Motorhome upgrades and routine maintenance in Red Bay, AL

After the Atlanta Rally, we headed to Red Bay, AL, home of the Tiffin Factory and repair facility. We arrived Sunday afternoon, October 20th, and found that we had hit it at the busiest time of the year. We knew we were hitting the snowbird migration season (RVers moving south for the winter) but we have never experienced it this busy. They broke the record of 167 coaches waiting to be serviced this past Friday. Our first night was spent at Bay Diesel where they did all our routine mechanical service and replace one of the valves on our air bags early Monday morning. We then moved the coach to Brannon Hutchinson's Custom RV so we were ready at 7 AM Tuesday morning for him to start the upgrades. Brannon worked from 7 AM to 6:30 PM doing our requested upgrades. He added a third roof AC/heatpump (we like to be where it is warm); an electric bed lift so I (Nada) can get to the storage under our bed (with the memory foam mattress, it is too heavy for me to lift); SeeLevel system (provides an external reading of the contents of the holding tanks, propane, etc. - a much more accurate system than the original internal sensors - this makes Doug really happy); plus he moved several controls and outlets so we could reach them easier. We stayed a second night in Brannon's parking lot and then decided to go to Florence, AL since the Red Bay Service Center Campground still did not have a place for us. How the system works is when you arrive in Red Bay for Factory Service, they assign you a work number and they assign you a campsite and do work on your coach in the order of your arrival and what jobs you need done. Rather than dry camp until they had a site for us, we decided to go to MeFarland Park, a lovely RV park right on the Tennessee River in Florence about 30 miles away where we could pass the time (4 or 5 days) until our number came up for a campsite and repair work at the Tiffin service center.

 Above you see one of the barges coming up river from our campsite at McFarland Park in Florence, AL.

 No, we didn't get a new dog! That is Marley, Chris Berry's dog, resting on the top step of our Allegro Bus. Marley was such a nice dog. She wanted Homer to come out and play and would wait patiently on our top step. Homer, the old guy, was exhausted after we spent a day and a half at Chris' woodshop having some upgrades done. Marley wore him out! They would just play and play until Homer said that is enough... I have to rest some. ;-)

Here are photos of the upgrades Chris did for us on this trip. First is he added a cabinet on the end of our kitchen counter. The color of the wood matches perfectly which doesn't show in the photo very well. The bottom is a drawer and the top is a flip-down cover for the breadbox. This makes Nada very happy!

Two other things he did for us... Above, He made a mount for our digital photo frame so it hangs from the upper cabinet rather than sitting on the counter. Makes it much more secure when traveling. Below, he made a matching drawer front for the center console where we removed the computer brains previously.

After spending a day and half at Chris' woodshop, Red Bay finally had a campsite for us so we headed there late Tuesday afternoon. We were called into the Express Bay at noon on Wednesday where Brandon and Sequoia worked on our list of items. Homer slept through the whole 3 hours of their hard work. Sequoia went to work removing caulk on the front of the roof looking for our elusive leak and then re-caulking the area. He and Brandon replaced our driver side window and a window in our slide where the thermopane had failed. This is an RV industry-wide problem as the windows made by the one manufacture have been failing gradually one-by-one. The photo below shows Brandon with the empty hole where the window used to be.....

And this photo shows the new window installed in its place.

As for our leak at the front of the motorhome....
It started raining during the night and has continued today... It seems they found the front leak but now we have a small leak over the passenger side window. So we thought we'd be leaving today or tomorrow but now we must get this new leak taken care of. ;-(

The Good Sam Rally at Atlanta Motor Speedway - October 17 to the 20th

We worked the Good Sam Rally in June in Syracuse but we were able to attend the Good Sam Rally in Atlanta in October.

This first photo is an aerial view of the Atlanta Rally. We were parked on the infield of the race track - all the Good Sam Ambassadors were parked in the vendor area because most were working the rally.

The view from the grandstand for the evening entertainment. Friday night was the Beach Boys (below) and Saturday was Vince Gill. We didn't get to see Vince Gill because both of us came down with some 12 hour bug.

NADA building

Not everyone gets to have their name in large red lights on a building outside of DC, but I do! :-)

While visiting my brother, Sam, and sister-in-law, Ginger, we once again went past the NADA (National Automotive Dealers Association) headquarters and this time I was able to get a photo thanks to a traffic light. Naturally it was a rainy day!

Last day at the park with Trev for 2013

We enjoyed our last day at a park jungle gym with Trevor the day before we were leaving PA. We will miss our grandson over the winter.

9/19/2013 - Fun with our grandson

Our grandson is growing up! This first photo, Vicky took and we think Trev looks so much like his daddy! Love him to pieces and miss his daddy!

 In June, playing in Trevor's backyard.

 Trevor likes playing in our car.

 Grandpa chasing Trevor and then drinking water on a hot day. Of course more got on his shirt than down the hatch, I do believe! ;-)