Good Sam Rally – Syracuse, NY June 13 – 16

Good Sam Rally at the NY State Fairground, Syracuse, NY

Prior to the start of The Rally we were told the rain was so heavy they brought in helicopters to try and dry out the huge parking lots before the rigs started arriving. Then it just kept raining. We were lucky
to arrive a day early (Wednesday) and in between the storms. Our spot was on pavement and included electric. We talked with many folks who weren’t so lucky. The organizers had to divert about 400 rigs to a big, local mall and then had to bus people to and from the show. Those lucky/unlucky enough to get here before the rain started heavy and were assigned to the grassy infield of the racetrack were now mired and worried about what happened when it was time to leave!

Friday we caught an excellent seminar led by Bob Livingston the publisher of Motor Home/Trailer Life Magazines. Tips and anecdotes from his 45 years of RVing. There were dozens of seminars held throughout the show on every RV topic imaginable. All were free with your Rally registration and all were well attended.

Great fun at the 2013 Good Sam Rally in Syracuse

We have visited the building with 300 vendors several times. The prices are quite high but we can find things here that are hard to find anyplace else. I do draw the line at $20/ea for the small LED bulbs that I wanted though! Amazon and Ebay will have to handle my business on them. The food has been quite good as prepared by the different vendors who have permanent places here on the Fairground. Not the run of the mill carnival food. I have to admit though that we did not try the chocolate covered bacon. Probably missed a real culinary treat.

Last evening’s entertainment was Wayne Newton (Friday night). We felt bad for him because so many people started leaving during his performance. He is still a true showman but at 71 maybe it’s time to hang up his microphone. His speech and singing is not the “Mr. Las Vegas” of just a few years ago. We are looking forward to seeing Reba perform tonight.

The 2013 Good Sam Rally in Syracuse, New York

They had a segment about The Rally on the local TV news last night and said we are among approximately 10,000 other RVers in 4,000 rigs in attendance. We have to give them great credit for the organization of the whole event. The shuttle system is excellent with trams coming by every few minutes and in between there are golf carts prowling the grounds to pick up anyone and take them anyplace they need to go. Niki’s cane has been like a magnet for them and we have been well taken care of.

Still having some trouble with our furnace after Lazy Days kept it for a month and proclaimed it was fixed. I am going to have it checked out while we are here and have an appointment for a Tech to stop by this morning. Better to have it done here as opposed to travel time for having someone come up later to our Summer campsite in the mountains.

We are now into our 4th day of “dry camping” and doing well with still having 30% in our fresh water tank. It’s odd but the gray and black tanks are showing we have only collected a combined total of 40%. Where the other 30% missing from the fresh tank went is a head scratcher? The blacktop under the trailer is dry so we are not too worried about it.

Saturday night was the Reba Show. If you’re a fan of hers you were not disappointed. Tiny lady with a big voice and a superb band backing her up. She took us through a short history of her career with the hit songs we all knew from different stages in her life, from her first video, through her Broadway stage appearance, movies and TV shows. Great fun!

We had finally dried out and enjoyed a couple of nice days with sunshine but the weather report called for rain to move in again on Sunday midday. Since we had seen and done about all we wanted to do, we decided to pack up and leave ahead of the rain on Sunday morning. Quite a few others had the same idea at the same time but leaving proved to be orderly and trouble-free.

The rain caught up with us when we reached our home destination and it was time to set-up again. That’s okay. I’d much rather that than closing up the slide rooms in the rain.

Our overall opinion of The Rally is that it was fun and it was well organized. Everyone was very friendly and all were there to have a good time. Some of the vendors mentioned to us that some patrons were tending to be a little rude with them as the show was winding down. The prices were high but that is to be expected.

Bottom-line though it is really so much like the huge RV Show that’s in Tampa every year. There were new rigs on display here at The Rally but we find a bigger selection at the Tampa RV Show. There are more vendors and just as many seminars at the Tampa RV Show as well. All-in-all very similar but we stay at a FHU RV park in Tampa and don’t have to boondock for the RV Show.

If you have any questions about the Good Sam Rally we will try to answer them.