Valley of Fire Meet and Greet Trip Report

**macmcintire** · 10-09-2011, 11:25 AM

I thought I'd start this discussion stream so people can post their pictures and comments about the Valley of Fire Meet and Greet held October 5-9, 2011. There were 28 rigs and 47 people in attendance. It was a fantastic sight to see so many SMB and two homebuilds in all their varieties in one campground.

In attendance were:

AndrewST
Angel
bannedfromtheparty
Bettyford
billwilson
calclimber
CJ
Clifford
Daveb
dowgars
gooseberry
Ford_6L_E350
Jeffrey
jfb
jlsenge
jsaavedrav
kmessinger
KTMRIDER
macmcintire
maxacceleration
oldbonesclimber
salivan
Tapatio
VANquisher
Viejo
woodbee
yakhlr
Zeta

We were able to get everyone into one campground. That was an amazing blessing since we were not able to save sites (wink wink). It may have something to do with Angel and I putting up the "campground full" sign early in the day and having "campsite occupied" signs for all of the participants.

We had an absolutely wonderful time. It was great meeting everyone and seeing all of the rigs. It was also great to have an international showing with AndrewST from Switzerland and jsaavedrav from Mexico. We had participants from WA, OR, CA, AZ, NV, ID, WY and CO. We also had press coverage from the local newspaper. I will post a link to the article when it comes out.

Thanks everyone for coming. I hope you had as wonderful of a time as I did!!!!!!

**Gooseberry** · 10-09-2011, 05:39 PM

OK Mac you have set a super high bar for the next one.
This is the camp and its a great place that needs 2 our 3 days to explore.

After the group photo we went to the day picnick area for a van shot and thanks to a great family we had the whole place.

After the photo and a rescue to a person of the toilet roof before he passed out we broke up inot 3 groups. One group went back to camp and the other two went on a road trip through the park and the other went off road trough the park.

My Mom loved all the great people and just how great the group worked together. Ya she did get a little uncomfotable on some of the stuff we did on the trail but only in a few spots.

Thinking Goosberry Mesa Ut and part mt biking and part Zion. This would be camping on the Mesa remote and doing a day trips and our rides?

Zeta · 10-09-2011, 06:27 PM

Great time Mac! Sorry we didn't get to visit.

Tom

http://www.tomsinclair.net

**macmcintire** · 10-09-2011, 06:29 PM

Okay here are some of my pictures. Sorry some of them are blurry. I am a lousy photographer. And I wish this site were like Facebook so people could tag themselves in these pictures.

Alone in my campsite on Wednesday waiting for others to show up.

Raining and a little hail on Thursday at 2:00 in the afternoon. Notice how dark it got.

Arch CG on Friday morning.

Arch CG on Saturday morning. Of the first 23 campsites in the campground 20 were occupied by Sportsmobiles. We had all but one site in this circle.

Ron (bettyford) in his home build with Westfalia top.

billwilson's rig. How come I didn't get a picture of Rob and Ning in front of their rig?

Don and Dave (daveb) after spending $1400 on repairs plus rental car and other expenses to get to the Meet and Greet. I'm glad you guys finally made it.

Sherri and Bill (Viejo)

Paul and Tina (oldbonesclimber)

Angel by any other name would still be an (Angel)

Janna and Jeff (jlsenge) and their two gentle guide dogs.

Kathy and Henry (Yakhlr)

Woody and Cheryl (woodbee)

Jeffrey (jeffrey) and friend (?). Sorry I can't remember your name.

Friend (?) and Dick (dowgars). We loved the pizza oven in the back of the teardrop trailer. Too bad I wasn't around when the pizza was done.

Beautiful location of Jeffrey's campsite. Can you find Jeffrey in this picture?

My campsite

I took pictures of others and their rigs, but somehow they were not in my camera when I got home. Sorry guys!

**macmcintire** · 10-09-2011, 06:32 PM

Tom,

I, too, am sorry I didn't get to spend more time with you and the others who came in on Saturday or late on Friday. We dispersed early to various points of interest on Saturday morning and then I had to leave in the late afternoon on Saturday because I was worn out and had church obligations on Sunday. I hope you still had a great time even though you were only with the group for a short time. I hope it was worth the trip!

It would have been great to get to know you. I enjoy your posts on this Forum. Maybe next time.

Regards,

Mac

**macmcintire** · 10-09-2011, 06:56 PM

jsaavedrav's rig. They are from Mexico

CJ's rig

Vanquisher's rig. It is a future home build. Right now it is an empty cargo van.

JFB's rig. In photo from left to right: Kelly (gooseberry), Jeffrey (jeffrey) and Joe (jfb)

Gooseberry's rig

KMessenger's Sprinter and jlsenge's white van

L-R: Woody; my son, Dan, standing; Mike; Joe and Maria

L-R: Craig, Dave, Cindy, Don and Ernie(?) with back to camera.

The "campsite occupied" sign I made for everyone. It worked great for keeping the non-SMB Forum folks away. Funny thing, one non-SMB guy who was setting up in one of the campsites asked me where he was supposed to get his sign like ours to put on his campsite post.

This guy was on the road into the campground.

L-R: Claudine, Janna, Jeff, Woody

L-R: Woody, Maria, Scotty, Ernie, Ron, Tina and Paul.
Standing in back L-R: Rob, Angel and Kelly

Nearest L-R: Bill (in green sweatshirt), Keith and Sherri

Gooseberry's dog

Jeffrey's rig out by itself in a somewhat isolated campsite. Jeffrey prefers boondock camping, so it was great to have him actually stay in the campground. Hopefully he enjoyed it.

**BroncoHauler** · 10-09-2011, 07:07 PM

Great pics!

So is Dowgar's tear-drop, an Adventure Trailers tear-drop? Very cool!

Herb

**macmcintire** · 10-09-2011, 07:14 PM

A couple kissing among the red rocks

Perfect place for drinking wine and watching the moon rise over the red rocks

Thirteen big horn sheep resting at the base of Silica Dome

These next pictures are of the group meeting on Saturday morning to introduce ourselves to each other, win some Vegas memorabilia, decide which activities to do that day and to have our group photo taken by Jeffrey.

Heading to Atlatal Rock to take a group photo of the rigs

Setting up for the group photo of the rigs

Looking down on the 21 rigs from Atlatal Rock. Notice Jeffrey is on top of the restroom to the right. The owner of the RV was kind enough to move his rig out of the parking lot and park it on the road. Too bad we couldn't find the owner of the little car at the bottom of the picture and have him move it. But we blocked it out in Jeffrey's pictures.

Our group photographer, Jeffrey, on the roof of the restroom ready to get down. Gooseberry is guiding billwilson in to get Jeffrey off the roof. I can't wait to see Jeffrey's pictures!

How come I'm not in any of my pictures? I sure hope someone got a picture of me so I know I was really there.

billwilson · 10-10-2011, 06:36 AM

Mac
What can i say
You are da Man
Thank you so much for your Generosity and Hard Work
Will post pics and TR later
Gotta go pay for all this :)
bw

**Gooseberry** · 10-10-2011, 09:03 AM

Ok I did find a easy way to get the flight footage out of the ipad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5SY5g14Y64

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjh_67ryvmk