Rothgaber Travels: 8/18/2011 We're in Red Bay, AL

Many thanks to the link to Classic Coach Works by Lucy, one of the Tiffin.net folks! We saw that and called them last Monday morning - We were tired of the loud noise of the AC! They sent one of the AC covers to us and it arrived in PA on Thursday morning. By Thursday noon, Doug had it installed and we could not get over how much quieter the AC is with it there. Here are two photos of the install.

The first photo is a thin piece of plywood that they send that must be installed to block the air dump. You do loose the capability of the air dump but we had never used it in 4 years of full-timing so it didn't seem to be a problem to us.

The second photo shows the completed installation. They matched our headliner perfectly just by them telling us what year Allegro Bus we have.

It was a whirlwind the last few days in PA, but we finally got on the road south on Monday late afternoon. We were on schedule for a 9:30 departure when the last item of business, raising the leveling jacks did not work. To make a long story short, after trying many things, Doug called and got a tech who directed him how to raise them manually and we got underway. God just knew we needed some more time chatting with our friends Ken and Marilyn while we waited for the tech to call back! We stopped at a Walmart in Lexington, VA the first night and were just ready to retire for the night when a work crew showed up and started tearing up the backtop. Why the store manager didn't tell us when Doug asked her permission to stay the night, we don't know so we ended up moving next door to the Lowe's parking lot for the night. Next night we stopped in Pigeon Forge. The campgrounds were really empty except for the seasonal renters. The area has really been hit hard by Obama putting fear into vacationers. We were told by our campground that it was their worse year on record. Yesterday, we drove into Red Bay, AL via Chattanooga. Here are some views of Lookout Mountain going through Chattanooga. It was once again so humid that you couldn't see too far.

Quite a scary view as we rounded the mountain, got out first view of Lookout Mountain and started our decent to Chattnooga. Due to the construction, we were right at the edge in a VERY skinny lane. I almost jumped in Doug's lap! I'm glad he was driving!

Above, we are almost down to river level. Below, we are right along the Tennessee River. The end of Lookout Mountain is straight ahead. The river makes a big u-turn here.