After the army of 7,422 motor homes tooted goodbye last year to Brunswick, Maine, the city’s organizers finally got to breathe a sigh of relief.

Visitors ate lobster and bread by the ton. They bought $192.5 million worth of new rigs. In an instant, they created a mini-city, using 220 port-a-potties, 25 buses and 550 golf carts.

Businesses in the town of about 20,600 people didn’t run out of toilet paper, bread or water, though. Residents were patient. And when it was time for members to pack up their RVs and leave, the big rigs ”vaporized literally,” said John James, a spokesman for the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Organizers hope for the same outcome next week as 6,000 motor coaches from across the country find their way into Central Oregon. When they’re not sleeping inside their RVs, members of the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) will call Deschutes County Fairgrounds and Expo Center home for their annual summer convention, Aug. 14 to 16. Police and FMCA volunteers will guide caravans of RVs from the old fairgrounds into the new fairgrounds site all day Saturday and Sunday.

Based on Maine’s experience, Redmond should fare well during FMCA’s stay despite the threat of hordes of motor homes, stacked bumper-to-bumper along Highway 97, James said. FMCA members roared into the 3,200-acre Navy base last summer with 16,000 people and more than 7,000 motor homes setting an attendance record.

”Their caravans arrived like army maneuvers, like clockwork,” James said.

”Their people stuck to those routes. Everybody’s worst fears were never realized.”

Rigs parked on the air strips ”as far as the eye can see,” James said. Organizers asked FMCA members to leave their attached cars at the base and use buses when they went out to eat or shop, James said. Along with the public transportation system designed for FMCA, officials also hosted public forums to inform Brunswick residents about what to expect once FMCA’s motor homes arrived.

Brunswick also had another advantage over Redmond. The Navy base was located near Interstate 95. This Saturday, about 2,000 motor homes traveling in caravans will begin descending on Redmond from all directions including over the mountain passes.

Last August, touring members kept Brunswick-area restaurants busy, but some retail shops didn’t receive the business they expected, James said. Semi-trucks parked behind local grocery stores loaded with extra basic necessities like bread and toilet paper.

Everything went as planned, James said, except two fender benders and several heart attacks.

The average age of FMCA members is 65 years for men and 61 for women, and 70 percent of the group’s members are retired. The median income of FMCA members is $53,000, and 47 percent of members have owned at least three motor homes. Ninety percent of the members’ portable homes hitch an automobile to the back, according to FMCA.

”They’re great people to deal with,” James said. ”They’re laid back it was easy. These folks are on permanent vacations.”

Of the 1,222 motor coaches for sale in Maine, 600 sold. The average price: $350,000, James said.

Only 4,200 motor homes can fit into Deschutes County’s fairgrounds.

That space is already reserved. Extra RVs and for-sale motor homes will park in other areas throughout the region, like the old fairgrounds site adjacent to Highway 97, nearby campgrounds and business parking lots.

Moving from a ”staging area” at the old fairgrounds site, lining up and loading into the new fairgrounds probably won’t be as intimidating as it sounds, James said. The maneuver was simple and quick in Maine and like the base, Deschutes County’s site has three single roads entering into the grounds, too.

By the time the Navy base needed to get back to work after the rally, the thousands of RVs were gone by noon the following Monday.

”They literally disappeared they vanished in less than 24 hours,” James said. ”It was painless magic.”