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[griffsmom]

Lori,
About how many rallies or mini rallies happen every year? Do the big rallies always fall around the same time?
Do you have a screen room for your popup? Do you plan out most of the camping trips? Do keep a journal of the events?
Where did you find your towing mirrors?
Bob.

Hi Bob!
 
I would estimate that the SCCampers group has anywhere from 3 to 5 "mini-rallies" per year, meaning that someone posts that they'll be at a particular cg at a particular weekend and then next thing you know, 5 other families end up going as well.
 
As for the full-fledged "big" rallies, the SCCampers Trick-or-Treat in Temecula looks like it has now become a yearly thing, since this year's will be our third annual. It also appearts that the Pismo Beach mega-rally we have with our Northern California sister camping club, Nick-Neff-Cough, or NNC for short, is becoming an annual get-together as well. NNC also has numerous mini-rallies throughout the year and they are wonderful at welcoming any of us southerners. My family and I will be joining them at Yosemite in early August and are really looking forward to seeing some old friends and visiting a new (to us) camping area. You may want to visit the NNC forum here on the PUT boards to see what trips they have planned.
 
As for your other questions, we don't have a screen room or an add-a-room--one more thing to carry and set up, and with all the stuff we already bring, we really don't need one more thing. :eyecrazy: We try to plan out which weekends we will go camping each month, so that my husband can try to schedule any work-related obligations around those weekend. Also, some of the CGs we like can only be reserved through Reserve America and they go quickly in the summer months. By tentatively planning the weekends we will be camping, we can hopefully be one of the lucky ones to reserve a spot 6 months in advance.
 
We don't have towing mirrors, other than the mirrors that come standard on our TV.  We tow with a Ford Expedition and so sit high enough to see over and around the PU pretty well. I have wanted to be better about journaling our trips, but the best I have done is post pictures on my Web shots accounts ( http://community.webshots.com/user/griffysmom and http://community.webshots.com/user/griffysmom2 ) I also have a Palm PDA program that was offered free to PUT members way back in PUT's early days that allows me to keep track of camping info. The PUT store has a camping journal that I have thought about getting for some time now. Maybe I'll order that and keep it in the camper so that I can make notes while we're camping.