the main employer until it closed in the 1980's. The one guy had actually lived in Rochester years ago! What a small world.

Display Inside Ajo Historical Society Museum

Museum Exterior Still Looks Like Church

Just down the street from this museum is a small building and viewing area for the mine pit. Apparently there used to be dozens of small mines in the area where people were getting copper, gold and silver. Then someone bought out all claims and turned it into an open pit mine. And what a pit it is! At the widest point, it is over a mile wide and about 2/3 mile across the short dimension. It's about 1000 feet deep. The large piles we saw coming into town were the byproducts of the mine. The darker rock pile were ones that were excavated from the pit but did not have enough precious metal content to send to the crusher. The whitish pile contains what was left after crushing the stone and extracting the copper, gold or silver. Each pile is on the order of 3 or 4 square miles in area and well over 100 feet tall. No wonder they are visible from so far away in this flat area of the state.

Looking into the Ajo Pit Mine

Our next destination is Buckeye just to the west of Phoenix only about 85 miles from Ajo. This was the first time we have stopped at a place we have stayed earlier in our travels. We didn't do a whole lot while we were here. A few chores around the rig and some prep work for the rally we are heading to. We had opted to do the cheaper, dry camping option rather than spots with 30 or even 50 amp electric power. None of the spots have water or sewer but we are only here for 6 nights so by coming in prepared, we won't have any problems.

One Chore was Changing Water Filter - Can You Tell Old From New?

The Rawhide Western Town & Event Center is along I-10 just south of Chandler. The directions for entering the rally have us go one exit beyond where the event is. It wasn't immediately clear why that was until saw just how many rigs were sitting in line waiting to get into their spot. But doing it this way, there was less risk of the traffic backing up onto I-10 and causing all sorts of problems. We came to a stop when we were a half mile or so from the entry point and it took us 2.5 hours before we were finally in our parking spot. There were several hundred other rigs in the same huge parking area with us. Since we were all needing to run our generators from time to time, there always seemed to be fumes in the air.

Motorhomes as Far as the Eye Can See

Rally Location

The final tally for how many rigs were camped here was 2,627 with about 300 of that number being vendors and speakers. Of course with the several hundred new motorhomes brought in for everybody to check out, the total number was likely close to 3,000.

There were a large number of sessions scheduled for everybody to attend. Since there were normally 10 sessions going on at the same time, we had to go over the schedule and decide which ones we wanted to attend. The first one we attended was a standing room only event. The room held 300 but I suspect the actual attendance was close to 400. What did we learn at the first session? Get there early so you don't need to stand for 75 minutes.

Our parking location was a good 20-25 minute walk from all the sessions, so after walking over a couple times, we decided there was no shame in taking the shuttle bus. Over the course of the rally we attended about 8 sessions. Several of them were purely sales pitches while others were of more general information. One of the larger buildings housed the majority of the vendors. With well over 200 vendors there, we had lots of things to look at.

Several large lots were used for all the dealers that brought in various new motorhomes for all the people to walk thru. We spent a fair amount of time looking thru new rigs but didn't really see one that we absolutely needed. On the last day of the show, the saleswoman at the Newmar lot did her best to talk us into a new rig but we didn't bite.

Each night of the rally, there was some sort of entertainment. The rodeo grounds were setup with many hundreds of chairs and a stage plus there were bleachers on either side. We skipped the movie night the first night but did attend the other three live acts. One night was an entertaining comedian- Dick Hardwick. He had a mix of comedy and music that seemed to appeal to the large crowd that came to see him.

Keith Anderson, a country music artist, performed one night. We are definitely not country music fans and had never heard of him before. I suspect that most of the several thousand attendees that came for the show had not heard of him either. Once the nightly raffle (must be present to win) was over and Keith started his first song, many people started to exit. Since the floodlights remained on during the show and many of the people were using canes, walkers, or scooters, there really was no hiding the mass exodus. We stuck around for the complete show. Somewhat out of pity but mostly because we needed to wait for the buses or walk the 25 minutes back in the pitch black. At the end of the show Keith thanked those of us that had stayed.

Overlooking Crowd from Bleachers

Keith Anderson

The last night was a local cover band called Sapphire Sky. This group had much more interaction with the crowd. An area just in front of the stage had been cleared of  chairs to permit couples to come up and dance. I suspect it helped that almost all the songs they performed were ones most of us knew and could sing along with.

Sapphire Sky with Dancers

Finishing Up Rally

So how was the rally? I think it was fun. We met a lot of people. Only bought a few things. And we learned a few things. Maybe the most important thing we learned is that as an FMCA member, we are covered by a plan that will cover many of the transportation costs involved if we were to be in an accident or have a medical emergency. In just over a week, we will be at another rally in Tucson - hope that one goes as well as this one did.