airstreaming

Thursday, October 20, 2016

2016 Summer Airstream trip

We attended the WBCCI rally at Lewisburg, WV in late June and into early July.  The rally was pretty well attended at about 670 trailers/motorhomes.  Five of our Northern Illinois member couples attended.  It is picturesque hill country with some deep valleys.  Unfortunately we had almost 10 inches of rain, in about 4 hours, the second day we were on site.  This resulted in massive flash flooding in the valleys were all the little villages, railroad lines, and road are. Some communities and resorts were completely under 9 foot of rushing water. Thirty people lost their lives in the county. We were parked on high ground with a crushed rock parking lot. We were not affected except for losing power for 12 hours and water for 24 hours. The local water works was contaminated so a boil order was in effect for 3 days. The rally events were held at the State Fairgrounds, which was fairly high, so most activities continued.  We did a bit of touring in the local area before the rain.  Some local tours that were to be conducted during the rally had to be cancelled because the facilities were flooded. The International WBCCI organization contributed $30,000 to the local flood relief agencies and another $10,0000 was  collected from the attendees.  We left the rally on July 5th and proceeded through the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline drive to Pennsylvania and eventually arrive back in McHenry.  We spent 18 days on the road and put on almost 3,000 miles.  It was 10 days and 2,000 miles shorter than last year's adventure.