| If you look carefully at the photo you’ll see Rob’s shirt says “Groovefather” and those are drumsticks above the name. That’s because Rob is a drummer who’s played professionally for much of his life and who performs with the house band at the park. (They call it The SR Band and Rob jokes that while “SR stands for Silveridge, but it also stands for Senior Reprobates.”)
Besides being involved in many of the park’s live events, Rob and his wife, Amy, also run the movie theater. (When you go to the movies at the park, take a minute to appreciate the improvements to the sound system that Rob initiated.)
A BRIEF BIO
We asked Rob our favorite question, the one about “the best advice you’ve ever gotten,” and he replied, “My father used to say, in effect, ‘You are the best you that’s ever been.’” Then Rob went on to add, “He was a cabinet maker who owned his own business and created fine furniture. He was a man of integrity and people loved his work.” As for Rob’s mother, she was mostly an at-home mom but who went back to school later in her life. He described her as a woman of many strong opinions and said something profound about his relationship with her:
“She offered a lot of advice… advice or criticism. How you take it depends on your attitude.”
And that is profound advice, right?
Rob came from a big family: two brothers and a sister, and then his parents later adopted three more children.
This was in Bloomington, Minnesota. Rob went to school there: Jefferson High and then Normandale CC, where he was a music major and graduated with an Associate of Arts. He worked for his dad growing up, but he also performed in a series of music groups. One was called Brazz in honor of its three-piece horn section and one played island jazz and went by the name Exotica a Go Go. He was also part of a group called Slice which not only performed but also made radio jingles, and when that group teamed up with a soloist they became Ginger Commodore and Slice, and tried out for the old “Star Search” television show.
Eventually, however, Rob had to admit that “playing drums wouldn’t make a living,” and that’s when he became a sound professional. He often found himself driving a truck full of equipment across the country. “It would sound glamourous to be doing a gig in Sanibel Island, in Florida, but I’d drive a rig from Minnesota to Florida and then spend twelve hours in a windowless ballroom setting up.” Then he smiled and added, “I’d get to go to the beach at night and that was nice.” After the birth of his second son, Rob ended up spending 23 years with a sound system rental company called Audioquip, and that got him off the road and into a regular job, becoming GM of the company.
When their two sons were grown, Rob and Amy started dreaming of a life on the road, a life as full-time RVers. They spent five years doing research, following bloggers who put their lives on YouTube, and going to RV shows and rallies. Eventually, they settled on a 43-foot RV with a “toad” (Rob tells us that’s the RVer jargon for flat towing a car) and were ready to commit to the RV life. Really ready: they sold their house.
That was four years ago, and they still love being full-time RVers.
(Photos: The Foy’s home on wheels, and the Foy family – Sam, Amy, Jack and Rob — at the Grand Canyon) |
