Fantasy RV Tours Rally Donates To Make-A-Wish
The Fantasy RV Tours 10th Reunion Rally, held in April 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee, raised $31,030 for Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee. The donations will allow the organization to grant the wishes of three critically ill children.
Guests at the six-day rally bid on wrapped mystery gifts during a live auction, which brought in $15,515. That amount was doubled when bids were matched by Fantasy RV Tours and founder/CEO Nel Filliger.
Ms. Filliger has a personal connection to Make-A-Wish. Her 12-year-old grandson, Dylan Prunty, has been hospitalized most of his life because of a rare genetic disorder. He builds intricate Lego sets to help him deal with severe pain. His wish to visit Legoland and ride a train was granted in 2014. Make-A-Wish and The Lego Group also arranged for him to work with the company’s builders to design a replica of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where he has had multiple surgeries.
Since 2015, Fantasy RV Tours, an FMCA commercial member, has helped raise nearly $100,000 for local Make-A-Wish chapters.
Preferred Route Identified For Cross-Country Trail
The preferred route of the Great American Rail-Trail was released in May 2019 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC). When completed, it will be the United States’ first cross-country multiuse trail, connecting more than 125 existing trails and 90 trail gaps over 3,700 miles between Washington, D.C., and Washington state.
Completion of the trail is expected to take several decades, but 52 percent is finished and available for public use.
The recommendations for the route are included in the Great American Rail-Trail Assessment Report. The assessment was developed over a one-year period with input from RTC’s geographic information system analysis of more than 34,000 miles of multiuse trails; a review of state and local trail plans; and discussions with hundreds of local trail partners and state agencies representing the trails along the route.
To view the trail’s preferred route, visit www.greatamericanrailtrail.org. The website also accepts donations to help make the trail a reality.
Passage Of Natural Resources Management Act Brings Praise
The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) lauded the recent passage of the Natural Resources Management Act by both houses of the U.S. Congress.
The ORR issued a press release that said: “The bipartisan legislation takes great strides in protecting our public lands and waters — which suffered greatly during the recent government shutdown — and delivers needed reforms that will enhance visitor experiences in our great outdoors.”
The act contains more than 100 land and conservation measures. Among them: It designates more than 1 million acres of land as wilderness, with nearly 700,000 acres set aside for recreation and conservation.
The ORR is a coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations, including the RV Industry Association, the RV Dealers Association, and the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds.
Lazydays Opens Tennessee Location
The sixth Lazydays RV dealership opened in Knoxville, Tennessee, in May 2019. The dealership, formerly Tennessee RV Supercenter, was acquired by Lazydays Holdings Inc. in December 2018.
In addition to Lazydays RV of Knoxville, the company has dealerships in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Loveland, Colorado; Denver, Colorado; Tampa, Florida; and Tucson, Arizona.
For more information, visit www.lazydays.com.
RV Technical Education & Safety Conference Set To Kick Off
RVers of all experience levels, as well as people exploring whether the RV lifestyle is right for them, will find classes designed to increase their knowledge at the RV Technical Education & Safety Conference, which runs September 29 to October 3, 2019, at Pritchard Community Center in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The conference is an annual program of the nonprofit RV Safety & Education Foundation.
The 2019 RV Technical Education & Safety Conference will take place in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Topics will include electrical systems, propane, maintenance, and safety, along with various RV lifestyle classes. Conference instructors represent all facets of the RV industry, and include Family RVing technical editor Gary Bunzer.
The registration fee is $249. Other opportunities offered for an additional fee include RV wheel position weighing, hands-on driver training, and a Red Cross CPR/automated external defibrillator class.
The Elizabethtown area has campgrounds, hotels, and other accommodations; a few dry camping spots may be available in the community center parking lot.
For more information or to register, visit www.rvsafety.com.
Toy Story 4-Themed RV Rolls Into Elkhart
Dylan (left) and Jackson, grandsons of FMCA national president Jon Walker, checked out the Toy Story 4-themed RV with Darryl Searer, RV/MH Hall of Fame president.
A Toy Story 4-themed motorhome paid a visit to the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, in June 2019. The stop was part of the Toy Story 4 Summer Road Trip, during which the specially wrapped RV traveled to 20 cities to generate excitement about the newly released Walt Disney Studios movie, whose characters take an RV road trip.
Go RVing, which is a partnership of the RV Industry Association and RV Dealers Association, provided the Type A motorhome, a Thor Motor Coach Outlaw. Go RVing also teamed up with Disney and its computer animation film studio, Pixar, for a marketing campaign to inspire RV travel.